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Merged 8.8 quake in Sendai, Japan

Rolfe said:
I've been watching the wiki page on Rikuzentakata since I started the section on the tsunami. I used a reference showing the place has been flattened, and what I entered is still there, but subsequent additions (including changing the section heading but that might have been for consistency) have tended to downplay it.




Talk of buildings flooded and 300 to 400 bodies being found doesn't to me reflect the extent of the devastation seen in the pictures and video clips.

Rolfe.
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Of course.

As you say the death toll will be in the tens of thousands. There can be no doubt about this to anyone with eyes to see.
 
Belz... said:
I don't get that. Why are people even concerned about animals, here ???
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I know what you mean but I think at the same time it is understandable that people will sympathise with an animal that they can see is as good as dead (as with that cat). Even hearing that ten thousand people were killed in a tsunami doesn't register as much as visceral evidence like that.
 
angrysoba said:
I know what you mean but I think at the same time it is understandable that people will sympathise with an animal that they can see is as good as dead (as with that cat). Even hearing that ten thousand people were killed in a tsunami doesn't register as much as visceral evidence like that.
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And the numbers are just too large to emotionally comprehend, whilst a single tragedy isn't. Thinking about an individual tragedy and then thinking that it will be multiplied tens of thousands of times is not a happy thought.
 
Rolfe said:
I've been watching the wiki page on Rikuzentakata since I started the section on the tsunami. I used a reference showing the place has been flattened, and what I entered is still there, but subsequent additions (including changing the section heading but that might have been for consistency) have tended to downplay it.




Talk of buildings flooded and 300 to 400 bodies being found doesn't to me reflect the extent of the devastation seen in the pictures and video clips.

Rolfe.
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The reporter in angrysoba's video says that 6808 survivors have been counted at 42 evacuation centers. It seems likely that many thousands died in this town alone.
 
Father Dagon said:
Did they terrorist-proof the plant?....snip....
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Terrorist-proof...a difficult thing...but nuclear plants are "hardened" targets and not really easy to attack. There have always been provisions to prevent attacks and security systems are extensive.

asteriods would be a problem

glenn
 
gumboot said:
Well, I used that website calculator, and although it applies obviously to the USA and I'm not in the USA, I got only ~300mrem of exposure, so it seems to be 2.4mSv is a plausible typical background exposure. The Wikipedia article does state that the actual exposure level varies quite a bit from place to place.

Also to note, in my post where I talk about the levels, I incorrectly confused micro Sv with mili Sv, so the peak radiation recorded at the plant is actually substantially lower than my post suggest, by a factor of 1000.
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Me, too. (~330, IIRC) :).

I was a bit surprised when I got to the bottom of the page and learned that the calculator estimated my exposure as about half that of normal, but I don't think it is supposed to be all that precise an instrument, anyway.
 
i hope this is not a derail, but why does radiation from a nuclear plant take 100 years or more to decay, but only takes a few months or weeks to decay from a nuclear weapon?
 
Thunder said:
i hope this is not a derail, but why does radiation from a nuclear plant take 100 years or more to decay, but only takes a few months or weeks to decay from a nuclear weapon?
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Different isotopes take longer to decay.

Different processes produce different proportions of isotopes.

There are still isotopes from above ground nuclear tests floating around.
 
Thunder said:
i hope this is not a derail, but why does radiation from a nuclear plant take 100 years or more to decay, but only takes a few months or weeks to decay from a nuclear weapon?
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Because that isn't necessarily true. It would depend on the design of the bomb or the power plant.

Isotopes of different elements decay at different rates. The persistence of a hazard depends on what isotopes of which elements are involved.

See here, and here for a start.
 
George said:
The back-up diesel generators that is. But how?


Wikipedia lists an impressive array of 'Safety Systems' for boiling water reactors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_water_reactor_safety_systems

It's a pity there is no recommendation regarding the installation of a reliable power supply to run this fabulous show.

Mains failure diesel powered generators do exactly what they say on the can. They will start automatically and run until they are either switched off, run out of fuel, or its own very basic self protection system cuts in. That is: the contacts in the oil pressure switch or the coolant temp switch opens. Nothing else matters to a diesel engine.

This is all we ask of them and this is mostly how they perform.
The fact that the system in place didn't meet these basic requirements suggest somebody on the regulatory gravy train decided to improve things by installing various monitors and controls.

'I' suspect the gennys ran out of diesel. I hope for and expect some serious sword fallage with this one.
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You know I have a hard time believing that these magical generators were capable of coming out unscathed after being hit with a tsunami.
 
Puppycow said:
The reporter in angrysoba's video says that 6808 survivors have been counted at 42 evacuation centers. It seems likely that many thousands died in this town alone.
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18,000 of 24,000 missing in one town, 10,000 in another...
 
technoextreme said:
You know I have a hard time believing that these magical generators were capable of coming out unscathed after being hit with a tsunami.
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The failure will be investigated after things settle down. My guess is the generators sucked in sea water during the tsunami. That would also explain why the technicians were unable to restart them.
 
Kestrel said:
The failure will be investigated after things settle down. My guess is the generators sucked in sea water during the tsunami. That would also explain why the technicians were unable to restart them.
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The design change to implement is that the backup generators need about 50 feet of elevation.

There would have been zero problems if that were the case here.
 
I have yet to see a current helicopter shot of the coast side of the Fukushima power station. There's a frequently shown before shot, but I think helicopters are being kept away from the area now.
Admittedly, most helicopters will be required for rescue work, rather than satisfying the curiosity of viewers, but it would be interesting to see what the water damage is like east of the reactors.
 
BenBurch said:
The design change to implement is that the backup generators need about 50 feet of elevation.

There would have been zero problems if that were the case here.
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Ironic if that was not done for social / psychological reasons.
 
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