Earthquake in Japan

[BoeingKing77]

Why are you picking on Fox news? Most of the other stations were much more hysterical. Fox news seem to have the most balanced coverage; they had guests that had several different opinions across a large spectrum. Which is much more than you can say for the mainstream media. It's strange that you chastise Fox, yet Fox had a broader spectrum of opinions then the mainstream media. You still never did answer my question.

And yet Fox News probably still thinks that Obama was born in Kenya instead of Hawaii.

[B757300]

Japanese Declare Crisis at Level of Chernobyl

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703841904576256742249147126.html

The nuclear disaster in Japan apparently has escalated and has turned out worse than what most had thought and possibly what officials were afraid to would admit.

Apparently they weren’t able to restore cooling power in time. I’m suspicious that when they added coolant, that the sudden change in temperature may have shattered the containment.

Now they're over reacting instead of under reacting.

Chernobyl released at least 10 times more radiation (due to the burning graphite smoke) and probably over 100 times more and it killed or sickened dozens within hours or days of the event. Neither has happened at Fukushima.

Most of the radiation from Fukushima has been in the water rather than airborne, where as Chernobyl was spewing into the atmosphere for weeks on end.

IIRC, the higher they up the level, the more international $$$ they have access to. Level 6 is where it should be, not 7.

[B757300]

Why are you picking on Fox news? Most of the other stations were much more hysterical. Fox news seem to have the most balanced coverage; they had guests that had several different opinions across a large spectrum. Which is much more than you can say for the mainstream media. It's strange that you chastise Fox, yet Fox had a broader spectrum of opinions then the mainstream media. You still never did answer my question.

I'm not "picking" on Fox News. I am criticizing their decision to give a bunch of anti-nuclear hysterics countless hours of free airtime to spew their agenda.

Stop sticking up for Fox News because they are Fox. They are not perfect. They are simply less flawed than the rest.

[LH-B744]

Japan can be reached via.. jet, as I speak about me and Northern Europeans.

But black rain was not only the result of Tschernobyl, this will happen or already happens in Japan today. They suffer from a lack of healthy water.

I think, Japan is far far away, but on the other hand, it's only a nonstop flight of x hours, and maybe that's not your favourite destination for the next two weeks, if that's not a professional duty for you.

[aardvark2zz]

If you want to experience the peak acceleration (0.5g) that the Japanese reactors experienced, just accelerate your car from 0 to 100 km/hr in 5.6 seconds (or just brake from 100 km/hr to 0 in 5.6 s).

That's 5 times the typical amount while driving downtown, in a bus, or in a subway.

Enough to throw you onto the floor if you're standing up.
.

[B757300]

While that may be true for the mainstream media; Fox and conservative talk radio are pointing out that virtually all of the mainstream media are hysterical and making inaccurate and reckless reports. Though I think some of Fox and conservative talk radio may be discounting the nuclear threat too much.

Actually Fox had some of the worst people on. Several from Riverkeepers, Ploughshares, Beyond Nuclear, etc., all very anti-nuclear group, as well as other anti-nuclear activist organizations. I saw only two nuclear engineers during the first 3 days after it became apparent there was a serious problem at the reactors. (I don't count the guy who quit GE 40 years ago, now claiming it was in protest. He has been working against nuclear power since and clearly had an ax to grind.) Only after it became clear that this could not be "another Chernobyl," much the the media's disappointment, did they start having real experts on, people who have actually worked in the nuclear power industry, not ones who spend all their time trying to shut it down.

If you look at the funding of these anti-nuclear groups which have been exploiting the tragedy in Japan, almost every single one is heavily funded by one man, George Soros.

[B757300]

Plutonium reactor thought to be breached.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haBovPouOU8

The bozo who named that video needs to be beat down. The very crap I was talking about earlier.

Just like yesterday the headline was that they have "lost" the reactors because they are too damaged to be fixed.

The reactors were "lost" the minute they began pumping in sea water. Regardless of what happens later, it would have to be completely removed and rebuilt to ever be operational again. Anything else other than pure water will damage a nuclear reactor, and the more contaminated the water, the worse the damage.

If they lost primary containment, which is only speculation at this point, the secondary containment has system did its job and will keep the damaged fuel in place. Once it has solidified, it can be removed. Reactors have melted down before, and been successfully decommissioned afterwards, with the sites cleaned up. These concrete domes are built to withstand a full steam detonation within the reactor and contain it, and the floor is up to 24 feet thick.

Take a pot of boiling water, then turn the fire off. It takes a while to cool off. Now take that same pot of boiling water and poor it onto the floor. It will cool very quickly as it is spread out over a very wide area. The exact same principle applies to nuclear fuel.

Also, all it would take is a small crack in the vessel allow water to escape, and that could be as much of a breech as has occurred. Unless these talking head experts, many of whom are actually anti-nuclear activists who have no expertise in the field of nuclear engineering/physics, have actually gone inside to take a look, they really cannot say with any certainty what has happened, but make the worst case prediction and every media outlet will run with it.

If I see one more dumbass scream "Chernobyl!" or "China Syndrome!" I swear I am going to lose my dinner.

[philip]

See, thats why I wrote it is not intended to be offensive. Obviously you overread this sentence.
There are many more disturbing results of the quake than LH stopping flights and German employees' situation. In my opinion it is not the most important and interesting news at this time bearing in mind how this desaster is developing. One could think it is a little ridiculing to only mention two points which affect German citizens - talk about thinking international

Besides that I agree with you, this topic also is not about Austrians but I fail to see where I made such a claim or what I should be jealous of. (?)

[LH-B744]

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.

Do you think from now until midnight or don't you?

This topic is not about Austrian issues. AND this topic is not the place for you to be jealous. LH flights are not only for Japanese. And not only for Austrians.

You better stop posting if you are not able to think international.

[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.

[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.

[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...

[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)

[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.

[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.