Report: Gov't "collapsed" during Japan nuke crisis

Timely.  And by "Timely," I mean just in time for the one year anniversary of the Birth of Nuclear Godzilla!  CBS News.  Truly awesome excerpts:

The one year anniversary of the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan is less than two weeks away, but details about the nuclear meltdown that happened that tragic day are just beginning to emerge. (Just.  Beginning.)

..
CBS News correspondent Lucy Craft reported that in the hours after the tsunami struck the nuclear plant, Japanese officials huddled in an emergency bunker struggled to grasp the size of the catastrophe.



"As we listened to our top nuclear experts, we politicians had no idea what they were talking about. Was anyone going to suffer radiation contamination? Would this be another Chernobyl or Three Mile Island? No one could give us a straight answer," Fukuyama recalled in the report.


After 300 interviews with officials and nuclear experts, the report said government was partially at fault for not having an emergency plan if a magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck the country.


However, investigators concluded the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric, was to blame for the majority of the problems. "They were astonishingly unprepared for this nuclear accident," lead investigator Youichi Funabash told CBS News.


It seems that Tokyo Electric was unprepared for a power failure. Without electricity, the cores of the reactor couldn't stay cool, and it triggered explosions and meltdowns.  (It's excellent that TEPCO didn't know this, but the rest of us were forewarned simply by watching Simpsons episodes..)

And:

"Terrified doesn't begin to describe how we felt," Fukuyama told investigators months after the scare. A "no go" zone still remains around the plant because radiation levels are too high. Clean up at the plant is estimated to take 40 years.  (This is still a conservative estimate, btw..)

"When we learned the reactors had in fact melted down, I was overwhelmed, by our inability," he added.  Oh, Mr. Fukuyama, we're all overwhelmed by your, TEPCO's, and Japan's inabilities..


Pretty compelling evidence for allowing private sector industries to regulate themselves, no?  For my radioactive superpowers, I'd like invisibility, the power to fly, or to be impervious to bullets and explosions, please!

Japan Quake: People Living On Reclaimed Land Won't Be For Long..

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.

"Radioactive Earthquake" Would Be Awesome On ScyFy; Horrifying In Real Life..

If the totality of this experience wasn't intense enough..

Nuclear emergency declared at quake-damaged reactor

Japanese authorities are venting radioactive steam into the air after the earthquake on Friday critically damaged a nuclear reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.

The Japanese government on Friday declared a nuclear emergency at Tokyo Electric Power's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station after the reactor's cooling system failed. The government ordered thousands of people living within 6 miles of the plant to evacuate. Early Saturday, it declared a nuclear emergency at a second power plant where a cooling system had also failed.

"It has the potential to be catastrophic," said Robert Alvarez, a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, and a former senior policy adviser to the Energy Secretary during the Clinton administration.

West Coast USA Danger IF Japan Nuclear Reactor Meltdown

Why would the west coast USA be in danger?



The prevailing jet stream winds are blowing from Japan directly across the Pacific ocean to the west coast of the United States. Any airborne radiation would make its way across with the jet stream, reaching the U.S. in approximately 36 hours, depending on the actual speed of the jet.
And:
Update,

Clarification from NHK World News Japan… a second location, Fukushima II, not far from the Fukushima I nuclear power plant, is also experiencing cooling problems. The government’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said equipment failures have made it impossible to cool 3 of the plant’s 4 reactors. (Translation: ‘impossible’ is not a good word).
And:
Update,

Reuters is now reporting that Tokyo Electric Power Company has lost ability to control pressure at some of the reactors at its Fukushima II (Daini) plant nearby the Daiichi power plant (Fukushima I), both suffering from core cooling problems. If battery power at Fukushima II is depleted before AC power is restored, the plant will stop supplying water to the core and the cooling water level in the reactor core will drop.
And:
Update,

Kyodo news reports, “the operator of the two plants in Fukushima Prefecture is set to release pressure in containers housing their reactors under an unprecedented government order, so as to avoid the plants sustaining damage and losing their critical containment function.” …”the action would involve the release of steam that would likely include radioactive materials”

Emergencies at 5 Japanese Nuclear Reactors; Radiation Levels Spike at Most-Affected Site

Radiation inside a Japanese nuclear reactor surged to 1,000 times its normal level after today's 8.9-magnitude earthquake knocked out power to a cooling system, and tsunami floods have hampered efforts to get it restored.

It reportedly was one of five Japanese nuclear reactors that lost cooling ability, prompting a race against the clock to install fixes.

In the worst case, at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant's No. 1 reactor, heat-induced pressure built up inside the crippled reactor, prompting widespread evacuations within a 10 kilometer radius and stoking fears of a potentially catastrophic radioactive event.

Japan Issues Nuclear Evacuation  Video.

High probability Fukushima reactor core melting down-cesium detected UPDATED
THIS could be very bad..  URGENT: Concerns of core partially melting at Fukushima nuke plant

Potential Nuclear Fallout Map

"Radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl accident, 1986"

This disaster now has Global implications.