Space Pirate
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
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Tune into the news.
Tsunami wiping out lots and lots of highly populated areas. Video of a wall of water tearing through homes and washing cars off roads. BIG disaster. Around Sendai. Tsunami warning for Hawaii. More coming. ... |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: Oct 2005
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My post from the daily news thread:
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Space Pirate
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
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Wait what
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: El Dorado County, California
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The base I was working at up until last year (Fleet Activities Yokosuka) is probably under a few feet of water right now - it's near the mouth of Tokyo Bay, which was expecting a tsunami of about 2 meters. Definitely glad I'm not still over there, though I certainly feel for my former co-workers.
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careful with axes
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Hillsborough, CA
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Best live footage I've seen so far: http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/
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careful with axes
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Hillsborough, CA
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80 miles off the coast of Sendai. My house got aesthetic cracks from Loma Prieta, which was a M6.9 50 miles away. This quake is 1000x more powerful...
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Space Pirate
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
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So portions of Tokyo are out of power?
I can't seem to pull up several Japanese western-oriented sites. Here's one report saying that coastal California won't be affected. ... |
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Wait what
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: El Dorado County, California
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Space Pirate
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
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Also Hawaii.
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Will check in later. ... |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: Oct 2005
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CNN video: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/wor...pan.cnn?hpt=T1
Edit: Off to bed now myself. Will be interesting to see if Hawaii still exists when I wake up. Last edited by PKIDelirium : 2011-03-11 at 03:44. Reason: Bed time. |
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Wait what
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: El Dorado County, California
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Al Jazeera just said that the Japanese government is warning that another large quake, possibly as powerful as the 8.9 mainshock, is imminent. Can't imagine how much more damage that would cause.
EDIT: Also, there is now a tsunami warning in effect for the California and Oregon coasts. |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2004
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Looks like 1-5' surge expected on US West Coast, 3-5' from WA/OR border (the mouth of the Columbia River), to Mexico.
WA coast is evacuating as well. Heard from my friends in HI, they live on the beach... but on the 9th floor, and are expecting to be able to ride it out. Bottom three floors of their building are evac'd though. |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Ottawa, ON
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An evacuation has been ordered for areas around a nuclear plant affected by the quake.
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BANNED
I am worthless beyond hope. Join Date: Dec 2005
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Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Promise Land of Trustafarians
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I'm in Tokyo right now but I'm fine. I was in a fairly new building when the quake struck so for me it definitely didn't feel like an 8.9, I was shocked to hear that. I was actually having a beer at the time, at first I just thought I was drunk.
Other than being stuck on the opposite side of Tokyo from my hostel, I made it out with nothing more than sore feet from walking from Shibuya to Asakusa... I hope everyone else is as lucky as I was. |
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Senior Member
Join Date: Dec 2005
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It will be interesting to see how China handles the relief efforts.
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geri to my friends
Join Date: May 2006
Location: Heaven
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Never under estimate mother nature.
My thoughts are with those who have lost loved ones. |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Paris, France
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The people fleeing at top speed in their cars at 2:20 of this video really drive home the terror of the tsunami. Imagine having a split-second to decide: drive blindly or climb a building in the hope it stays upright? Damn. Make the wrong choice and you're dead. Make the best choice and you might still end up dead.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12709850 |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Ottawa, ON
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When there's an eel in the lake that's as long as a snake that's a moray. |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: State of Flux
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And I think one of those massive fires is in Chiba Prefecture, which neighbors Tokyo. Glad to hear you are well, Ryan.
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Veteran Member
Join Date: Oct 2005
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TV news just said they're losing control of two nuclear reactors damaged by the quake, trying to get them cooled down before they overheat any more.
CNN's got this: http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapc...ex.html?hpt=T1 Quote:
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Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Ottawa, ON
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Here is a pretty thorough assessment of the situation, which indicates cause for some concern, and cause to be reassured. Things are out of control, in a sense, but even the worst case of realistic scenarios for this particular out of control situation does not include a Chernobyl-style meltdown.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...rticle1938199/ What strikes me about the story is how crude nuclear energy systems are in some ways - or at least the Japanese version of them. When there's an eel in the lake that's as long as a snake that's a moray. |
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Wait what
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: El Dorado County, California
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How so? I mean, it's true that we haven't quite gotten to the point that we can just convert nuclear reactions directly to electricity or somesuch, but from what I can tell, their reactors are fundamentally the same as the BWRs we run here in the States.
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Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Ottawa, ON
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As you suggest, the way it converts the energy is conceptually crude, by using the nuclear reaction to create high-intensity heat to boil water. At this level it is really not more advanced than old-fashioned coal-fired plants.
But apparently, with nuclear energy you have the added problem that in an emergency where you have to shut down the reaction (and thank goodness that worked - we hope that it always does) the thing will keep super heating for quite some time, requiring also that your cooling system keeps working despite the emergency. I find this to be a crude conceptual design for a safety system, given what is at stake. At the minimum in such a system, you would think that you would have fully-capable double or triple redundancy backup cooling systems, that are designed to withstand the very circumstances that may cause the emergency and are scrupulously maintained. That does not seem to have been the case here. They seem to have had a single backup system in the diesel generators for which questions are being asked about their readiness and robustness. The additional backup beyond that seems to have been batteries which do not seem to even have been designed be capable of fully doing the task required even when they operate properly. When there's an eel in the lake that's as long as a snake that's a moray. |
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M AH - ch ain saw
Join Date: May 2004
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The CNN video I saw says that the cooling system is running on the batteries right now but if they can't get the diesels back online the batteries are not capable of maintaining the system in the long run.
User formally known as Sh0eWax |
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Wait what
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: El Dorado County, California
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Personally, I'm not much of a fan of the boiling-water design, since by design the entire plant ends up with low-level contamination during routine operation through neutron activation of stuff in the water because the same water is used both as coolant and as the steam that drives the turbines.
I much prefer the pressurized-water type of plant since it keeps the coolant and steam systems separate, so that any radioactivity in the coolant (from neutron activation or fuel damage) stays in the coolant system, and doesn't spread throughout the entire plant. Much cleaner that way, and it generally makes the cleanup process after this sort of incident much simpler. As far as the backup systems in place to prevent this sort of situation...well, I'd imagine these plants have a similar setup to what plants in the U.S. and elsewhere use: multiple offsite power sources, emergency diesel generators, and (in this case) even batteries. The sheer size and reach of the tsunami, though, was what screwed them, since it got water into the diesels. With that and the lack of offsite power (which, in Japan, is generally pretty darned reliable), all that was left was battery backups, which is probably more than some plants over Stateside have. Worst case here, they may end up with partial meltdowns in one or more reactors, possibly spreading significant contamination within the plant buildings (as well as any gases vented from the containment structures). Cleanup will be an absolute nightmare, and will likely take several years as it did after the Three Mile Island incident, which bears some similarities to this scenario. |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Promise Land of Trustafarians
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My parents are urging me to come home as soon as I can, but that sounds overkill. Although apparently the state department told Americans to get out and my dad's employer is evacuating all their japanese personnel. :/ |
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Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472 Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
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Seems like it might be in your best interest to head home or your next destination where ever that might be.
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Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Promise Land of Trustafarians
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Narita was badly hit so I'm not sure I could get out if I wanted to. I think I'm going to finish out my trip minus the pacific coast. Tokyo is getting back to normal.
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