Earthquake in Japan

[Simpleboy]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/47...ter-earthquake

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/w...ow/7678342.cms

We've seen some shocking videos of buildings being swept away by the tsunami. I cant imagine how bad it must be there knowing it was so much worse than the 7.1 and 6.3 we've had the fun of experiencing.

My thoughts go out to all those affected by this.

[eTang]

Sendai Airport flooded by the Tsunami after the Earth Quake

Sendai Airport flooded by the Tsunami after the Earth Quake:

picture:
http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fo...e-65598-6.html


All the best to the victims in all the region!

[DAIRD]

Where have the planes been, when the flood came? I've seen no aircraft, only docks and a lot of water rushing in.

[eTang]

Where have the planes been, when the flood came? I've seen no aircraft, only docks and a lot of water rushing in.

I asked my self the same question.


Here's a video of the actual flooding moments:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeJinkzoU5U

.

[Simpleboy]

What really gets to me about this is stories like the following

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-...ake-hit-japan/

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...72A24Q20110311

I have little doubt in my mind that had this earthquake appeared on land, this tale would read a lot more pleasantly.

[bradhig]

There is footage of ceiling tiles falling inside an airport I don't know if it was the same one that got flooded.

[B757300]

I sure would like to know more about the design of these reactors and other support system. Don’t they have redundant on-site backup generators and cooling system?

The reactor that is giving them the most trouble is a 40 year old design. Probably not all that dissimilar from the one at Three Mile Island. (I used TMI as an example simply because it is well known.) The problem with the reactor is not a design issue, but a loss of all the safety systems.

As for backup, the diesel generators that were supposed to power the cooling pumps were knocked out by the tsunami. This is what started the real problem as they lost the ability to cool the reactors, and even after an emergency SCRAM, the things stay very hot and require continual cooling.

Oddly enough, the troublesome reactor was scheduled for decommissioning very soon due to its age.

If I hear one more idiot say we're heading for "another Chernobyl," I am going to lose it. A Chernobyl event CANNOT happen at these types of power plants, they are of completely different designs. You cannot have a run away thermal event like they did at Chernobyl. The RBMK reactors had serious design deficiencies and this allowed Reactor #4 at Chernobyl to go boom, due to the operators screwing around with it in ways they should never have attempted.

And a "meltdown" has really become a catchall term for almost any type of event at a nuclear power plant. The real, simplified definition is when some or all of the reactor's core melts. It does not mean it burns through the containment structure or through the Earth to the other side (Which BTW is impossible, despite the idiot movie), although in theory it could breech the containment structure. Three Mile Island suffered a meltdown, but the system worked as designed and contained the nuclear material.

CNN, Fox, MSNBC, Drudge, etc. are doing their best to make it sound like it is Chernobyl x1000, and that is irresponsible journalism to the extreme.

[BoeingKing77]

What happened at Chernobyl?

[Simpleboy]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster

Basically, a power surge caused some explosions and prevented the ability to call the reaction and slow it down. Parts of the plant caught fire spreading radiation all over parts of Europe.

Im assuming you've played Call of Duty 4, Modern Warfare, The level All Ghillied up is set in Pripyat which was entirely abandoned due to the radiation from the disaster.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pripyat,_Ukraine



According to
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/47...latest-updates

This event isnt rated as bad as the three mile island incident in the US, however, with future aftershocks and such you never really know.

[Deadstick]

I would guess the size of generator they would need would not be liftable by any helicopter. There may be nowhere to safely land even if so, and getting non contaminated fuel would be an issue.

[Simpleboy]

and then ATFS what standards do you propose for these places?

I've noticed in a few threads where something has failed you've very quickly blamed the engineers who designed the structure when all they do is design to the standards that someone else sets.

Example, in NZ, likewise with California, we build our structures to withstand about 0.9g Peak Ground Acceleration as the maximum expected PGA is about 0.5-0.6g, and then we have various factors of safety. In the Februaruy 22nd earthquake we just had (6.3 Magnitude), we had PGA of 2.20g in some suburbs, and 0.57-1.88g in the city (source Geonet.org.nz) and many buildings have collapsed. Is that bad engineering?

Wikipedia has the PGA in this earthquake measure at .35g, though no idea how accurate it is and this is most likely in the cities away from the epicentre, but it makes me feel very much like Japan could have easily coped with this earthquake on land.

[Simpleboy]

So George Bush had a history of no new civil engineering projects in America and instead only focused on repairing and maintaining existing structures? I think blaming him would then be a much more reasonable thing, since he was in office 8 years to Obamas 2.

A problem with tsunami's is its a far more unknown threat, this was a 9.0 magnitude event which has caused a 5-10m tsunami, however, we can go back to the 1993 Hokkaido earthquake, which was a 7.7 which created a tsunami of over 50m.(source)

Large earthquakes happen much more frequently than large tsunamis and we understand them much better and how to design structures accordingly. Our standards are to more recent events, not because we dont think that a larger event will happen, but because its very difficult to determine standards from hearsay. Like i said in my previous post in earthquakes buildings are designed to the peak ground acceleration because this is what causes them to try and topple over. CHC's recent quake was off the scale in terms of PGA, and had we not had the tools to measure it there's no way we'd know how much worse it was relative to the building codes. Because lets face it, no one can sit at home in such an event and go, hmm, i think im accelerating at 15.8ms^-2 and be right.

So ATFS back to my original question, what standards do you propose for places like this? (tsunami wise)

[LH-B744]

Where have the planes been, when the flood came? I've seen no aircraft, only docks and a lot of water rushing in.

Good evening ladies and gents. I was just watching a German news tv special concerning THE numerous earthquakes and THE nuclear power plants in Japan and THE tsunamis in Japan. Everything plural, no mistake in that...


The next German news tv special concerning Japan that I'll be watching will be at 21:45 pm local...

So what are the results so far...
One big German airline has temporarily stopped all flights to Narita.
The second biggest German TV company has moved their people out of Tokyo. And I would've done that, too, if I was an employee in Tokyo.
...
The only thing that I can say, we wish a good portion of luck to all Japanese in Japan, and of course, to all non-Japanese in Japan.

Edit: Sendai is not such a big airport, maybe there was no traffic in the moment of the tsunami, or all pilots were watching the wave prior to the planned landing? There are some airports in Japan for diversion...

[philip]

So what are the results so far...
One big German airline has temporarily stopped all flights to Narita.
The second biggest German TV company has moved their people out of Tokyo. And I would've done that, too, if I was an employee in Tokyo.
...

I don't intend to be offensive but the results of the quake you mention are really not newsworthy. Who cares about LH not flying to Narita at the moment or what German employees do in Japan given the current (nuclear) situation. This topic is not about German issues.

Where have the planes been, when the flood came? I've seen no aircraft, only docks and a lot of water rushing in.

I guess airlines made it out of Sendai in time. Does anyone know what JASDF bases are affected? I have seen TV images of several Mitsubishi F-2 (F-16) fighters and T-4 trainers hit by the wave.

[HalcyonDays]

I guess airlines made it out of Sendai in time.

How could they possibly have done that ? They only had 20-30 minutes between the earthquake and the arrival of the tsunami.