Radiation levels will dilute as the plume travels and experts have stressed that it would have extremely minor health consequences in the US. The direction could also change with shifting weather patterns. The forecast gave no information about actual radiation levels in the plume.
The model contrasts with advice from officials in California, Oregon and Washington, who have said that radiation from Japanese nuclear reactors is not expected to reach their shores. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has said it expects no harmful levels of Japanese radiation to reach the US, with Tokyo and San Francisco roughly 8000km apart.
The Scariest Earthquake Is Yet to Come - The tsunami that struck Japan was the third in a series of events that now put California at risk. We all now know, and have for 50 years, that geography is the ultimate reason behind the disaster. Japan is at the junction of a web of tectonic-plate boundaries that make it more peculiarly vulnerable to ground-shaking episodes than almost anywhere else. But geography is not the only factor in this particular and acutely dreadful event. Topography played an especially tragic role in the story, too - for it is an axiom known to all those who dwell by high-tsunami-risk coastlines that when the sea sucks back, you run: you run inland and, if at all possible, you run uphill. But in this corner of northeast Japan, with its wide plains of rice meadows and ideal factory sites and conveniently flat airport locations, there may well be a great deal of inland - but there is almost no uphill.
Even more worrisome than geography and topography, though, is geological history. For this event cannot be viewed in isolation. There was a horrifically destructive Pacific earthquake in New Zealand on Feb. 22, and an even more violent magnitude-8.8 event in Chile almost exactly a year before. All three phenomena involved more or less the same family of circum-Pacific fault lines and plate boundaries - and though there is still no hard scientific evidence to explain why, there is little doubt now that earthquakes do tend to occur in clusters: a significant event on one side of a major tectonic plate is often - not invariably, but often enough to be noticeable - followed some weeks or months later by another on the plate’s far side. It is as though the earth becomes like a great brass bell, which when struck by an enormous hammer blow on one side sets to vibrating and ringing from all over.
Now there have been catastrophic events at three corners of the Pacific Plate - one in the northwest, on Friday; one in the southwest, last month; one in the southeast, last year.
That leaves just one corner unaffected - the northeast. And the fault line in the northeast of the Pacific Plate is the San Andreas Fault, underpinning the city of San Francisco. All of which makes the geological community very apprehensive. All know that the San Andreas Fault is due to rupture one day - it last did so in 1906, and strains have built beneath it to a barely tolerable level. To rupture again, with unimaginable consequences for the millions who live above it, some triggering event has to occur. Now three events have occurred that might all be regarded as triggering events. There are in consequence a lot of thoughtful people in the American West who are very nervous indeed. [The last really big quake that occurred on the northeastern rim of the ring of fire occurred in Alaska. That mega-thrust 9.2 earthquake hit at 5:36 P.M. Alaska Standard Time on Good Friday, March 27, 1964, on the day of the full moon. The ground split open, highways buckled, entire buildings collapsed and several tsunamis were generated.]
The shamrocks that grow,
And may trouble avoid you
Wherever you go.**
Irish blessing
HAPPY ST. PADDYS DAY!
LARGEST QUAKES -
This morning -
5.5 VANUATU
6.5 VANUATU
5.2 SOUTH SANDWICH ISLANDS REGION
5.0 OFFSHORE VALPARAI
5.3 OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.3 OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.5 OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.2 OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.7 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.2 OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.0 OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.1 OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
Yesterday -
3/16/11 -
5.2 VALPARAISO, CHILE
5.0 TRINIDAD REGION, TRINIDAD-TOBAGO
5.0 AMURSKAYA OBLAST', RUSSIA
5.0 DOMINICAN REPUBLIC REGION
5.2 FIJI REGION
5.7 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.1 OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.1 OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.3 OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.0 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.0 IZU ISLANDS, JAPAN REGION
5.0 OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.4 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.6 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.0 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.1 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.0 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.1 OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.1 OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.4 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.8 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.8 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.0 OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.0 OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
LATEST JAPAN NEWS -
08:18 -: About 850,000 households in the north are still without electricity in near-freezing weather and at least 1.5 million households lack running water. Heavy snow is also affecting parts of the north-east and hampering rescue efforts.
06:41 - The number of partially or completely destroyed buildings has reached more than 100,000.
04:55 - Japanese government to release salt stockpiles.
04:54 - Radiation level unchanged despite choppers dousing reactor.
04:44 - Salt sold in China is mostly iodised as part of a national policy to prevent iodine deficiency disorders. AFP is reporting a run on the product in shops, partly because shoppers believe it could help ward off the effects of potential radioactivity from Japan's reactors. All the salt was reportedly snapped up within 30 minutes of stores opening today by anxious shoppers. Many customers reported salt prices at shops in the city had risen as much as six-fold. Meanwhile, the Chinese government says the country faces no imminent health threat from the Japanese disaster.
04:01 - Ceiling of Reactor 4 reduced to frame.
03:58 - The US is chartering aircraft to Tokyo help Americans leave Japan
03:55 - Pressure is rising again at Reactor 3. That reactor includes plutonium and uranium in its fuel mix.
03:52 - The temperature of Reactor 5 is now a growing cause for concern, a Japanese official reports. "The level of water in the reactor is lowering and the pressure is rising."
Japan disaster: Fears death toll could exceed 20,000 as nuke crisis looms. Japanese authorities are using helicopters to dump water on stricken reactors at a nuclear power plant as they battle to avert a nuclear catastrophe. Two loads of seawater were dumped on the plant's damaged No. 3 reactor, with the third load dropped on the No. 4 reactor. The helicopters have the capacity to dump 6.8 tonnes of water, but it was unknown how much water they were carrying. Eleven water cannon trucks were also en route to the plant to spray water from the ground onto the No. 3 reactor. Construction may start as soon today on a new power line to connect to the Fukushima plant's water pumps so that workers will be able to cool fuel rods by sending seawater into reactor pressure vessels, containment vessels and storage pools of spent fuel.
Japanese police today lifted the official number of dead and missing from the disaster to nearly 13,000, but there are fears it could top 20,000. The number of confirmed dead stands at 4314, while the official number of missing hit 8606. A total of 2282 people were injured in the disaster. In the coastal town of Ishinomaki the number of missing there was likely to hit 10,000. Around 10,000 people were unaccounted for in the port town of Minamisanriku in the same prefecture. Amid a mass rescue effort there were grim updates indicating severe loss of life along the battered east coast of Honshu island, where the monster waves destroyed or damaged more than 55,380 homes and other buildings.
Australians stranded in Japan are pleading for help to leave the devastated country amid growing fears of a nuclear catastrophe. There are 55 Australians still officially missing, but scores are stranded in areas where radiation levels have soared as the crisis unfolds at Fukushima nuclear power plant. "The infrastructure in that part of Japan now is severely under pressure in terms of electricity, power supply as well as a whole range of other things. Because of these pressures on public infrastructure, we're recommending that Australians should consider departing from Tokyo and those eight affected prefectures.'' Thousands of Australians in TOKYO - where reports put RADIATION AT 20 TIMES THE NORMAL LEVEL - have been urged to consider leaving the Japanese capital. Tokyo was in gridlock with reports thousands were trying to flee amid fears the wind would bring downpours of nuclear rain. Australians in the zone hardest hit by Friday's tsunami have said they are being urged to get out. Without petrol, food and water, many have no chance.
They claim the Australian Government has failed to provide adequate assistance.
US alarm and surprise over Japan atomic crisis - Over the days of the Fukushima crisis, attention has switched from reactor building 1 to 3, to 2, back to 3 - and now, to 4. Reactors 4, 5 and 6 were shut down at the time of Friday's earthquake, with some or all of their fuel rods extracted and left in the cooling ponds that each reactor building has under its roof. Once a reactor is turned off, radioactivity and heat generation in the rods die away quickly; down to 7% of the original power within a second of switch-off, 5% within a minute, 0.5% within a day. Transferred to the cooling pond, allowing technicians to do routine maintenance on the reactor, the rods are supposed to sit quietly until the time comes for their re-insertion or their journey towards disposal. The tops of the rods are supposed to be about 5m (16ft) below the water surface. The water keeps them cool and also blocks radiation.
Over the last few days there have been reports suggesting water levels were low and the water "boiling"; and now the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which has a team of 11 experts advising in Japan, says the pool is completely dry. This means the fuel rods are exposed to the air. Without water, they will get much hotter, allowing radioactive material to escape. More remarkably, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), which owns the power station, has warned: "The possibility of re-criticality is not zero".
If you are in any doubt as to what this means, it is that in the company's view, it is possible that enough fissile uranium is present in the cooling pond in enough density to form a critical mass - meaning that A NUCLEAR FISSION CHAIN REACTION COULD START. The pool lies outside the containment chamber. So if a chain reaction happens, it would lead to the enhanced and sustained release of radioactive materials - though not to a nuclear explosion - with nothing to stop the radioactive particles escaping.
The first event in this chain appears to be that the level of water in the pond fell. Why that should happen is not entirely clear. Was the fuel so hot that it caused an unanticipated amount of evaporation? Did the earthquake somehow crack the building's structure, allowing water to leak out? Did the two fires in the building have an impact? Visually, the building housing reactor 4 is the most damaged on the site - suggesting that reports of the two fires being relatively minor were wide of the mark. Or, did technicians at some point take water from the pond for use in reactor 4's cooling system? There is nothing to say they did; but during the chaos of the weekend, with power systems and options disappearing before their eyes, it might have seemed like a good idea.
Whatever the reason, the rods became hot enough that steam reacted with the zirconium cladding around the fuel rods, generating hydrogen and causing an explosion. The same thing happened earlier in reactor buildings 1, 2 and 3 - except that in building 4, the rods were in the fuel pond, not in a reactor.
The government ordered Tepco to put water back in the pool. But either because of high radiation levels or broken pumps or some other reason, they could not. Wednesday's plan to drop water in from a helicopter - a technique that is used to fight forest fires - had to be scrapped because of concerns about radiation affecting the pilots. Without the water, gamma-rays travel straight up into the air. There are reports that the authorities have asked US military personnel to bring in a water cannon, which would presumably be fired from the ground, aiming to shoot the water in through the broken roof. [ A Japanese military helicopter HAS dumped water from a huge bucket onto the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant.]
The NRC says that in the current dry state, radiation levels from the pond are probably "extremely high", creating a danger to workers at the plant. Still, in principle this should not raise any possibility of resumed criticality. It could depend on how the rods are arranged in the water. The incident has sparked fears of radioactivity in other Asian countries "In some fuel ponds, they dose the water with boric acid at low levels. In some systems they've re-racked the fuel assembly making it possible to put more rods in the pond than it was originally designed for, and then you might put extra sheets of boron in between." Boron and boric acid mop up neutrons, the particles that sustain the chain reaction. In this sort of reactor, water is a crucial component of the fission process. It acts as a moderator - it reduces the speed of the neutrons, meaning they can be captured by uranium nuclei in the fuel rods, inducing them to split. Without water, the neutrons travel too fast, and are not captured.
A scenario that may be unfolding in the cooling pond in building 4: It is just a possibility, because information is scanty; but here it is. If the fuel rods are dry and hot, there could be damage to the cladding and the release of light radioactive nuclei. To prevent that, you would want to inject water. But water on its own is a neutron moderator and would enhance the chances, however small, of criticality. "You're caught between a rock and a hard place."
Now, Tepco is also talking about putting boric acid into the cooling pond of number 4 building.
How closely the rods were packed, whether any boron sheets were in place and if so whether they were damaged by one of the two fires in the building; these are among the many unanswered questions. Meanwhile, the most important task remains to get enough water flowing into reactors 1, 2 and 3 to cool the cores.
Following Tuesday's apparent cracking of the suppression chamber in reactor 2 - a likely cause of the radioactivity spike then seen - there were concerns that the same thing might have occured on Wednesday in reactor 3. However, the latest reports from Japanese news sources suggest reactor 3's containment system is intact. If that proves to be the case, the source of Wednesday's radiation spike remains a mystery. It seems to have been big enough to force technicians to leave the plant.
Clearly, their presence is crucial to stabilising the reactors - and to control the situation in the dry pool in building 4. If they were forced away for long periods, the chances of containing the crisis would fall. "If water is continuously pumped, they could stabilise the position, because the moment when fuel rods are covered with water, the situation is basically stabilised." Tepco sounded a rare optimistic note by saying engineers would soon restore an electrical connection from the national grid - which should allow them to re-start water pumps, provided they have not been damaged by the tsunami or the hydrogen explosions.
While this work continues, so do the questions over the building 4 fuel pond. Re-criticality seems an EXTRAORDINARY THING to contemplate; but if it is not a real possibility, why was such an idea floated by the company itself? The bigger picture, though, is still one of a serious local incident, with minor impacts outside the plant. The US Energy Secretary, however, suggested Fukushima was now more serious than the 1979 Three Mile Island incident in the US - and if contamination does spread outside the immediate area, that will prove to be the case.
As Tokyo resorted to increasingly desperate measures to cool overheated reactors at the stricken Fukushima No.1 plant, the embattled Japanese company that operates the facility said today ITS MAIN PRIORITY WAS TO RESTORE POWER at the complex. "We cannot tell when, but we want to restore the power source as soon as possible."
Construction was to start as soon as today on a new power line to connect to the Fukushima plant's water pumps so that workers will be able to cool fuel rods by sending seawater into reactor pressure vessels, containment vessels and storage pools of spent fuel. The power system - and its emergency diesel-fueled generators - failed when the tsunami hit, about an hour after the 9.0-magnitude earthquake rocked Japan.
Since then, overheating has caused four hydrogen explosions and two fires at the plant as well as a partial meltdown at the No.1, No.2 and No.3 reactors of the six-reactor facility, located about 155 miles (250km) north-east of Tokyo. "Damage to the cores of the three units - units 1, 2 and 3 - has been confirmed. The cores remain uncovered by one or two metres. Japanese authorities had also reported concerns about the spent nuclear fuel pools of reactors No.3 and No.4. Shortly after, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman said that the fuel pool at reactor No.4 had run dry, resulting in "extremely high" radiation levels. "What we believe at this time is there has been a hydrogen explosion in this unit due to an uncovering of the fuel in the spent fuel pool," noting the explosion happened several days ago but its effects were cause for concern. "We believe that secondary containment has been destroyed and there is no water in the spent fuel pool and we believe that radiation levels are extremely high which could possibly impact the ability to take corrective measures."
The deep pools contain used fuel rods which are extremely radioactive and normally kept immersed in cooling water. Unlike the fuel rods that are used in the reactor vessel, the spent rods are not surrounded by a steel-and-concrete containment vessel. If water in the tanks evaporated, the spent rods would be exposed to the air and radioactive material would be released into the atmosphere. The IAEA said that temperatures in spent fuel pools are typically kept below 77 degrees Fahrenheit (25C), but by yesterday, the temperature in the No.4 reactor's tank had risen to 183F (84C). Data was not available for today's temperature. Temperatures in the spent fuel pools at the No.5 and No.6 reactors, which also had not been operating at the time of the twin disasters, had reached at least 140F (60C) by yesterday.
Yesterday, following the cancellation of a helicopter mission to pour water on No.3 reactor due to high radiation levels, a water cannon normally used by riot police arrived at the plant to pump water into the spent fuel pool of No. 4 reactor. Japanese officials planned to use the cannon today.
The US military said it had delivered high-pressure water pumps to Japan to help with the operation at Fukushima and the military was also set to fly one of its drones equipped with infrared sensors over the plant to take pictures so that experts might assess damage.
US soldiers - and now citizens - are not allowed within 50 miles (80km) of the complex based on guidelines issued by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The Pentagon also confirmed some military flight crews were issued with potassium iodide tablets to combat the possible effects of radiation. The Japanese government has thus far only imposed a 12.4-mile (20km) evacuation zone, outside of which Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary said radiation levels posed no immediate health threat.
Meanwhile, panic spread on the ground as millions have been left without water, electricity, fuel or enough food. Hundreds of thousands more were left homeless by the devastation and were dealing with freezing cold and wet weather in the northeast region of Japan. Expatriates and foreigners have been leaving Japan amid the crises - some with encouragement from their employers and embassies. Australia, France, Germany, the UK and other nations have told their citizens to consider leaving the greater Tokyo area, while companies such as BMW and Ikea have helped evacuate their employees out of the capital to either their homelands or to other parts of Japan.
Japan's devastating earthquake and deepening nuclear crisis could result in losses of up to $200 billion for the world's third largest economy but the global impact remains hard to gauge .
TROPICAL STORMS -
No current tropical cyclones.
Tropics get Active in the… South Atlantic! - Every once in a while, a storm forms in the south Atlantic and that is what happened yesterday. The storm, classified as Sub-Tropical Storm Arani, formed off the East Coast of Brazil. Arani is only the third such system to form since Cyclone Catarina formed in the same area back in 2004. Catarina is the ONLY Cyclone to have formed in the South Atlantic. Sub-Tropical Storm Arani has already weakened and will continue to do so as it moves away from the coast of Brazil.
Sub-Tropical storms are different from typical Tropical Storms. Sub-Tropical storms have some characteristics of tropical storms, while having other characteristics of the low pressure systems we deal with in winter. Tropical systems can’t form as easily in the South Atlantic as they can in the North Atlantic, with the primary reason being wind shear. Wind shear is defined as winds moving one way at one level of the atmosphere while higher up the winds are moving in a completely different direction. If there is high wind shear, then thunderstorms are not able to congregate around the center of low pressure and thus no tropical system is able to form. Another reason tropical systems cannot form as easily is because the water temperatures generally aren’t warm enough, between 70 & 75F, while the threshold is usually 80F. (satellite photo)
Arani had the appearance of a tropical cyclone but has been classified as a subtropical cyclone. Subtropical cyclones are low pressure areas that develop with a cold core and transition to a warm core in the mid-levels of the troposphere, resembling a tropical cyclone. They more typically form outside of hurricane season (which is June 1 to Nov. 30 in the Northern Atlantic, for example). They also have broad wind patterns and that means that their maximum sustained winds are usually located farther from the center than a tropical cyclone. They also have no weather fronts linked to them, such as a typical low pressure area that brings summertime storms with an associated cold front. Subtropical cyclones can sometimes become tropical cyclones, and occasionally, tropical cyclones can become subtropical.
Tropical cyclones are very rare in the Southern Atlantic Ocean. In 2004 a cyclone called Catarina formed in the South Atlantic and caused some controversy when it was classified as a hurricane by the United States' National Hurricane Center. Arani is over the open waters of the Southern Atlantic and continues to move east-southeast and farther away from Brazil.
SEVERE RAIN STORMS, FLOODING, LANDSLIDES -
INDONESIA - Extreme Weather Causes Havoc in Jakarta. Extreme weather in the capital on Wednesday saw hail falling from the sky, trees uprooted, widespread surface flooding and damage to the exclusive Senayan City in South Jakarta. Hail falls on RARE occasions in Jakarta during the transition between the wet and dry seasons. “It is also triggered by extreme weather like we are experiencing now." Trees had also blown over throughout the capital. Heavy winds also caused panels from the outside of Senayan City mall to peel away from the building. The ceiling to the Brewhouse cafe on the ground floor also collapsed. There were a number of shocked customers but no injuries.The hailstorm caused damage to buildings in the Senopati area in South Jakarta. The thumb-sized hail broke windows. The hailstorm lasted for about 15 minutes. And was followed by strong winds that lasted for 10 minutes.
