8.9 earth quake + tsunami in Japan

Seth · 03-13-2011, 10:08 AM

My friend in osaka said she didn't feel much of a shake when it happened. She was in a cafe and the tables were rattling a bit. Anyway, I'm so nervous about the meltdown situation. Another of my friends is living at a ski hill kind of west from Tokyo. Its so crazy to think about what's potentially another Chernobyl in progress.
People are worried on the west coast, (vancouver) because of the current heading directly over here.
Something seems amiss over their backup plan for the Fukishima plant. Some safety shortfalls on their nuclear industry's behalf?
fuuuuck there's so many people close to there. What a nightmare

Vampyr · 03-13-2011, 10:57 AM

Quote:

Something seems amiss over their backup plan for the Fukishima plant. Some safety shortfalls on their nuclear industry's behalf?

I keep thinking this. Everything I have heard so far about the plant has been really light on the actual details. I think most people are content enough to think "oh, it's nuclear, that stuff is dangerous", but plants typically are so well engineered and have so many safety fail safes in place that something like this shouldn't happen.

Angrist · 03-13-2011, 01:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seth

People are worried on the west coast, (vancouver) because of the current heading directly over here.

Didn't the tsunami hit the Americas a few days ago? It barely did any damage.

The nuclear plant has me confused. How hard can it be to cool those reactors? All they need is a) water, b) electricity and c) rerouting of those two.
But I assume they're doing their best there.

In the beginning they were talking about how a couple of hundred people died. I found it hard believe it was so low... Sendai had a million inhabitants! Where did they all go? I figured there had to be thousands of deaths. And indeed now they are talking about more than 10.000.

Teuthida · 03-13-2011, 04:15 PM

Before and after satellite shots of the tsunami destruction.

Vampyr · 03-13-2011, 05:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Angrist

Didn't the tsunami hit the Americas a few days ago? It barely did any damage.

He means currents carrying radiation, I believe.