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Kid_Kyoto wrote:http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fgw-japan-quake-volcano-20110314,0,2486939.story

Earthquake, tsunami, radiation and now a volcano. that's all 4 elements accounted for.

Let's just start calling this the Kobayashi Maru disaster.

as a major Star Trek nerd this made me chuckle for a long time.

I'm trying to project positive thoughts for all of the folks over there. My cousin and her family are living north of Tokyo (thought they were in Okinawa), and are thankfully fine. I really hope all of the people in the northwest get aid asap, they really need it!

every time we sit together for meals we have the radio on and when the news are up even my young kids are quiet and now they can say things like meltdown and earthquake...and they have a very grave expression in their faces....and they are both 5 and 3 years only old...

seems there were again major aftershocks in the last hours acording to our news...

i hope the needed suplies of the reliefteams arrive soon to easy some of the worries of the japanese

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12733393

Doesn't look like things are getting much better.

Now comes the really bad part. For the first few days there's still hope but now you get facts like this:

"About 2,000 bodies were found washed ashore on beaches in Miyagi prefecture, police said."

Yeah, I read about that too. It's so awful.

Reports of a third blast at the station now; things are going from bad to worse there; i've got a feeling that something is going to happen.

There are also fears that low level radiation could reach Tokyo in a matter of hours after radiation levels skyrocketed.

The radiation cloud already hit Tokyo...

...muscles changing...psychic powers enhancing....heart racing...skin dripping....

A lot of the stuff in the Western media is disaster porn for sure. Especially the volcano story in Kyushu. Some of what I'm getting from the outside seems to be rather dubious in some instances. Like the Japanese expert live in Studio in Beijing with a horrible Chinese-Japanese accent, etc.

Some good news though, they found a 4 month old girl alive and well in the rumble. There is still some hope out there for survivors. At least the weather hasn't gotten all gakky. But, now there is a run on toilet paper and other essentials.

Khornholio wrote:Some good news though, they found a 4 month old girl alive and well in the rumble. There is still some hope out there for survivors. At least the weather hasn't gotten all gakky. But, now there is a run on toilet paper and other essentials.

From my experiences in Tokyo's public restrooms, there was never any toilet paper in japan.

That's often the case.

MY wife reports people are being rather selfish in the supermarkets.

She went out for food, tried three different shops, which were empty.

In the third shop they were baking a new batch of bread. People queued up. As soon as the new batch was put out, the people at the front of the queue took lots of loaves each and most people had to go without.

IMO shops should be rationing essentials so that everyone has a chance. They do it for videogames.

Kilkrazy wrote:IMO shops should be rationing essentials so that everyone has a chance. They do it for videogames.

I'm honestly surprised to hear that they haven't.

While the shopping situation is pretty pathetic, at least there hasn't been any sign that I've seen of price gouging.

Nuke plant went bad. Real bad.
Radiation sickness happened among citizen,JSDF(Japan Self Defence Force) men,US army men.
JSDF men & US men are working at Nuke Plant. Hope they become OK.

Electricity condition are bad.Plant rolling blackout are going.

And Aftershock,magnitude 6.0 one happend at near Mt.Fuji.
I felt big shock.

I hope the wind will blow most radiation out to sea.


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The BBC reports that radiation levels are now falling.

Mrs Kyoto is safe at home where we only have to worry about terrorists, muggers and fast food.

She's saying the Japanese press is self-censoring about the nuclear story which is even scarier than the US media's fear mongering.

This is looking to get ugly real quick, and I hope it really does not as it would be the worse catastrophy of many that have happened recently.

The nuclear plants are definitely concerning, I agree. There has definitely been a significant radiation release, which has already been detected in the Tokyo area. In fact, the US Navy's 7th Fleet (the operational command responsible for the US Navy's ships in the Western Pacfic, headquartered in Yokosuka, Japan) has sent out the following press release:

[quote = 7th Fleet Facebook Page]At approximately 0700 local (Japan) time, sensitive instrumentation on USS GEORGE WASHINGTON (CVN 73) pier-side in Yokosuka, detected low levels of radioactivity from the Fukushima Dai-Ichi Nuclear Power Plant. While there is no danger to the public, Commander, Naval Forces Japan is recommending limited precautionary measures for personnel on Fleet Activities Yokosuka and Naval Air Facility Atsugi, including:



A. Limiting outdoor activities.

B. Securing external ventilation systems as much as practical.



These measures are strictly precautionary in nature. We do not expect that any United States Federal radiation exposure limits will be exceeded even if no precautionary measures are taken. We are continuing to analyze the situation and will update you as we learn more.



Please "Like" U.S. 7th Fleet to ensure you receive future updates in your news feed
.

According to BBC News, workers have been shifted after radiation levels spiked. The metaphorical gak being metaphorically flung by metaphorical monkeys at a metaphorical fan could metaphorically hit at some point.

We just had another 6.0 quake about an hour ago. There was one last night in Shizuoka city (close to Mt.Fuji). Yesterday was pretty quiet on the Earthquake front, but today isn't. If Fuji goes, we're all toast and archeologists will make plaster casts of our last moments a la Pompeii. I'm debating on Devil's horns or middle fingers. Maybe one of each?

there is no price gouging going on and stores are now limiting how much you can buy after the toilet paper fiasco of yesterday. Train service is back, but at 75% ish.

The Power plant...i heard they had stored spent rods on-site. They're going to have to ask the US military for help on this one. Maybe we'll get to see some new tech.

So far radiation limits where I live are totally normal at 1.5units of whatever it is. All the newbs, tourists and rookies are splitting the country. I'm going on vacation next week to Nepal, so I can wait until then to leave.

Do both on the same hand which will really baffle the archeologisists

Sheesh it never seems to let up!
Has the food situation improved, even if slightly now the shops are doing the sensible thing?

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:Do both on the same hand which will really baffle the archeologisists

The SHOCKER!

Here food is OK, but in some places the elderly are descending on shops like bicycle riding locusts buying everything they can get their hands on.

Me and the old lady are set for food for at least 6 weeks if it comes to that. There is no shortage of beer in any store that I frequent. Toilet paper was an issue yesterday, but everyhting is fine today.

Washlet for the win!


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Except in a power cut, of course.


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The latest news from Mrs Kilkrazy is that you have to queue for about 30 minutes outside the supermarket. They only let 10 people in at a time.

Stuff is being rationed but people are still needing two baskets to carry their stuff to the till, so I'm not sure how tight the rationing is. The essentials seem to be available anyway, and the main problem is how to cope with panic buying.

This is in Kanagawa prefecture, southwest of Tokyo. Obviously conditions are far, far worse in places like Sendai which took a direct hit from the tsunami.



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^^

KEEP
CARM
AND
CALLY
ON

I do tech support and my company has a japan office. All out employees are okay and we are doing employee donation that our company is matching. We have been kept really up to date an this entire event.


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all *our*

The fallout should blow out to sea, but that's the kicker. Radiation may not dissipate in water as fast as in the air, that and the jet stream can carry it to California. The best outcome is if nothing happens, but I doubt that is possible now.

I doubt anything will happen in my lifetime - I'm confident that the next generations will fix the problems the previous generations dumped on us.

Either that or they learn the vital life lesson of survivng various states of superweather, such as nuclear and volcanic winters.

WORST WEEK EVER.

I have to say, ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, if fossil fuels are drying up, and this is what we have to look forward to from Nuclear power....maybe we should just go back to burning coal for everything. I prefer smog to nuclear plumes, and with the abundance of coal...seem like a more tolerable "lose/lose situation"

I genuinely hope things get better for you guys as quick as possible. I've overheard some pretty unsympathetic comments at work about the problems in Japan (which bothers me). I think its a shame that 75% of Americans in the southern states make the "we can take care of them, but we cant take care of our own people" comments.

Edit: took out unnecessary "venting" about my coworkers' comments about the situation.

i hope that all you people out in japan are ok as can be exspected mt thorts and prayers go out to you. i am keeping my fingers crossed that the nuke plant dont go in to full meltdown.

Killystar Guldakktica wrote:I have to say, ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, if fossil fuels are drying up, and this is what we have to look forward to from Nuclear power....maybe we should just go back to burning coal for everything. I prefer smog to nuclear plumes, and with the abundance of coal...seem like a more tolerable "lose/lose situation"

What are you smoking? I'm really curious to know, because man, no one could be this stupid without a LOT of help.

Ignorance this extreme deserves at least a couple good sentences of complete excoriation to make sure you never say or think anything like that again, but I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt that you're willing to learn, and not kick you when you're down.

First, PERSPECTIVE: Courtesy of the American Lung Association - 13,000 people died last year due to coal pollution.

Second, this forty year old nuke plant, that was scheduled for decommissioning anyways, has killed... how many people? And when you tally that up, note how many of those came after it make it through the 4th worst earthquake in recorded history. After which, it was struck by what you could accurately describe as 'the hammer of god,' which beat it up enough it started leaking at the seams.

Third, let's stroll on over to the Nippon oil refinery - but not too close! It's been burning ever since the earthquake. In fact, when the quake hit, what happened? It exploded, with enough force to immediately kill anyone within something like 200 meters. How many people was that? Dunno, it's still on fire, pouring toxic chemicals into the air in a plume visible from space. How many oil, natural gas, or coal disasters have we have had over the last twenty years, and what have their casualty tallies been, vs how many nuclear? I can think of two cities that were nuclear bombed, that are currently completely normal, metropolitan areas. Meanwhile, there's a ghost town in Pennsylvania situated above a coal mine fire that's been burning since 1962, and that's just in the US...

Fourth. let's look at the release of radioactive materials (unfortunately, this is where people are going to want sources sited, so links are going to have to follow as I research them). Although there are only trace amounts of radioactive elements in any given volume of coal, over the course of a year, so much of it is burned that a coal plant produce 15 times more radioactive waste than the same output nuclear plant. Worse, unlike the nuclear plant which produces solid waste, in a coal plant, it's burned, the nuclear waste released as ash and smoke.

Good news everyone!

Engineers have managed to lay a 1km power cable to Fukushima's reactor 2 in plans to restart the coolant pumps and start the process of properly cooling the the current rods and the spent ones.

There's still a large risk that stuff could go pear-shaped, but at least it's progress: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12779512