Shaking up Japan -- an 8.9 quake

[White Eagle]

My home state of Arkansas has had a swarm of earthquakes over the past few months.

Strange.

I don't think that's all so unusual. I've heard of them in the midwest.

 

[Lefty]

Nope Eagle.....I've been to plenty of places in Canada,

But my Ancestral roots are in the original "Quake"r state

of California. Fact is, my family comes from a part of that

state you would confuse with parts of Texas including the

sand and oil wells. SoCal.

 

[andysayshi]

More than 1000 people are now feared dead in Japan.

The confusion with regard to quake magnitude probably comes from the fact that Japan use a magnitude scale that is not the more common Richter scale. The Japanese scale goes from 0 to 7, with 7 being the highest. The primary quake was 8.9 on the Richter scale, with subsequent after shocks hitting as high as 7.2.

A nuclear reactor near Tokyo has radiation levels 1000 times above normal in its main control room, although officials say there is no imminent danger outside the reactor.

There are market fears that this disaster may trigger renewed global financial problems.

It hasn't been a good news year so far, huh?

 

[Lostlover]

I think this just shows the Ring of Fire countries that we're all screwed. Japan had their ducks in a row including high tech sensors on the seafloor and an early warning system. It doesn't get better than their system and they couldn't stop this.

 

[Kulindahr]

They've been having both aftershocks and new quakes all day. I heard a report that there have been over thirty ( ! ) quakes 6.0 or above.

Meanwhile, California is overdue for a big one, as is the Pacific Northwest; both could be in the 9.+ range. A California quake of 9.2 or above could kill hundreds of thousands -- and they're nowhere near as prepared as Japan. A PacNW quake of that magnitude might kill dozens, because the epicenter will be forty or more miles off the coast -- but depending on just where it is, tsunamis could reach fifty feet or more in height -- and there are thousands of houses and even business that will be toast from a wave not even half that high. And if it's in just the wrong place, and the tide is just wrong, a tsunami could shoot up the Columbia and swamp parts of Portland and other cities.

 

[Lefty]

And if the rabbit hadn't of stopped.....

Bammer wouldn't of eaten him.

Point being Kuli my friend...lets worry

about the shit we can fix....local air, local

beaches, local people...leave the big stuff

to the big guys and I don't mean the 2 leggers.

 

[Telstra]

And if the rabbit hadn't of stopped.....

Bammer wouldn't of eaten him.

Point being Kuli my friend...lets worry

about the shit we can fix....local air, local

beaches, local people...leave the big stuff

to the big guys and I don't mean the 2 leggers.

i thought this tsunami is bigger

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysBA7zMr5ko&feature=related[/ame]

 

[JB3]

I think this just shows the Ring of Fire countries that we're all screwed. Japan had their ducks in a row including high tech sensors on the seafloor and an early warning system. It doesn't get better than their system and they couldn't stop this.

Last time I checked no one can stop earthquakes and tsunamis.

The Japanese had plenty of warning, with some estimates being that they had a 30 second warning on the Earthquake itself. Had this been any other country in the region, the death totals would be in the hundreds of thousands instead of just the thousands.

 

[hotatlboi]

Possible partial nuclear meltdown in progress:

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/77025.html

TOKYO, March 12, Kyodo

The core at Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant's No. 1 reactor may be partially melting, the nuclear safety agency said Saturday.

Radioactive substance cesium was detected around the reactor, it said.

edit: now saying the fuel rods have melted

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/12/japan-quake-melting-idUSTKG00707420110312

 

[Telstra]

Scary stuff! The pictures are devastating, and there's possibilities of more tsunami waves and aftershocks for many hours to come. Watching the tsunami wave hitting north of Tokyo is some of the most astoundingly shocking news footage I've seen.

This quake is 150 times bigger than the recent Christchurch quake that killed at least 150.

My heart goes out to all those affected.

the news said it is 8000 times stronger ...

 

[Kulindahr]

i thought this tsunami is bigger

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysBA7zMr5ko&feature=related

If I'd seen that in a movie theatre, I would have gotten up, denounced the idiocy, and walked out in disgust. There's only so much scientific stupidity I'll put up with.

 

[Lefty]

It is big stuff telly

But not the biggest,

By far not the biggest.

Even if the Power Plants go...

There is bigger.

 

[Kulindahr]

Possible partial nuclear meltdown in progress:

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/77025.html



edit: now saying the fuel rods have melted

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/12/japan-quake-melting-idUSTKG00707420110312

What baffles me on this is why they didn't have better/more safety systems in place. My cousin a nuclear engineer, who worked on safety issues and systems at Hanford, twenty-five years ago described to me better safety systems than the Japanese seem to have, because if they had them, they wouldn't be having this trouble. They were devised in case of an actual attack on the Hanford reactor, but apply equally well to reactors in earthquake zones.

A sophisticated one was a modular core, that in case of potential meltdown could be swung apart into six pieces, leaving one more in the middle, thus seriously slowing the reaction and allowing easier cooling. A very brute-force one was a core designed with hollow pipes through it, and in case of possible meltdown sand mixed with grains of lead would dump on top of the core, so the lead/sand mix would pour down the pipes, making a crude but effective damping system. A further one is a back-up power system; Hanford had a bank of diesel generators (pulled from decommissioned WWII submarines) with 50% more capacity than needed to run the place.

From the news reports, the last of those would have sufficed to deal with at least one of the reactor situations they're having. Either of the others would be enough to stop the heating problem.

the news said it is 8000 times stronger ...

There are at least three different scales used, and the media aren't very good at making clear what they're using. One deals with energy, one deals with destructive force, another deals with energy but has a different calculation method.

Unfortunately I don't remember enough from my geology course that covered this to be able to say what the 8000 or the 150 mean, but I suspect the 150 is from the destructive force scale.

 

[Kulindahr]

BTW, some geoscientist on CNN just said there's a good chance of an 8.0 follow-up quake....

 

[andysayshi]

Here's an interesting article in JapanNews dated February 28. It suggested that the recent Christchurch NZ quakes were a distinct suggestion that movement of the Pacific tectonic plates had begun, and often followed a cycle of 30 years. The prediction: expect a major quake in the Japanese region before too long.

Talk about accurate predictions from science!

http://www.japantoday.com/category/...-may-portend-major-seismic-activity-for-japan

 

[hotatlboi]

An explosion has been heard at one of the nuclear plants.

http://live.reuters.com/Event/Japan_earthquake2

 

[Lefty]

BTW,

a little green glowing man just came into my back yard and

sign languaged me......

something about the Yet is best to come then he waved a

big finger and disappeared.


?....what are we not being told? Why?...Why not?

 

[andysayshi]

the news said it is 8000 times stronger ...

Yep, I stand corrected Telstra. The early bulletins I watched on ABC were saying 150 times, but that was quickly upgraded. I guess it's all just numbers that mean VERY BIG.

Of course, the Christchurch quake happened inland, as opposed to the Tokyo quake happening kilometres out to sea. If the Tokyo quake's epicentre was underneath the city itself, most of Tokyo would now be underground.

 

[EastMed]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9QNzGY0qxw[/ame]

 

[Kulindahr]

Yep, I stand corrected Telstra. The early bulletins I watched on ABC were saying 150 times, but that was quickly upgraded. I guess it's all just numbers that mean VERY BIG.

Of course, the Christchurch quake happened inland, as opposed to the Tokyo quake happening kilometres out to sea. If the Tokyo quake's epicentre was underneath the city itself, most of Tokyo would now be underground.

And it would be difficult to tell it had been a city.