Anyone in Japan? Tsunami alert - any more news ? PLEASE

[RatherBeOnThePiste]

DH who gets these things has had a tsunami alert for Japan. Does anyone have any more info? Itsjust breaking news about the massive earthquake at the moment.

Fire is always the biggest worry in Japan after an earthquake. A lot of older houses are still traditional wooden ones, and modern ones are frequently wood-framed with prefab panels. They are still built very close together in cities.

People cook with gas, often using gas cannisters outside the main cities, and kerosene room heaters are still very common - central heating is rare in Japan. So a lot of houses will have naked flames and cans of kerosene around.

Plus of course electrical fires can easily start if a house and wiring is damaged during a quake, and broken gas pipes would also be a problem. Most places now have systems to automatically shut off the gas supply in a quake, but if it is bad enough, I'm sure there would be leaks and other problems.

exexpat - I did wonder why there were so many fires when the wave first hit. I just saw the video on Sky of the city on fire. It did indeed look very bad.

I also see the Japanese Govt have said there might be a 'small nuclear leak' from the nuclear plant with the pressure problem. Not good.

Apparently they are going to release radioactive vapour to ease pressure. That's starting to sound like last resort territory.

That doesn't sound good , I hope they have increased the 2k evacuation zone .

Just heard on US news that the US airforce are flying in more coolant. This sounds stranger by the minute.

The nuclear plant is apparently on fire due to lack of coolant. This does not sound like a routine orderly shut down as a precaution.

I have just seen an expert on Ch4 News. Subject to correction by
GoneHopefullyForgotten, it seems that the plant might be heading towards the Three Mile Island scenario (ITV news was chucking around the term "meltdown", but I assume that was as inaccurate from them as it was from me this am).

There is a rise in temperature, there does appear to be difficulty with coolant, and there does appear to be consideration of letting out some of the pressure. The expert said that as long as the structure of the 'domes' remains sound, then this situation is not dangerous (I can't remember verbatim what adjective he used, but he meant that there's still a long way to go before it's time to worry).

The "coolant" they use is water apparently.

Evacuation zone around the plant is now 10k .

Scary stuff .

'The Kyodo news agency is now citing a safety panel as saying that the radiation level inside one of the reactors at the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant is 1,000 times higher than normal.'

From the BBC 21:49

Evacuation around a nuclear plant (or any place with potential offiste risks) is declared earlier than necessary due to nuclear/chemical/whatever risk alone in order to prevent chaos from panicked uncontrolled evacuation.

As I understand it the conditions inside the reactor vessel are outside the regular operating safety case but still within engineering levels (what the engineered structures can cope with). But I don't know what the margin is, how far they can go. The proposed controlled release in order to prevent an uncontrolled situation seems prudent.

Now the BBC is reporting problems at three other reactors south of the Fukushima Daiichi... bbc news feed

thank you to everyone who has kept posting about the nuclear plants

Hope all is OK where you are sakura - I keep seeing odd earthquakes popping up in Niigata and Nagano as well as around the coast off Sendai. At least it looks like Tokyo is getting back to normal - I'm watching a live Japanese TV news feed at the moment, and it looks like most of the Tokyo transport system is reopening today, though not the longer distance trains yet.

thanks exexpat, can't get my head around it. I'm lucky to be far away from the tsunami but obviously with having tiny children I'm worried about talks of leakage from a nuclear plant.

I've just found a web forum with bi-lingual people in Japan analyzing the various accounts about the nuclear plants. I haven't read it yet but hopefully it will clear up whether the BBC is being sensationalist or the Japanese media is being secretive

chat board

An expert on the news here said that under japanese law an emergency is called in a nuclear reactor as soon as there was a problem that could result in a situation that could result in the possible release of radioactive material. Japan is consisder a leading authority in nucleaer safety and legislation is very tight in comparision to some countries which means emergencies can be declare before they become an emergency. But this can lead to panic with people who do not understand the more technical aspect of the situation. However, I will admit that the fact that the situation has been declared as an emergency actually reassures me that they are really tying to get this sorted as quickly as possible, as safely as possible and with as much professional help from where ever the experts are. And thus more likely to reduce the probablity of it becoming an emergencing with serious results.

The coolant (water) heats ups creating steam which can build up and pose a risk of explosion. release of the vapour reduces the risk of explosion and thus advisable. -extracted quote from expert on sky who conviently happened to start talking when i started typing.

Apologies if it makes no sense. Am very tired and need sleep. just trying to catch up with the news but very able to follow all of it due to busy eveing. will try to keep eye on situation.

Japan will be trying to prevent panic. There is enough panic with the effect of the earthquake and tsumni

BBC misquoted their experts earlier today. They way that they changed the account meant that it could appear to be much worse then is. IMO BBC is not giving a clear report of the situation. They are not lying but they changed "system not currently working" to "system failed" system failed could mean not working but most people would assume it to mean it is broken. I personally would take the bbc reports with a pinch of salt and if you have acces to the footage where the experts are talking then this is the more realistic, more factual and less panic inducing view of the situation. This also reflects the view of my contact.

I will not lie and say the situation is concerning but as yet there is no information as to whether new evaquation zones is just precautionary. Based on Japan's approach to dealing with extreme caution with any possible problem I would suggest that this is most likely to be a precautionary measure. Have not heard if this is a warning of evacuation or implemented evacuation which are two very very different things. Earlier when the BBC and Sky were talking about evacuation they didnt meantion very much that this was notice of possible rather then implemented.

CBS news on sky just now: vapour is not radioactive enough to be of harm to people or wildlife, but people have been evacauted from the areas. Required as the not working of cooling allowed temperature to build up causing an increase in pressure. It is to release this pressure that the venting has been proposed.

Very good clear coverage of facts. much better then BBC coverage. Would recomment you try tyo get news from one of these news sites rather then BBC.

HTH

really must crash now.

thank you GoneHopefully, thank you very much for that.
It makes sense that Japan are hypervigilant, perhaps moreso than any other country in the world, when it comes to nuclear disasters, when you think about the US nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Worrying this morning.

What I am reading about the reactor is not good.

One expert speculated that the tsunami knocked out the pumps and back up generators at the plant by flooding them. Although control rods would drop into the reactor automatically there is still residual heating and without coolant it would still continue to get hotter until the fuel rods melt. I also read the control room radiation is 1000x normal and 8 times normal outside the plant.

I am no nuclear expert but the timescale stated was a maximum of 36 hours before it reaches a meltdown stage and a Three Mile Island scenario.

I just hope all that is wrong and by the end of today it is all under control.

There is a lot of speculation, and very little hard information (presumably as the need to deal with the situation is rather more pressing than the need to provide rolling briefings).

Japanese experts are some of the best in the world, and I'm sure they will be doing everything possible.

meh. it seems my db turned down an interview with CNN (just as random English speaker in Japan who can talk about how his bookshelves wobbled.) It would have been so nice to see him.

According to CNN japan has moved 8ft