Japan Tsunami

[lostfan]

See also facebook.

lol at everything being posted twice

[HuskyCaucasian]

@maddow - #Nuclear safety commission in #Japan cites cesium detection -- may mean a nuclear meltdown has occurred at fukushima.

[StrangeSox]

Running updates here, not looking good.

 

http://www.businessinsider.com/fukushima-n...ar-plant-2011-3

[southsider2k5]

Looks like there was a pretty big explosion at the Nuke plant.

[StrangeSox]

from my link directly above:

 

Update 8:06 AM: Kyodo has a long article explaining the latest, and at this moment there may still be reasons to be hopeful, specifically noting that the explosion is at the plant, near the reactor, but not inside vulnerable reactor #1.

The NYT also has a good technical explanation of what's going on, including this hopeful sounding note:

Naoto Sekimura, a professor at Tokyo University, told NHK, Japan’s public broadcaster, that “only a small portion of the fuel has been melted. But the plant is shut down already, and being cooled down. Most of the fuel is contained in the plant case, so I would like to ask people to be calm.”

Meanwhile, large aftersthocks continue to rock the area.

 

 

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/fukushima-n...3#ixzz1GOcv6UDv

[Balta1701]

I am sure there is a certain geologist here who can explain this

I'm sorry, I was flying back from a conference.

 

The Earth's orbital parameters are, in detail, set by the exact locations of mass on the surface. Normally you ignore this fact; the only people who pay attention to it are geophysicists and people using geophysical techniques to map the surface.

 

However, when an event like this happens, a significant amount of mass shifts position suddenly. When that happens, it's enough to slightly change the orbital parameters.

[Balta1701]

Radiation tests begin in Fukushima after 3 test positive for radiation poisoning, NHK broadcaster says. #quake http://on.cnn.com/gzqBrm - @cnnbrk

[StrangeSox]

More here:

 

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/1...T1&iref=BN1

 

 

[Balta1701]

Good work by the NYT...

 

[Y2HH]

Good work by the NYT...

 

 

Looks like a partial meltdown may be in progress.

[southsider2k5]

As a self-centered American, the scary part for me is seeing how bad this affected the best prepared country in the world for a seismic event, and then thinking about the three major areas (CA, the Pac NW, and the New Madrid) which could see a major quake in the US and wondering how bad things would be here.

[Balta1701]

As a self-centered American, the scary part for me is seeing how bad this affected the best prepared country in the world for a seismic event, and then thinking about the three major areas (CA, the Pac NW, and the New Madrid) which could see a major quake in the US and wondering how bad things would be here.

Worse. In all 3 cases.

 

I can run through details of why if you'd like.

[StrangeSox]

Worse simply because of building codes, the existence of a lot of older masonry-style construction and the general lack of preparedness and awareness of Americans when compared to the Japanese?

[Balta1701]

Worse simply because of building codes, the existence of a lot of older masonry-style construction and the general lack of preparedness and awareness of Americans when compared to the Japanese?

All 3 play into it...plus a couple of different points. Notably; the competence level of the Federal government response, which I'd say is somewhat questionable after this country's last disaster, and secondly, the relationship between the geology and the actual infrastructure, which Japan has thought a lot more about than we have. (although, I may have to exempt nuclear plants from that point)

[Balta1701]

NYT before and after satellite photos.

[StrangeSox]

All 3 play into it...plus a couple of different points. Notably; the competence level of the Federal government response, which I'd say is somewhat questionable after this country's last disaster, and secondly, the relationship between the geology and the actual infrastructure, which Japan has thought a lot more about than we have. (although, I may have to exempt nuclear plants from that point)

 

FWIW the latest I read said the diesel generators ran for a short time after the quake as expected but were damaged in the ensuing tsunami. Something to consider for coastal US plants, but not something that Braidwood (closest plant to Chicago) would have to worry about. Not sure how safety design for something like a tornado comes in.

[Balta1701]

FWIW the latest I read said the diesel generators ran for a short time after the quake as expected but were damaged in the ensuing tsunami. Something to consider for coastal US plants, but not something that Braidwood (closest plant to Chicago) would have to worry about. Not sure how safety design for something like a tornado comes in.

The response of a midwestern reactor relating to the ground itself would be different though, because the ground behavior and response will be different. The quake itself, while powerful, was quite a way offshore, and was hitting a different type of ground than the sedimentary fill in the midwestern U.S. For example, the shakemap shows that the peak ground acceleration was in the moderate to moderate-strong range for the actual area in the damaged plant, but could have been worse if it were actually closer to the rupture itself.

 

It's also worth noting that the Japanese system was an older design, which probably contributed.

[Brian]

Open my health club up on Sunday mornings and some of the people that are there everyday when we open are the same everyday. They are those cocky, older, arrogant work out hounds.

 

Had CNN on this morning when we opened the doors and they were showing footage from Japan and these guys pissed me off as they made some jokes. They said them expecting me to laugh and when they saw me just staring at them stonefaced, they had to of felt 2 feet tall. Only one laughing was their douche bag asses.

[NorthSideSox72]

All 3 play into it...plus a couple of different points. Notably; the competence level of the Federal government response, which I'd say is somewhat questionable after this country's last disaster, and secondly, the relationship between the geology and the actual infrastructure, which Japan has thought a lot more about than we have. (although, I may have to exempt nuclear plants from that point)

I can tell you from living in Memphis for a few years, they are sooooo not ready. Few of the large buildings are even up to the code level the city has asked for. Most of the local residents are sort of vaguely aware of New Madrid's existence, but none seem to know what to do if it happens, and NO one I asked down there had earthquake rider on their insurance (or, in many cases, insurance at all on their home). TDOT had been working to retrofit bridges, but they were only some small % of the way done in the area.

 

Then there is the problem that Memphis sits on a soft bluff surrounded by silty soil that is part of a liquefaction zone.

 

Things would be ugly in Memphis if New Madrid goes big.

 

[Balta1701]

I can tell you from living in Memphis for a few years, they are sooooo not ready. Few of the large buildings are even up to the code level the city has asked for. Most of the local residents are sort of vaguely aware of New Madrid's existence, but none seem to know what to do if it happens, and NO one I asked down there had earthquake rider on their insurance (or, in many cases, insurance at all on their home). TDOT had been working to retrofit bridges, but they were only some small % of the way done in the area.

 

Then there is the problem that Memphis sits on a soft bluff surrounded by silty soil that is part of a liquefaction zone.

 

Things would be ugly in Memphis if New Madrid goes big.

Yeah, that's pretty much my logic on why I said a magnitude 8 event on New Madrid would be more damaging than this magnitude 9 event in Japan.

 

I had a friend who's parent was in the Evansville Mayor's office, after Katrina I passed along a few casual tips about what your emergency services should have on file somewhere as a plan for what to do in the event that it were to go. No idea if they followed anything I suggested (one suggestion was to spend the money on a study/planning scenario, at least as a Cover-your-tail move).

[Balta1701]

It may be months/years before radioactive emissions cease from these plants and the inhabitants are able to return home.

Pentagon officials reported Sunday that helicopters flying 60 miles from the plant picked up small amounts of radioactive particulates — still being analyzed, but presumed to include cesium-137 and iodine-121 — suggesting widening environmental contamination.

 

In a country where memories of a nuclear horror of a different sort in the last days of World War II weigh heavily on the national psyche and national politics, the impact of continued venting of long-lasting radioactivity from the plants is hard to overstate.

 

Japanese reactor operators now have little choice but to periodically release radioactive steam as part of an emergency cooling process for the fuel of the stricken reactors that may continue for a year or more even after fission has stopped. The plant’s operator must constantly try to flood the reactors with seawater, then release the resulting radioactive steam into the atmosphere, several experts familiar with the design of the Daiichi facility said.

 

That suggests that the tens of thousands of people who have been evacuated may not be able to return to their homes for a considerable period, and that shifts in the wind could blow radioactive materials toward Japanese cities rather than out to sea.

 

Re-establishing normal cooling of the reactors would require restoring electric power — which was cut in the earthquake and tsunami — and now may require plant technicians working in areas that have become highly contaminated with radioactivity.

 

More steam releases also mean that the plume headed across the Pacific could continue to grow. On Sunday evening, the White House sought to tamp down concerns, saying that modeling done by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had concluded that “Hawaii, Alaska, the U.S. Territories and the U.S. West Coast are not expected to experience any harmful levels of radioactivity.”

[Y2HH]

Yeah, that's pretty much my logic on why I said a magnitude 8 event on New Madrid would be more damaging than this magnitude 9 event in Japan.

 

I had a friend who's parent was in the Evansville Mayor's office, after Katrina I passed along a few casual tips about what your emergency services should have on file somewhere as a plan for what to do in the event that it were to go. No idea if they followed anything I suggested (one suggestion was to spend the money on a study/planning scenario, at least as a Cover-your-tail move).

 

Most of them are unaware of it because of how dormant/silent New Madrid has been, even when it does rattle, it's barely touching 3's in magnitude. If NM decided to repeat it's 1812 quake to remind us of how strong it can actually be, it'd pretty much be the most catastrophic natural disaster to hit the US since...forever ago.

 

From Wiki (removed reference links)

 

November 2008, The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency warned that a serious earthquake in the New Madrid Seismic Zone could result in "the highest economic losses due to a natural disaster in the United States," further predicting "widespread and catastrophic" damage across Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri and particularly Tennessee, where a 7.7 magnitude quake or greater would cause damage to tens of thousands of structures affecting water distribution, transportation systems, and other vital infrastructure.

 

The lack of apparent land movement along the New Madrid fault system has long puzzled scientists. In 2009, two studies based on eight years of GPS measurements indicated that the faults were moving at no more than 0.2 millimeters (0.0079 in) a year. This contrasts to the rate of slippage on the San Andreas Fault which averages up to 37 mm (1.5 in) a year across California.

[LittleHurt05]

Yeah, that's pretty much my logic on why I said a magnitude 8 event on New Madrid would be more damaging than this magnitude 9 event in Japan.

 

I might not know all the details about Japan, but it seems as if the tsunami caused most of the worst damage/deaths, not the earthquake. If somewhere like St. Louis faces an 8.0 earthquake, if there was no tsunami, you think it would still be more damaging overall? I do realize Japan is more prepared for an earthquake in general.

[Balta1701]

I might not know all the details about Japan, but it seems as if the tsunami caused most of the worst damage/deaths, not the earthquake. If somewhere like St. Louis faces an 8.0 earthquake, if there was no tsunami, you think it would still be more damaging overall? I do realize Japan is more prepared for an earthquake in general.

Yes.

 

The damage from an earthquake is a function of many variables. First, there's the distance to the quake; in the Japanese case, the quake was well offshore, which limited maximum ground movement on the islands themselves.

 

Second, there's building codes and enforcement. The earthquake in China a couple years ago killed tens of thousands, and did so because of a lack of earthquake-ready building codes and a lack of enforcement. Building codes in the U.S., particularly in the Midwest and South, are not nearly up to par for this level of shaking. Partly because of the anti-government sentiment in the U.S., partly because events in the Midwest are much less common than events in Japan, partly because all of Japan is under regular Earthquake threat so those standards exist at the national level (as the Japanese government can't afford to pay for a Haiti-level of devastation every 20 years).

 

Finally, there's the local geology. The seismic engineering community has begun to realize, post 1989-Loma Prieta (San Francisco) that the worst possible material you can build on is unconsolidated sediment/fill. The kind of stuff deposited by rivers on their floodplains, or the kind of stuff the Marina district is built on in San Francisco. That material takes the energy of the shaking, stores it, and magnifies it. As NSS noted, the clay-materials often simply turn to liquid and sink. The ground supporting private structures will effectively melt away, and the structures using that ground for support collapse and explode.

 

Japan has some of that to deal with, but not a whole lot. The Midwest...every one of those cities is built on fill, usually from the Miss. or Ohio rivers.

[Y2HH]

I might not know all the details about Japan, but it seems as if the tsunami caused most of the worst damage/deaths, not the earthquake. If somewhere like St. Louis faces an 8.0 earthquake, if there was no tsunami, you think it would still be more damaging overall? I do realize Japan is more prepared for an earthquake in general.

 

It would be far more damaging, to an order of magnitude this map will explain:

 

Consider the Los Angles disaster in the 90's, a magnitude 6.7 quake ravaged LA. The red zone is the major damage area, the yellow is the moderate/minor damage area as it spreads.

 

In comparison, look at the damage zone for a similar magnitude quake on the New Madrid faultline: