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From AsiaOne. Excerpts:
Nuclear fallout may hit Taiwan on Wednesday evening at the earliest, after a small amount of radioactive iodine-131 was detected in the skies over Taiwan last week, said the country's nuclear energy authorities yesterday. The fallout will come straight from Japan's Fukushima, where a stricken nuclear power plant is steadily leaking radioactivity, but the impact on Taiwan will be "minimal," said the Executive Yuan's Atomic Energy Council (AEC) in a forecast.
Again, technically true, in the most immediate sense of the present-term, but not really too far into the future. Radiation is cumulative, and this isn't over.
It shouldn't be too long before Japan's neighbors begin to.. express their.. uneasiness/ irritation/ disdain.. when contamination continues to rain down, unabated.. How long is too long? No idea. Could be next week, May, no later than June, but there's a pretty good chance this will happen.
Continually unfolding situations will directly effect how quickly and how far Fukushima Event deteriorates before all radiation is contained. Days? Weeks? Months? Years? We won't know 'til we know..
Status of quake-stricken reactors at Fukushima nuclear power plants Full list at link:
The following is the known status as of Friday night of each of the six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and the four reactors at the Fukushima Daini plant, both in Fukushima Prefecture, which were crippled by the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and the ensuing tsunami on March 11.
Reactor No. 1 - Operation suspended after quake, cooling failure, partial melting of core, vapor vented, building housing reactor damaged March 12 by hydrogen explosion, roof blown off, seawater being pumped in.
Reactor No. 3 - Operation suspended after quake, cooling failure, partial melting of core feared, vapor vented, seawater being pumped in, building housing reactor badly damaged Monday by hydrogen explosion, high-level radiation measured nearby on Tuesday, plume of smoke observed Wednesday and presumed to have come from spent-fuel storage pool, seawater dumped over pool by helicopter on Thursday, water sprayed at it from ground on Thursday and Friday.
Reactor No. 4 - Under maintenance when quake struck, no fuel rods in reactor core, temperature in spent-fuel storage pool reached 84 C on Monday, fire Tuesday possibly caused by hydrogen explosion at pool holding spent fuel rods, fire observed Wednesday at building housing reactor, pool water level feared receding, renewed nuclear chain reaction feared, only frame remains of reactor building roof.
Live Radiation Monitoring from West LA on USTREAM (Video stream)
Japan Raises Nuclear Severity Level (Video)
Full Core Meltdown in Japan? From Rense.com
Possibly it's ongoing and concealed. All along, Japanese and Tokyo Electric (TEPCO) officials downplayed or lied about the severity of the crisis. Virtually nothing they say can be believed.
Nor from the Obama administration, budgeting loan guarantees for new reactor construction instead of decommissioning all 104 nuclear plants because operating them risks full core meltdowns. Partial or full ones gravely harm earth, air, water and food. Three hazardous Fukushima radioactive isotopes are especially problematic. University of Rochester Professor Jacqueline Williams, a radiation expert, says ingesting radioactive iodine-131 causes thyroid and other cancers. So does hazardous beta and gamma radiation from Cesium-137. Released Strontium 90 also causes leukemia and other cancers. Large amounts of all three are spewing daily.
Under a worst case scenario, millions of Japanese, Pacific rim and northern hemisphere people will be harmed, many gravely. Millions of deaths may result. The dangers of nuclear power can't be overstated. Potentially, all planetary life is threatened. What better reason to end all commercial and military use now.
Japan lays power cable in race to stop radiation From Sympatico.
Exhausted engineers attached a power cable to the outside of Japan's tsunami-crippled nuclear station on Saturday in a race to prevent deadly radiation from an accident now rated at least as bad as America's Three Mile Island in 1979.
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"If they can get those electric pumps on and they can start pushing that water successfully up the core, quite slowly so you don't cause any brittle failure, they should be able to get it under control in the next couple of days," said Laurence Williams, of Britain's University of Central Lancashire.
If not, there is an option of last resort under consideration to bury the sprawling 40-year-old plant in sand and concrete to prevent a catastrophic radiation release.
That method was used to seal huge leakages from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
Nuke engineer: Fuel rod fire at Fukushima reactor “would be like Chernobyl on steroids”
We’d be lucky if we only had to worry about the spent fuel rods from a single holding pool. We’re not that lucky. The Fukushima Daiichi plant has seven pools for spent fuel rods. Six of these are (or were) located at the top of six reactor buildings. One “common pool” is at ground level in a separate building. Each “reactor top” pool holds 3450 fuel rod assemblies. The common pool holds 6291 fuel rod assemblies. [The common pool has windows on one wall which were almost certainly destroyed by the tsunami.] Each assembly holds sixty-three fuel rods. This means the Fukushima Daiichi plant may contain over 600,000 spent fuel rods.
So when people say the situation isn't serious, they're either ignorant, in denial, unable to comprehend the enormity of the unfolding situation, or flat out lying to you.
The moment nuclear plant chief WEPT as Japanese finally admit that radiation leak is serious enough to kill people From The Daily Mail..
The boss of the company behind the devastated Japanese nuclear reactor today broke down in tears - as his country finally acknowledged the radiation spewing from the over-heating reactors and fuel rods was enough to kill some citizens.
After Tokyo Electric Power Company Managing Director Akio Komiri cried as he left a conference to brief journalists on the situation at Fukushima, a senior Japanese minister also admitted that the country was overwhelmed by the scale of the tsunami and nuclear crisis.
He said officials should have admitted earlier how serious the radiation leaks were.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said: 'The unprecedented scale of the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan, frankly speaking, were among many things that happened that had not been anticipated under our disaster management contingency plans.
'In hindsight, we could have moved a little quicker in assessing the situation and coordinating all that information and provided it faster.'
As "frank" as this "disclosure" is, it's got to be sooo much worse..
Nuclear crisis: Inside Fukushima's exclusion zone. From BBC.
The video is horrible: You are looking at soon to be dead people. No one's coming for them, and they know it. For these people, it will be at once a quiet, reflective, gray, inevitable, angry, numbed, and yet, at times, a beautiful and poignant passing. But what's left of the streets will remain quiet, as they are now, as they will be when the last one goes.. Each individual, microcosm, and town shuts down at roughly the same time. Recent and terrible events have shocked them into quiet. Ultimately, the radiation will still them.
These people are the tragedy of "not with a bang; but a whimper.."
Physicist: "What They Are Doing Is Basically Using Squirt Guns Against a Raging Forest Fire" ... Japanese Should Use the Chernobyl Approach Instead From awesome sauce Washington's Blog..
It's not effective, because the workers cannot get close enough to put water here. That's why I would personally advocate the Chernobyl option. Do what Gorbachev did, call out the Japanese air force, get the army to bring a fleet of helicopters armed with sand, boric acid and concrete, entomb it, bury it in concrete.
Japan nuclear plant: exposed to the elements - nuclear fuel in meltdown
Open to the elements after its walls were blown away, this is the dried-up storage pool where overheating fuel rods are threatening a nuclear meltdown at Japan's stricken Fukushima power plant.
Close-up pictures of the devastated No 4 reactor building show the gaping hole through which radiation is escaping into the atmosphere as the rods break down.
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A week after the Fukushima Daiichi plant was crippled by the earthquake and tsunami, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said the situation remained "very serious". Graham Andrew, the scientific and technical adviser at the UN safety body, said there had been "no significant worsening" of the situation, but the No 4 unit remained "a major safety concern".
And:
Photographs taken from an aircraft by an employee of the company which owns the power station showed for the first time the full extent of the damage to the reactor units, three of which suffered explosions following a failure of its cooling system.
In unit No 4, a whole wall is missing from the area where spent fuel rods are stored while they cool to a safe temperature.
Inside the building, a green-painted crane, which is normally used to move the fuel rods, caught the daylight flooding into the hall.
Beneath the crane, just out of shot, is the pool holding the fuel rods, which should contain water 45ft deep but which has now boiled dry.
Nuclear Emergency - Fukushima nuclear reactor - JAPAN LIES !!!! 15-03-2011 WE WANT THE This guy shows the media blackout happening in Japan. He did a good job holding his anger, but it's there, and he's correct: The Japanese deserve the truth, whatever that truth is. He asks that you spread his video, so help me spread it, please..
The Ongoing Events at the Fukushima Dai'ichi Nuclear Plant No. 1 Two days old now, so outdated, but a great background for understanding how the situation has grown and mutated.
VIDEO: TEPCO Releases New Aerial Footage of Crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Reactors From Bradblog.
New aerial footage released by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) today details even more of the extensive damage to numerous reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant following explosions at reactor Units 1 through 4 which occurred in the days following last weekend's record earthquake and tsunami.
Radioactivity found in airline passengers landing in U.S. From The Examiner.
The New York Post reports that passengers who deplaned flights that had originated in Tokyo triggered radiation detectors in two major U.S. airports.
The flights, which arrived yesterday in Dallas and Chicago, both had passengers who showed low levels of radiation. This was detected when the individuals passed through customs.
Swedish Government: Radiation To Cover Entire Northern Hemisphere From Prison Planet. Found it on Before it's News..
Suggesting that levels of radiation leaks from the stricken Fukushima plant are being grossly under reported by Japanese authorities, a Swedish government agency told Reuters today that not only will the radiation reach North America, but it will subsequently cover the entire northern hemisphere.
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“Stressing that the levels were not dangerous for people, he predicted the particles would continue across the Atlantic and eventually also reach Europe.”
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Experts are correct in assuming that the initial waves of radiation will be low, but expect levels to rise in subsequent days as the effects of the three blasts to impact the Fukushima facility, which occurred on Saturday, Monday and Tuesday, manifest themselves in the form of increased radiation injected into the atmosphere.
Radiation Spread Seen; Frantic Repairs Go On From The New York Times.
The first readings from American data-collection flights over the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in northeastern Japan show that the worst contamination has not spread beyond the 19-mile range of highest concern established by Japanese authorities.
But another day of frantic efforts to cool nuclear fuel in the troubled reactors and in the plant’s spent-fuel pools resulted in little or no progress, according to United States government officials.
Japanese officials said that they would continue those efforts — including spraying one of the reactors with water cannons on Friday afternoon — but that they were also racing to restore electric power to the site to get equipment going again, leaving open the question of why that effort did not begin days ago, at the first signs that the critical backup cooling systems for the reactors had failed.
Scientists Project Path of Radiation Plume
A United Nations forecast of the possible movement of the radioactive plume coming from crippled Japanese reactors shows it churning across the Pacific, and touching the Aleutian Islands on Thursday before hitting Southern California late Friday.
Health and nuclear experts emphasize that radiation in the plume will be diluted as it travels and, at worst, would have extremely minor health consequences in the United States, even if hints of it are ultimately detectable. In a similar way, radiation from the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 spread around the globe and reached the West Coast of the United States in 10 days, its levels measurable but minuscule.
The projection, by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, an arm of the United Nations in Vienna, gives no information about actual radiation levels but only shows how a radioactive plume would probably move and disperse.
It's comforting the U.N. can tell us levels will be "measurable but minuscule," hours, days, weeks, or months before this event's conclusion. More information, less placation would be appreciated.
U.S. radiation experts try to decipher reports from Japan Note: This is a perfect example of a "Privatized Response" to a "Potentially Catastrophic" Event. The myth that all corporations (Or really ANY) can handle disaster response better than a government response Has Got To Stop. I'm not Pro-Government Intrusion (By any stretch), but to what level of shitty, incompetent, negligent, or murderous does a Corporate response have to be before Someone steps in? Is the Japanese government concerned about offending the Company that put potentially ALL of Us in danger? And the Government's response (nothing/lying) is worse. I feel bad for the Japanese. They used to trust their government and found out otherwise, the hard way.. Day 6 coming up, no end in sight, no way to tell what miracle it would take just for this to STOP.
Excerpts:
The Japanese government's radiation report for the country's 47 prefectures Wednesday had a notable omission: Fukushima, ground zero in Japan's nuclear crisis. Measurements from Ibaraki, just south of Fukushima, were also blanked out.
Radiation experts in the USA say that the lack of information about radioactivity released from the smoldering reactors makes it impossible to gauge the current danger, project how bad a potential meltdown might be or calculate how much fallout might reach the USA.
Conflicting accounts of the radiation levels emerged in Tokyo and on Capitol Hill. Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said Wednesday that the radiation detected at the Fukushima plant had fallen steadily over the past 12 hours. But U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) chief Gregory Jaczko told a House energy subcommittee earlier in the day that radiation levels at the Fukushima plant were "extremely high."
Japan earthquake: US alarm over nuclear crisis From The BBC.
"They are leaving us to die," says the mayor of Minamasoma inside the exclusion zone.
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Britain has now advised its nationals currently in Tokyo and to the north of the capital to consider leaving the area.
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On Thursday, army helicopters dumped tonnes of water on reactor three - a day after they were forced to pull out amid concerns over radiation levels in the air above the site.
10,000 people go to get radiation exposure tests in Fukushima Pref.
About 10,000 people headed to evacuation centers and health offices in Fukushima Prefecture on Wednesday to take screening tests for exposure to radiation in the wake of troubles at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant following the massive earthquake, prefectural officials said Thursday.
G-7 to hold emergency talks on Japan quake, economic impact
The Group of Seven advanced economies will hold emergency talks by phone on the massive earthquake in Japan last week and its impact on the economy and financial markets, Japanese Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda said Thursday.
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The move comes as the yen briefly strengthened to a postwar record high of 76.25 yen versus the U.S. dollar earlier in the day in Sydney, passing through the previous peak of 79.75 yen reached in 1995. It traded at the lower 79 yen level Thursday afternoon in Tokyo.
Third wave impacts from the Earthquake/Tsunami will begin shortly within the Markets. Speaking of which..
Guest Post: Alert: Nuclear (And Economic) Meltdown In Progress Tyler Durden isn't kidding.
Note: The substance of this alert centers on the unknown aftershocks that may result from the world's third largest economy, Japan, rapidly shifting from an exporter of funding to a consumer of it. In situations like these, we are by definition operating with incomplete and often confusing information, and events are developing more rapidly than they can be fully analyzed and internalized. We regret in advance any mistakes that we might make due to making calls and decisions in this highly fluid environment.
And:
Stage 1: The world watches, riveted, as Japan suffers a tragic and horrible earthquake and tsunami, but as horrifying as these are, they are localized phenomenon affecting a relatively small percentage of the country. The real trouble lurks within damaged nuclear plants, which are now ruined and will never again produce electricity for Japan, creating instant shortages that will take years to remedy. Worse, a dangerous plume of radioactivity is carried south by winds. Tokyo partially empties and shuts down for all practical purposes.
Stage 2: The abrupt slow down of the world's third largest economy alters the smooth flow of cash around the globe, and even causes reversals of some other long-standing flows. Chaotic eddies emerge in a decades-old pattern of ever-increasing flows of money into and out of the money centers, and various carry-trade and other interest-rate-sensitive strategies blow up. Manufacturing in Japan screeches to a halt, disrupting just-in-time manufacturing strategies both internally and across the globe.
Stage 6: Everything changes. Faster than you think.
Thousands flee Tokyo as experts try to calm contamination fears
The stuff of science fiction novels and bad disaster movies has arrived in the world's largest metropolis after radioactivity was detected in Tokyo's city centre yesterday, the possible prelude to a disaster forewarned but never really expected: the meltdown of a nuclear power plant and the showering of fallout over 28 million people.
Experts and government ministers said that the radiation levels in the city were negligible, and that the battle to save the stricken plant in Fukushima was making progress. But they warned that contamination within the danger zone around the plant, about 300km north-east of the capital, was dangerous to human health, and told people inside the zone to evacuate or stay indoors.
No hysterical outbursts, just an endless stream of quiet grief
Given the extraordinary stories that have been told and the amazing images that have been beamed around the world, there was perhaps nothing especially remarkable about the way in which the tsunami struck the port town of Higashi Matsushima, 90 minutes of east of the city of Sendai, epicentre of the earthquake. To the north, the toll of the dead and missing in some towns alone has reached more than 1,000. So if the grief appeared quietly subdued in Higashi Matsushima – a town where at least 320 people have lost their lives and many more remain unaccounted for – it is only because of the scale of this tragedy.
From Terra Daily.. Excerpts:
The car park at Tokyo Disneyland was drenched with water-logged segments from the ground following the 8.9-magnitude earthquake that rocked Japan's Pacific coast Friday, police said
It was earlier reported that a tsunami might have caused the inundation but police said the phenomenon was due to liquefaction of soil caused by the intense shaking of the tremor.
There were 69,000 people at the Disneyland and the adjacent Tokyo Disney Sea, built on a landfill in Tokyo Bay, when the quake occurred..
Future damage to Japan's reclaimed land WILL be a problem.
Seismic Disaster, Nuclear Catastrophe, Continuing, Immediate, and Short-Range Dangers, Global Implications
Post-Tsunami Situation at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan: Facts, Analysis, and Some Potential Outcomes Excerpts:
A special feature of the Mark 1 design is that the used fuel, also called spent fuel, is stored within the reactor building in a swimming pool-like concrete structure near the top of the reactor vessel. When the reactor is refueled, the spent fuel is taken from the reactor by a large crane, transferred to the pool, and kept underwater for a few years. This spent fuel must be kept underwater to prevent severe releases of radioactivity, among other reasons. A meltdown or even a fire could occur if there is a loss of coolant from the spent fuel pool. The water in the spent fuel pool and the roof of the reactor building are the main barriers to release of radioactivity from the spent fuel pool.
An explosion associated with Unit 1 occurred on March 12, at 3:36 p.m.2 At first the authorities stated that this was in the turbine building next to the reactor building. However, it is the reactor building roof and part of the walls near the roof that were completely blown off leaving only a steel skeleton at the top of the building. This indicates an explosion inside the reactor building – probably a hydrogen explosion, since hydrogen is much lighter than air, it would accumulate near the top of the building. The explosion therefore seems to have occurred near the level where the spent fuel pool would be located in a Mark 1 reactor.
..While Japanese authorities have stated that the reactor vessel is still intact, there has been no word regarding the status of the spent fuel pool structure, except indirectly (see below). Is it still intact? This is a critical question as to the range of potential consequences of the reactor accident.
The Idiocy and Hubris of Engineers: Will GE Get Whacked for the Catastrophic Failure of its Nuke Plants in Fukushima?
GE, the company that boasts that it “brings good things to life,” was the designer of the nuclear plants that are blowing up like hot popcorn kernels at the Fukushima Dai-ichi generating plant north of Tokyo that was hit by the double-whammy of an 9.1 earthquake and a huge tsunami.
The company may escape tens or hundreds of billions of dollars in liability from this continuing disaster, which could still result in a catastrophic total meltdown of one or more of the reactors (as of this writing three of the reactors are reported to have suffered explosions and partial meltdowns, and all could potentially become more serious total meltdowns with a rupture of the reactor container), thanks to Japanese law, which makes the operator--in this case Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) liable. But if it were found that it was design flaws by GE that caused the problem, presumably TEPCO or the Japanese government could pursue GE for damages.
In fact, the design of these facilities--a design which, it should be noted, was also used in 23 nuclear plants operating in the US in Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Vermont--appear to have included serious flaws, from a safety perspective.
Remember: Any ONE of these events would be catastrophic. Combine them, then throw in some secondary economic impacts. The micro to macro perspective of this unfolding event is staggering, even if the best possible-ending occurs.
Wind patterns have changed,Tokyo in direct wind of Fall out, Rad levels rising Wind direction simply explained.
VIDEO: Now There's A Volcano Erupting In Japan
Global Jet Stream Forecast (March 13-21st)
Fukushima Reactor 2 Hit By Loud INTERNAL Explosion
At 6:14 a.m. a loud thud rocked Reactor 2 of Fukushima 1 nuclear power plant, quite unlike the previous two blasts that blew apart the surrounding structures. This time the explosion occurred inside the steel containment chamber that surrounds the core reactor. The containment chamber captures and holds runoff water and condensed steam that escapes from the core reactor.
TEPCO and the nuclear safety agency have not explained the process that led to the blast.
In Monitor 3, the chemistry of splitting water molecules into hydrogen gas and supercharged oxygen was explained. In the first two blasts, these volatile gases recombined outside the reactor unit and blew apart the concrete rooms.
This third and latest blast is one of internal combustion.
At Japanese nuclear plant, a battle to contain radiation (Video)
Japan's prime minister says radiation has leaked from damaged reactor (Video)
Radiation Leaps After Reactor Fire; Tokyo Gets Warning
Japan warned radioactive levels had become "significantly" higher around a quake-stricken nuclear power plant on Tuesday after explosions at two reactors, and the French embassy said a low-level radioactive wind could reach Tokyo within hours.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan urged people within 30 km (18 miles) of the facility north of Tokyo to remain indoors, underscoring the dramatic escalation of Japan's nuclear crisis, the world's most serious since the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine in 1986.
Other than some random human interest stories, there seems to be no good news coming from anywhere in Japan.
Winds at Japan Power Plants Should Send Radiation out to Sea. From Accuweather.com. IF this were to happen, then it would take this amount to reach the West Coast.
The wind direction may impact where the radiation goes both at a local level and even across the globe. The wind direction at both of these locations are similar since the Onagawa power plant is located just to the northeast of Fukushima power plant.
"The exact direction of the winds would have to be known at the time of the release of a large amount of radiation to understand exactly where the radiation would go," according to Expert Senior Global Meteorologist Jim Andrews.
It is unknown when a large release of radiation would occur, if at all, at this point.
Military Crew Said to Be Exposed to Radiation, but Officials Call Risk in U.S. Slight
The Pentagon was expected to announce that the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan, which is sailing in the Pacific, passed through a radioactive cloud from stricken nuclear reactors in Japan, causing crew members on deck to receive a month’s worth of radiation in about an hour, government officials said Sunday.
The officials added that American helicopters flying missions about 60 miles north of the damaged reactors became coated with particulate radiation that had to be washed off.
This would be why wind direction is important: Tokyo nuke cloud crisis From The Sun. Excerpts(Emphasis theirs):
JAPAN is teetering on the brink of nuclear catastrophe amid fears a radioactive cloud could envelop Tokyo's 13million residents.
The Foreign Office warned Brits to avoid the capital as it was feared a SECOND nuclear reactor was heading for meltdown after Friday's devastating earthquake and tsunami.
And there were heightened concerns early today following a hydrogen blast 170 miles north of Tokyo at the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant. (That one's mine..)
About that fallout map from yesterday.. An opposing opinion. Japan nuclear fallout map - HOAX
Man found alive two days after being swept 15km out to sea
A Japanese man who was swept 15 kilometres out to sea in the tsunami was plucked to safety yesterday after being spotted clinging to wreckage, officials said.
A Maritime Self-Defence Force destroyer rescued Hiromitsu Shinkawa, 60, after discovering him floating on a piece of roof in waters off Fukushima prefecture two days after the disaster struck.
The man, from the city of Minamisoma, which was destroyed, was swept out along with his house after the tsunami.
Explosion rocks another Japanese nuclear reactor building
Fresh white smoke rose again Monday from Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, caused by an explosion at a building tied to the facility's No. 3 reactor.
Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said that, according to the head of the nuclear facility, the container vessel surrounding the reactor is still intact. Initial reports suggest that radiation levels rose following the explosion late Monday morning, but Edano said he does not believe there has been a massive leak.
"We are now collecting information on the concentration of radiation," he said.
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The secretary said that water continues to be injected into the plant's No. 3 reactor. That fact, and the pressure levels, has led authorities to believe that the reactor itself remains intact.
Japan's nuclear crisis and Chernobyl: key differences Articles of this nature will be later looked upon as the Voice of Reason during an irrational time, or hopelessly naive. At the moment, that is no one's call..
CNBC Anchor Grateful No More Money Was Killed In Japan
Even Gawker was astonished..
Wow! This must be seen to be believed. CNBC's Larry Kudlow talked about Japan's earthquake yesterday: "The human toll here looks to be much worse than the economic toll, and we can be grateful for that." It's hard to say if this was a blooper or just a horrible thing he actually believes?
Japan Earthquake: before and after
Aerial photos taken over Japan have revealed the scale of devastation across dozens of suburbs and tens of thousands of homes and businesses.
Note how scoured everything is..
Gosh, when you put it that way, it really does sound kinda serious.. Possible Fukushima Nuclear Fallout Projections For the U.S, Two Plants Meltdown Underway
Piers Corbyn: Massive Japan Earthquake & Tsunami Were Triggered by Solar Action From Infowars.com.
Weather Action owner Piers Corbyn says “The massive Japan Earthquake and Tsunami were triggered by massive events on the Sun and there are more to come in the next two years”
Incredible swarms of fish form off coast of Acapulco: But was surge caused by tsunami thousands of miles away?
The shores of Acapulco's beaches were this weekend teeming with masses of fish packed so tightly they looked like an oil slick from above.
Thousands of sardines, anchovies, stripped bass and mackerel surged along the coast of the Mexican resort in an event believed to be linked to the devastating Japanese tsunami. The Pictures are really cool, and since it's Mexico, there's no quake damage.
Nuclear plant blast 'appears to have caused meltdown' Reprinted courtesy of Stratfor Global Intelligence. Linked from TheAge.com.au..
A meltdown occurs when the control rods fail to contain the neutron emission and the heat levels inside the reactor thus rise to a point that the fuel itself melts, generally temperatures in excess of 1000 degrees Fahrenheit, causing uncontrolled radiation-generating reactions and making approaching the reactor incredibly hazardous.
A meltdown does not necessarily mean a nuclear disaster.
As long as the reactor core, which is specifically designed to contain high levels of heat, pressure and radiation, remains intact, the melted fuel can be dealt with. If the core breaches but the containment facility built around the core remains intact, the melted fuel can still be dealt with — typically entombed within specialized concrete — but the cost and difficulty of such containment increases exponentially.
However, the earthquake in Japan, in addition to damaging the ability of the control rods to regulate the fuel — and the reactor’s coolant system — appears to have damaged the containment facility, and the explosion almost certainly did.
Tsunami warning center raises magnitude of Japan quake to 9.1
The Japan earthquake was the fourth most powerful ever recorded with a magnitude of 9.1, twice more powerful than the initial estimate of 8.9, Gerard Fryer, geophysicist of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, said this morning.
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The new magnitude was adjusted based on the impact of the quake throughout the Pacific, he said. ”It fits all measurements, including in Hawaii,” Fryer said.
Will The Japanese Earthquake Be The Straw That Breaks Europe's Back?
So what will happen? Why a scramble for liquidity of course, just like we saw back in September 2008, when cash stricken companies sold all their liquid assets first, resulting in a toxic loop of self-fulfilling prophecy selling which almost tobbled(toppled?) the $25 trillion shadow banking system. And what will said Japanese insurance companies sell first? Why the very same Eurozone bonds they acquired with so much pomp and circumstance, by the minions of the insolvent Eurozone, back in January of course.
Every potential worst case scenario continues to spread wide, and rapidly..
Freaky, ominous, and "Holy crap! When will this disaster strike?" footage from CNN Ireport, via Godlike Productions..
Remember, please, when you see the earth tearing, swaying, and water squirting upwards where there was no water previously, that this is real. This is what a Worst-Case-Scenario looks like before it happens.
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