Japanese authorities are battling the threat of multiple reactor meltdowns at FOUR nuclear power plants. After an explosion on Saturday and reports of partial nuclear meltdowns at the Fukishima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant and the nearby Fukushima No.2 plant, authorities today reported emergencies at two more nuclear facilities.
At the Tokai No. 2 nuclear power plant, which is only 120km north of Tokyo, the cooling pump stopped working, while at the Onagawa nuclear power plant, in the Miyagi Prefecture, a state of emergency was declared because of excessive radiation levels. The incidents underlined the precipitous situation at the country's nuclear plants and particularly at the crippled Fukishima facility, where government officials admitted they feared meltdowns occurred within three of the site's reactors at the No. 1 plant and confirmed that radiation had leaked out.
They are attempting to stop fuel rods deep within the Fukishima reactors from overheating. There were fears that if the rods overheated, they could melt the container housing the core or explode, sending radioactive material into the atmosphere. The Fukishima No. 2 plant could also be in trouble with temperatures in three of its four reactors getting extremely high. A spokesman for the Tokai plant, which suffered a nuclear accident in 1999, said that although a cooling pump had failed, a back-up pump was working and cooling the reactor.
At Fukushima, officials scrambled to prevent the reactors from overheating by pumping in water and releasing steam to depressurize them, and it was later confirmed that seawater was being poured into a third reactor to release a dangerous buildup of pressure. Pumping seawater into a reactor is seen as a last-ditch effort to stop a meltdown because although the water acts as an effective coolant, the corrosive properties of the water mean that the reactor will never function again. 200,000 people have been evacuated from a 12-mile (19-kilometer) zone around the two Fukushima plants that house a total of 10 reactors.
Four people were injured in a huge blast at the Fukushima No. 1 site Saturday and one person was killed and four injured in a crane accident at the other plant nearby. In all, 22 people were hospitalized after being exposed to radioactivity, although it was not immediately clear to what degree they were exposed and what their condition was. Local media said that up to 190 people might have been affected by radiation. In the city of Fukushima, people lined up at a market where shop assistants wore surgical masks. "People are nervous. People are not panicked but nuclear plants are scary. The bottom line is I will pray that the nuclear plant doesn't explode."
"There is radiation leaking out, and since the possibility is high, it’s quite scary" - Before news of the problem with reactor No. 3, the nuclear safety agency said the plant accident was less serious than both America’s Three Mile Island accident in 1979 and the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the Soviet Union. An official at the agency said it had rated the first incident a 4 according to the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale.
Three Mile Island was rated 5 while Chernobyl was rated 7 on the 1 to 7 scale.
However, one of Britain’s leading nuclear experts warned: “The exclusion zone keeps being raised. First it was three kilometres, then 10, now 20, so the radioactive wave is spreading widely. It is in the lap of the gods where it ends up.”
When Ukraine’s Chernobyl power plant went into meltdown 25 years ago, vast areas of Europe were coated in radioactive dust, putting farms out of business and leaving millions fearing long-term health issues. Even British farms felt the effects of the radioactive particles. Yesterday’s winds were blowing away from Japan’s most heavily populated areas but contaminated dust could be swept by the high-altitude jet stream across the Pacific towards the United States.
There are fears that billions of dollars worth of crops will have to be destroyed IF A 'POISON CLOUD' HITS AMERICA'S WEST COAST. The jet stream could carry any contamination into the prairie wheat fields that cover more than 50 million acres.
The Fukushima plant has been criticised for its safety procedures. Tepco has a chequered record with breaches of the most basic safety guidelines. In 2002, the president and four senior executives were forced to resign after allegations that safety records had been falsified on 29 occasions.
“It’s not clear what has exploded. If the pressure vessel, the thing that actually holds all the nuclear fuel, were to explode, this is basically what happened at Chernobyl. Then you get an enormous release of radioactive material.”
“As long as that steel inner vessel remains intact then the vast majority of the radiation will be contained. This plant has gone through all the steps that occurred at Three Mile Island, and that led to total meltdown. The inner box has failed completely and it seems that they have let some radiation out into the outer dome. When that exceeded design pressure, they then let some radioactivity out to release the pressure. Clearly they don’t know if the concrete dome has been damaged by the earthquake or not. The combination of water and steam will likely have led to a zirconium steel explosion, and ultimately hydrogen being released. This is the most likely cause of the dramatic explosion you saw. It looks like the reactors automatically shut down following the earthquake, causing a massive collapse of power to the grid. It needed their generators to start them up again but they didn’t count on the tsunami then knocking the generators out. Surely it is not beyond the wit of man to envisage that? Tsunamis do follow earthquakes at sea.”
Graphic: Fukushima blast explained.
although i do not always like being taught.
Winston Churchill
LARGEST QUAKES -
This morning -
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Yesterday -
3/12/11 -
5.0 KEPULAUAN BABAR, INDONESIA
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3/11/11 -
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5.2 SOUTHERN EAST PACIFIC RISE
Quake upgraded - JAPAN'S Meteorological Agency says it has upgraded the magnitude of Friday's catastrophic earthquake to 9.0.
The quake was already the biggest to hit Japan since record-keeping began in the late 1800s and one of the biggest ever recorded in the world. The US Geological Survey has measured the quake at magnitude 8.9, and that number remained unchanged today.
Quake moved Japan coast 8 feet, shifted Earth's axis - The powerful earthquake that unleashed a devastating tsunami Friday appears to have moved the main island of Japan by 8 feet (2.4 meters). Reports from the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Italy estimated the 8.9-magnitude quake shifted the planet on its axis by nearly 4 inches (10 centimeters).
The temblor, which struck Friday afternoon near the east coast of Japan, killed hundreds of people, caused the formation of 30-foot walls of water that swept across rice fields, engulfed entire towns, dragged houses onto highways, and tossed cars and boats like toys. Some waves reached six miles (10 kilometers) inland in Miyagi Prefecture on Japan's east coast.
The quake was the most powerful to hit the island nation in recorded history and the tsunami it unleashed traveled across the Pacific Ocean, triggering tsunami warnings and alerts for 50 countries and territories as far away as the western coasts of Canada, the U.S. and Chile. The quake triggered more than 160 aftershocks in the first 24 hours -- 141 measuring 5.0-magnitude or more. The quake was "hundreds of times larger" thn the 2010 quake that ravaged Haiti. The Japanese quake was of similar strength to the 2004 earthquake in Indonesia that triggered a tsunami that killed over 200,000 people in more than a dozen countries around the Indian Ocean. "The tsunami that it sent out was roughly comparable in terms of size. [The 2004 tsunami] happened to hit some regions that were not very prepared for tsunamis ... we didn't really have a very sophisticated tsunami warning system in the Indian Ocean basin at the time so the damage was significantly worse."
The Japanese quake comes just weeks after a 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck Christchurch on February 22, toppling historic buildings and killing more than 150 people. The timeframe of the two quakes have raised questions whether the two incidents are related, but experts say the distance between the two incidents makes that unlikely.
Japan faces a "70 per cent" possibility of a magnitude 7 aftershock following the massive earthquake that struck its northeast coast. "There is a 70 per cent possibility that an aftershock with a magnitude of seven or more will occur" within the next three days, said the director of earthquake prediction and information at the Japan Meteorological Agency on Sunday.
"The possibility is 50 per cent" during the three days from March 16, he added, pointing out that strong aftershocks have continued since Friday's quake and tsunami. Aftershocks have occurred in an undersea area, 500km long and 200km wide, off the coasts of Miyagi and Ibaraki prefectures in the northeast.
LATEST NEWS -
21:30 - Japan's Earthquake Research Committee estimates Friday's devastating earthquake forced the tectonic plate on which Japan sits to spring eastward by about 20m (66 feet). The researchers also say the quake caused some areas, from Iwate to Fukushima prefectures, to sink up to about 75cm.
20:56 - This tsunami was literally a "ONCE-IN-A-MILLENNIUM" EVENT. In 869, according to historical texts, there was an earthquake of this scale in which 1,000 people died. Geological research has revealed evidence of the tsunami 5km inland, but only bits and pieces of what happened are known.
2020 - The rolling, three-hour power outages scheduled to affect prefectures in Kanto and Chubu on Monday - the first in Japan's history - will take place between 0620 and 2200 local time on Monday. "If we continue [using electricity at the current level], there is the possibility of an all-out blackout in the area. The impact of a sudden, large-scale blackout would be immense and we must prevent it at all costs."
2011: A former adviser on radiation to the UK government, Dr Christopher Busby, has told the BBC the situation at the nuclear plants is extremely serious. "Particularly concerning is the [Fukushima] number three reactor which I understand is in trouble now, because... it runs on a different sort of fuel; it doesn't run on uranium, it runs on a mixed uranium plutonium fuel, and plutonium is an extremely serious hazard so if this stuff comes out then it's going to make what's happened so far, in terms of the tsunami damage, look a little bit like an entrée to the real course."
Latest video coverage - from the BBC.
Gallery of photos sent in to the BBC.
Before and after aerial photos - Google Earth.
VOLCANOES -
JAPAN - Shinmoedake volcano in southwestern Japan has erupted after nearly two weeks of relative silence, sending ash and rocks up to four kilometres into the air. It was not immediately clear if the eruption was a direct result of the massive 9.0-magnitude earthquake that rocked northern areas on Friday, unleashing a fierce tsunami and sparking fears that more than 10,000 may have been killed. Shinmoedake volcano in the Kirishima range saw its first major eruption for 52 years in January. There had not been any major activity at the site since March 1. Authorities have maintained a volcano warning at a level of three out of five, restricting access to the entire mountain.
HAWAII - The Big Island had more than 20 small earthquakes on Thursday and another two on Friday. The activity was related to Kilauea Volcano, which seems to be otherwise taking a breather. There was no active lava visible yesterday at Kilauea. On the east rift zone, the March 5 Kamoamoa fissure eruption remained paused. At the summit, the bottom of the deep vent set within the east wall of Halemaumau Crater was covered with rubble and lava was no longer visible. A gas plume at the summit was moving to the southwest, and sulfur dioxide emissions remained high. There were 22 earthquakes near the Big Island on Thursday, most of them in the Kalapana area. There were five that registered magnitude 3.0 or above, the largest at magnitude 4.6, which occurred at 10:58 p.m. Quakes of magnitude 3.0 and 2.6 hit on Friday. All were seven to 17 miles south or southwest of Leilani Estates.
The USGS said the cluster was not related to Japan's quake or the tsunami. Most earthquakes in the Kalapana area and along the lower south flank of Kilauea Volcano are caused by motion of the volcano's south flank southeast over the ocean floor as a result of magma injected into the rift zone.
INDONESIA - One of Indonesia's most active volcanoes, Mount KARANGETANG, erupted Friday, sending lava and searing gas clouds down its slopes. Authorities were still trying to evacuate residents living near the slopes of Mount Karangetang. There have not been immediate reports of injuries or damages. It last erupted in August, killing four people. The eruption occurred hours after the devastating 8.9-magnitude earthquake hit Japan. In November 2010, Indonesia's most dangerous volcano, Mount Merapi, erupted and killed at least 58 people and injured dozens. (photo)
Mount BROMO in Probolinggo, East Java, has seen a rise in volcanic activity in the past few days as consecutive eruptions spew thick grey plumes into the air. The authorities have set Mount Bromo's status at 'standby', not allowing people to get any closer than about a mile. The Mount Bromo explosion in 2004 killed two people, and injured five others. Indonesia has about 500 volcanoes, nearly 130 of them active and 68 classified as dangerous. (photos)
Japan Earthquake Triggered Volcano Eruption In Russia? - The major earthquake that hit Japan Friday may have just triggered some volcanoes in Russia as well. While reports are still vague on the incident, there is a strong correlation between the two occurrences. In Russia, there are reports that explosions were accompanied by minor earthquakes.
According to Russian media reports, the first cloud of dust covered the city of Ust-Kamczatsk. Over five thousand people are forced to stay at home. The authorities have recommended the strict ban on opening windows. The population, however, was not evacuated, and experts say that the dust does not constitute a great danger. Despite this, from Thursday, all offices of state institutions and organizations have suspended work – except in cases of emergency. For some time, roads were also closed in the region. While this eruption does not seem to be a significant threat to the people in Russia, the fact that an earthquake in Japan could have triggered a volcano eruption in Russia does have some significance. (photos)
The monster that still menaces Tokyo - Aas massive as it was, this quake is not Japan’s worst case scenario. Whether it’s from typhoon, tsunami, earthquake or volcano, or some combination of those, the history of Japan is replete with cycles of building, flourishing, destruction and eventual rebirth. There is a monster sleeping near Tokyo: Mt. Fuji, the strikingly beautiful 12,000 foot volcano just 60 miles from the city. Fuji-san last erupted in 1707. Speculation of an eruption first spread in 2000 and 2001, when scientists were shocked to detect swarms of low-frequency earthquakes beneath Mount Fuji. The announcement sent Japanese media into a frenzy and forced government bureaucrats to dust off disaster management plans. The episode also prompted the formation of a national committee to assess the current danger of the volcano and create a detailed hazard map of the potentially affected areas, including the town of Fujinomiya.
Tokyo has been destroyed and rebuilt twice in living memory: By a massive earthquake in 1923, and during World War II. Today Tokyo is home to about 30 million people, with many more scattered within range of massive Mt. Fuji. Several US military bases lie within range of the volcano’s likely ash and debris field. A major eruption of Mt. Fuji would severely threaten if not destroy one of the world’s largest and most advanced and important cities, and likely cripple the global economy for years. Based on its history of erupting about once every 30 years prior to that last eruption, Fuji’s reawakening is long overdue.
TSUNAMI / FREAK WAVES / ABNORMAL TIDES -
JAPAN faces nervous aftershock wait, with '70 per cent' chance of tsunami returning. A magnitude-7 quake is capable of destroying buildings and triggering tsunamis. Japan's Prime Minister said his people were facing its WORST CRISIS IN 65 YEARS since the end of World War II.
A Japanese man who was swept 15km out to sea by Japan's deadly tsunami was plucked to safety today after being spotted clinging to a piece of wreckage. A Maritime Self-Defence Force destroyer rescued the 60-year-old 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 has been virtually obliterated, was swept out along with his house after the massive tsunami tore into Japan's northeast following the 9-magnitude earthquake on Friday. He is conscious and in "good condition" after his rescue which took place around 12.40pm local time. "I ran away after learning that the tsunami was coming. But I turned back to pick up something at home, when I was washed away. I was rescued while I was hanging to the roof from my house."
The government has said that at least 1,000 people are believed to have lost their lives in the disaster, and police estimate more than 215,000 people are huddled in emergency shelters. However, the police chief of badly-hit Miyagi prefecture, which lies north of Fukushima, said that the death toll was certain to exceed 10,000 in his district alone.
TROPICAL STORMS -
No current tropical cyclones.
