Japan: 9.0 Earthquake-Tsunami-Nuclear Reactor Developments #3

[Trident]

-Updates with Minor New Info Throughout --Emergency Crews Spray Reactor 3 With Water Cannon --Crews Had Temporarily Withdrawn Cannon Due To High Radiation Levels --PM Kan and President Obama Agree to Cooperate on Crisis in Phone Call --Decision to Proceed on Water Spraying, Dumping Despite High Radiation --Nuclear Offl: Need to Prevent Same Thing Happened Last Two Reactors --U.S.-Japan Disagree on Details of Danger --Radiation Levels Higher 20 Kilometers From Fukushima
http://www.automatedtrader.net/real...rews-begin-spraying-reactor-with-water-cannon

What exactly has happened to the other four reactors?
Levels are higher 20 km out...would someone please define higher?
If the levels outside the plant are dropping, why did they have to withdraw the cannon?
And from the last article I linked, is there any way that one of our smart people can clue us in on a guess at the actual radiation levels above the plant? If the crews can only stay up there 40 minutes at a time to remain within safe levels, then what are they really looking at there?TIA if anyone can answer that.
ETA: And I wonder if they mean the original safe limits or their new, improved, handy dandy safe limits.

Handy dandy safe limits, end of the world, or nothing to see here, move on scenarios are just about meaningless to me right now. I've shed tears and tears, but I'm not sure for whom or what.

At the end of this there will be dead people, lots of them, leaked radiation - but not enough, according to "they", to do any damage away from the disaster site. People will mourn, cancers will come and go over the years, and life will go on. As soon as this is over, no matter what happens (unless the world blows up), this will be relegated to history, an accident, a learning experience.

I'm asking myself why I'm bothering to follow this and cry. In the long run, I'm not sure it will make a difference except for the families of the victims.

Maybe right now I'm too skeptical, but in the long run, who really cares except the little people who suffer the brunt of decisions made in higher places?

I think I'm close to a melt down.

 

[not_my_kids]

Sorry, for posting again, but this headline burns my biscuits.

Kan’s Deputy Edano Gives Up Sleep to Provide the Latest on Nuclear Crisis

I can't even paraphrase this because every line makes me want to spit. Literally spit. But I'll highlight the best phrases, and as I do, I aks you all to remember that the citizens of the very country he is so dedicated to are sleeping in school gyms, outside, or standing in line in the snow waiting to be scanned for radiation. At the best, they are laying in bed in houses that may not have working utilities, considering whether they will have the food to make it through the day...Anyway, the best points of this travesty of an article:

...he embodies Kan’s strategy of transparency. (Spit)
snip
“He is truly giving everything he can as the government’s spokesman,” said independent political analyst Hirotada Asakawa in Tokyo. “Every day, several times a day, he’s up there in front of the press. Whenever the post-Kan era begins, he’ll be a candidate to replace him.” (Nice. Everything's a campaign.)
snip
When he became finance minister in 2010, a post he held for six months before assuming the premiership, he vowed more openness in Japan’s most powerful ministry.(Yeah, the lies are certainly transparent.)
snip
“I think we’ve gotten more information out of the Kan administration than you would have out of a U.S. administration or a British administration or a French administration partly because they’re new at it,” said Steven R. Reed, a political science professor at Chuo University in Tokyo. (Really? Doesn't matter if it's misleading manufactured information, now does it?)
snip
Edano slept at Kan’s residence for four straight nights before going to his official home on March 15. Asked about it the next day, he shrugged it off.

“The people in the disaster zone are the ones who are truly suffering,” he told reporters yesterday. “There are lots of people telling us ‘it’s important to make the right decisions.’ The prime minister hasn’t gone home either and we’re all on sort of a rotation.” (Is it anything like the rotation the real leaders and heroes are on right now? Thought not.)
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-...-to-provide-the-latest-on-nuclear-crisis.html

BLECH!!!

 

[nursebeeme]

Japanese police have failed in their attempt to use water canon to cool the No.3 reactor at the quake-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

The high-pressure water did not reach the reactor and the police squad has now evacuated to a safety zone.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/17_34.html

 

[not_my_kids]

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/17/japan-quake-live-blog-obama-pledges-u-s-support/

Reactor cooldown, in ten minutes or less! Impressive...if it had had any effect.

 

[nursebeeme]

Reactor cooldown, in ten minutes or less! Impressive...if it had had any effect.

according to nhk (just posted above) it failed to even reach the reactor.... :-(

 

[nursebeeme]

having trouble finding a really good link.... but reuters is saying per tepco friday will be the first day that electricity may be restored to the nuclear plant

 

[nursebeeme]

A Tepco official has told a press conference in Japan that radiation levels at the site soon after 9.30 am were at 3,750 millisieverts per hour, Ian Sample has just told me. "These are absolutely dangerous levels," Ian said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/mar/17/japan-nuclear-crisis-tsunami-aftermath

 

[nursebeeme]

The radiation level rose at the troubled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant Thursday evening after the Self-Defense Forces' fire trucks began shooting high-pressure streams of water at its crisis-hit No. 3 reactor, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said.

The level around the plant's administration building rose to 4,000 microsievert per hour from 3,700 after the trucks joined an unprecedented attempt to cool down the reactor's apparently overheating fuel pool, after SDF helicopters dropped tons of water earlier in the day.

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/78999.html

 

[nursebeeme]

Japan's nuclear agency says military will start to drop water on no. 2 reactor at Fukushima nuclear power plant.

http://twitter.com/SkyNewsBreak

 

[nursebeeme]

Injuries or Contamination at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant

Based on a press release from the Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary dated 16 March 2011, the IAEA can confirm the following information about human injuries or contamination at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Please note that this list provides a snapshot of the latest information made available to the IAEA by Japanese authorities. Given the fluid situation at the plant, this information is subject to change.

Injuries

2 TEPCO employees have minor injuries
2 subcontractor employees are injured, one person suffered broken legs and one person whose condition is unknown was transported to the hospital
2 people are missing
2 people were 'suddenly taken ill'
2 TEPCO employees were transported to hospital during the time of donning respiratory protection in the control centre
4 people (2 TEPCO employees, 2 subcontractor employees) sustained minor injuries due to the explosion at unit 1 on 11 March and were transported to the hospital
11 people (4 TEPCO employees, 3 subcontractor employees and 4 Japanese civil defense workers) were injured due to the explosion at unit 3 on 14 March
Radiological Contamination

17 people (9 TEPCO employees, 8 subcontractor employees) suffered from deposition of radioactive material to their faces, but were not taken to the hospital because of low levels of exposure
One worker suffered from significant exposure during 'vent work,' and was transported to an offsite center
2 policemen who were exposed to radiation were decontaminated
Firemen who were exposed to radiation are under investigation
The IAEA continues to seek information from Japanese authorities about all aspects of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/tsunamiupdate01.html

 

[Steely Dan]

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/17/japan.nuclear.reactors/index.html?iref=NS1


The water in the fuel pool served to both cool the uranium fuel and shield it. But once the uranium fuel was no longer covered by water, the zirconium cladding that encases the fuel rods heated, generating hydrogen, said Robert Alvarez, senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies and a former official with the Department of Energy.

That caught fire, resulting in a situation that is "very, very serious," he told CNN.

He said the next step may involve the remaining 180 nuclear plant workers taking heroic acts.

"This is a situation where people may be called in to sacrifice their lives," Alvarez said. " It's very difficult for me to contemplate that but it's, it may have reached that point."

Wow! I hope it doesn't come to that.

 

[nursebeeme]

FLASH: Japan nuclear agency: pool for cooling spent nuclear fuel at no.4 plant remains 'serious concern'

http://twitter.com/Reuters/statuses/48363268879810560

this all the while that the focus is on 2 and 3.....(( water cannons and the like))

 

[nursebeeme]

12.47pm: CNN's Tokyo correspondent Kyung Lah tweets:

@KyungLahCNN Quake just now at 21:32 (8:32amET) had a preliminary reading of 5.8, with the epicenter being eastern Chiba, no tsunami warning issued

12.41pm: Lots of reports of an earthquake occurring just now in Chiba, east of Tokyo.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/mar/17/japan-nuclear-crisis-tsunami-aftermath

 

[nursebeeme]

Plant operator TEPCO has announced it will recommence helicopter water drops tomorrow in an attempt to cool Reactor No.3.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/world/magnit...an/story-e6frfkyi-1226019903430#ixzz1GrWMRKJH

also mentions 5.8 quake in Chiba, east of Tokyo

 

[not_my_kids]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/mar/17/japan-nuclear-crisis-tsunami-aftermath

Re: Quake
5.6M at 12:32 (UTC) off the Eastern Coast of Honshu
http://www.hewsweb.org/seismic/

 

[nursebeeme]

12.56pm: @TepcoDisaster tweets: "Power cable to the #Fukushima Daiichi No.1 Nuclear power plant is connected."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/mar/17/japan-nuclear-crisis-tsunami-aftermath

 

[nursebeeme]

FLASH: U.N. atomic watchdog chief says situation at Japan's quake-hit nuclear plant remains very serious

http://twitter.com/Reuters/statuses/48369687205122048

 

[nursebeeme]

http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Asia/Story/STIStory_646210.html

I got the above link from cnn live update page... it is a translated blog written by one of the plant workers.

 

[wfgodot]

Guardian lunchtime summary:

• Some 850,000 households in the north of Japan are without electricity in near-freezing weather.

• A power cable has been reconnected to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, according to Tokyo Electric Power Company.

• Tepco has said the earlier water shots were successful in cooling a spent fuel pool.

• Another earthquake has hit the east coast of Japan.

details on each at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/mar/17/japan-nuclear-crisis-tsunami-aftermath

 

[nursebeeme]

• Some 850,000 households in the north of Japan are without electricity in near-freezing weather. The death toll from the earthquake and tsunami is expected to exceed 10,000. Water supplies are disrupted in the worst hit areas, and food and fuel is struggling to reach the disaster zone.

• A power cable has been reconnected to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, according to Tokyo Electric Power Company. It is unclear if the plant has electricity yet, however, with Tepco saying more work is needed "to restore electricity equipment" tomorrow.

• Tepco has said the earlier water shots were successful in cooling a spent fuel pool. However the company did not say if the efforts were successful in cooling all the pools. It says it will continue to use helicopters and water cannon on Friday.

• Another earthquake has hit the east coast of Japan. It registered at 4 on the Japanese intensity scale of 0-7 in the Chiba prefecture, but no tsunami warning has been issued.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/mar/17/japan-nuclear-crisis-tsunami-aftermath

red by me.... I already heard the truth on that from the IAEA Tepco... I aint no sheeple!