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Posted: Mar 18 2011 01:04 am

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12779512
Looks like they managed to lay a cable to the plant.

Quote:

Engineers at Japan's stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant have managed to lay a cable to reactor 2, the UN's nuclear watchdog reports.

Restoring power should enable engineers to restart the pumps which send coolant over the reactor.

Posted: Mar 18 2011 03:13 am

So who wants to place bets on when we'll start seeing reports of Americans avoiding any Japanese people for fear of catching radiation sickness?

Posted: Mar 18 2011 07:48 am

AtmanRyu wrote:

Way to indirectly tell Japan that it is royally fucked, America... I'm sure they'll remember this gesture of confidence once they recover from it.

Every single other country is doing it so it's not a big signal or anything. In fact, I heard some Chinese evacuees on the radio today saying how they can't wait to gtfo out of Japan as their Chinese bus pulled up. You probably won't hear Americans saying that.

Posted: Mar 19 2011 01:09 pm

There's just no pleasing some people.

Posted: Mar 19 2011 02:11 pm

AtmanRyu wrote:

Way to indirectly tell Japan that it is royally fucked, America... I'm sure they'll remember this gesture of confidence once they recover from it.

Or it could mean that all the other governments of the world know how bad the situation is over there and instead of directly stating that Japan has been way too quiet about the seriousness what's happening, they are keeping their people safe and giving the Japanese government a chance to explain just how bad it is.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1367684/Japan-earthquake-tsunami-Fukushima-nulear-plant-radiation-leak-kill-people.html

This is worse then we've been lead to believe, although I still don't think we should condemn nuclear power. From what I hear, the plants were fine after the earthquake. It was the tsunami right after the earthquake that did them in.

Posted: Mar 19 2011 02:17 pm

aeonic wrote:

Talked to a friend who lives over on the island and he's fine, so I'm feeling relieved, but he can't reach two of his colleagues who teach English down south of where he's at. My heart really goes out to all of the people there, and it really does illustrate the differences in our cultures; no rioting, no looting, people working together. Wish we could've done that during Katrina or any other natural disaster here.

Maybe Japan is doing a better job of muzzling the media.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42150705/ns/world_news-asiapacific/

Posted: Mar 19 2011 04:15 pm

Quote:

"If everyone's got nothing, everyone's got the same," Isao Nagai, 62, said, standing in a cold junior high school gym in Ofunato. About 150 survivors huddled under blankets. Some dozed, others talked or read the newspaper. "There's a comfort we get from each other. It's simple. We've all got nothing. Not half or some. Nothing."

If it were America, they'd all be comparing and bragging about how much nothing they had relative to the next victim.

Posted: Mar 19 2011 04:20 pm

The-Excel wrote:

If it were America, they'd all be comparing and bragging about how much nothing they had relative to the next victim.

Where I came from, it was a competition every day to see who had it the hardest, who was the poorest or had the worst life. Every single kid in my high school had just been kicked out on the streets by their parents. Or so they said.

On the other hand, I knew kids who were genuinely homeless and still going to school. Most were dumb as posts, but they did still come most days. Gotta give em that.

Joined: Dec 06 2007 Location: Connecticut Posts: 11244

Stability?!?

Quote:

Workers on site have succeeded in increasing the stability of the Fukushima Daiichi reactors, with units 5 and 6 now in cold shutdown. Pressure built up within unit 3 but a more significant venting does not seem necessary now.

External power has now been connected to unit 5 and 6, allowing them to use their residual heat removal systems and transfer heat to the sea. This has been used to cool the fuel ponds and bring the units to cold shutdown status, meaning that water in the reactor system is at less than 100ºC.

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS_Stabilisation_at_Fukushima_Daiichi_2003111.html

Posted: Mar 21 2011 11:00 am

lordsathien wrote:

NOOOO!

OMG NOOOOOOO!

Posted: Mar 28 2011 08:11 pm

A 43-year-old man takes up SCUBA equipment and personally searched for his wife and mother in his waterlogged hometown of Ishinomaki. Not only did he get them out alive, he's still out there, searching high and low for any survivors. If he doesn't have a movie made after him, I don't know what I'll say.

Quote:

Hideaki's wife of twenty years was still buried inside the lake somewhere. She hadn't gotten out. She wasn't answering her phone. The water was still rising, the sun was setting, cars and shit were swooshing past on a river of sea water, and and rescue workers told him there was nothing that could be done – the only thing left was to sit back, wait for the military to arrive, and hope that they can get in there and rescue the survivors before it's too late. With 10,000 citizens of Ishinomaki still missing and unaccounted for, the odds weren't great that Hideaki would ever see his wife again.

For most of us regular folks, this is the sort of shit that would make us throw up our hands, swear loudly, and resign ourselves to a lifetime of hopeless misery.

But Hideaki Akaiwa isn't a regular guy. He's a fucking insane badass, and he wasn't going to sit back and just let his wife die alone, freezing to death in a miserable water-filled tomb. He was going after her. No matter what.

...

Now, I'm sure you're wondering what the fuck is more intense than commandeering a wet suit, face-punching a tsunami and dragging your wife of two decades out of the flooded wreckage of your home, but, no shit, it gets even better. You see, Hideaki's mother also lived in Ishinomaki, and she was still unaccounted for. I think you all know where this is going.

...

Now, while most people would have been content in the knowledge that their family was safe, Hideaki Akaiwa isn't the sort of badass who's going to hang up his flippers and quit just because he'd taken care of his own personal shit – this guy made an oath to keep going back into the wreckage on his own to find people and help them to safety. Today this 43 year-old Japanese badass rides out every single day, multiple times a day, riding around on a bicycle with his legs wrapped in plastic to keep himself dry. His only equipment – a pocketknife, a canteen, a flashlight, a change of clothes, and a badass set of aviator sunglasses – packed into a trusty trio of backpacks, he rides out in search of people needing rescue, a modern-day, real-life action hero.

Posted: Mar 28 2011 08:28 pm

thats fucking impressive

Wizard Joined: Jun 12 2009 Posts: 4209

My respect goes out to that man. Wish I had his balls.

Posted: Mar 28 2011 11:40 pm

Drew Linky wrote:

My respect goes out to that man. Wish I had his balls.

One does not just wish for balls, you lack the will of the warrior!

Posted: Mar 29 2011 01:08 am

Blackout wrote:

One does not just wish for balls, you lack the will of the warrior!

There is more truth in this statement than perhaps even you intended. Wisdom. Winning.

Wizard Joined: Jun 12 2009 Posts: 4209

Jack Slater wrote:

Blackout wrote:

One does not just wish for balls, you lack the will of the warrior!

There is more truth in this statement than perhaps even you intended. Wisdom. Winning.

I could prove myself, but the opportunity hasn't presented itself yet.

If a volcano happens to sprout under my house, then you'll be hearing some serious shit.

Posted: Mar 29 2011 11:45 pm

before and after pictures of different places in japan:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/13/world/asia/satellite-photos-japan-before-and-after-tsunami.html

it has a slider that lets you see before & after images immediately on your browser.

Posted: Apr 12 2011 01:07 am

FUCK!!!

Japan to raise Fukushima crisis level to worst wrote:

The Japanese government's nuclear safety agency has decided to raise the crisis level of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant accident from 5 to 7, the worst on the international scale.

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency made the decision on Monday. It says the damaged facilities have been releasing a massive amount of radioactive substances, which are posing a threat to human health and the environment over a wide area.

The agency used the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale, or INES, to gauge the level. The scale was designed by an international group of experts to indicate the significance of nuclear events with ratings of 0 to 7.

On March 18th, one week after the massive quake, the agency declared the Fukushima trouble a level 5 incident, the same as the accident at Three Mile Island in the United States in 1979.

Level 7 has formerly only been applied to the Chernobyl accident in the former Soviet Union in 1986 when hundreds of thousands of terabecquerels of radioactive iodine-131 were released into the air. One terabecquerel is one trillion becquerels.

The agency believes the cumulative amount from the Fukushima plant is less than that from Chernobyl.

Officials from the agency and the Nuclear Safety Commission will hold a news conference on Tuesday morning to explain the change of evaluation.

Wizard Joined: Jun 12 2009 Posts: 4209

It just keeps getting worse and worse.

2011 SNES Champ Joined: Dec 04 2006 Posts: 1929

It's still far from being as bad as Chernobyl, as there's much less radiation. What I find surprising is that it wasn't done earlier.

Also :

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

Quote:

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) warned Japan in 1990 about the failure of the emergency electricity generators and subsequent failure of the cooling systems of plants in seismically very active regions. The NRC called this one of the most likely risks. The Japanese Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) cited this report in 2004. According to Jun Tateno, a former NISA scientist, Tepco did not react to these warnings and did not respond with any measures.

Joined: May 22 2008 Location: Goshen, VA Posts: 6544

Yeah, they were doing things in that plant that would never fly in the US because of safety codes.

Posted: Apr 12 2011 10:50 am

joshwoodzy wrote:

Yeah, they were doing things in that plant that would never fly in the US because of safety codes.

I think that you drastically overestimate the safety codes enforced in the US. Nuclear power companies, across the board, cut and slash anything they can to save money.

Joined: May 22 2008 Location: Goshen, VA Posts: 6544

My point is that US scientists warned Japan about this shit 20 years ago and they didn't do anything.

Posted: Apr 12 2011 03:34 pm

aeonic wrote:

joshwoodzy wrote:

Yeah, they were doing things in that plant that would never fly in the US because of safety codes.

I think that you drastically overestimate the safety codes enforced in the US. ~~Nuclear power~~ most companies, across the board, cut and slash anything they can to save money.

Fixed that for you! Razz

I bet that this is going to be worse than Chernobyl, and that they're just playing cover thy ass and point the the finger at this point. Don't ever underestimate people's desire to avoid blame.

Posted: Apr 12 2011 03:45 pm

Blackout wrote:

aeonic wrote:

joshwoodzy wrote:

Yeah, they were doing things in that plant that would never fly in the US because of safety codes.

I think that you drastically overestimate the safety codes enforced in the US. ~~Nuclear power~~ most companies, across the board, cut and slash anything they can to save money.

Fixed that for you! Razz

I bet that this is going to be worse than Chernobyl, and that they're just playing cover thy ass and point the the finger at this point. Don't ever underestimate people's desire to avoid blame.

I'd say that's a safe bet. Let's take into consideration that, while not huge, the Ukraine is approximately 603,628 km²in size. Japan, on the other hand, in terms of land, is approximately 377,835 km²in size (meaning land), of which 25,920 km²is considered arable. As a country, especially if there's a total meltdown (which, barring a miracle, there probably will be), especially given their disproportionately high land to people ratio, things are going to be a lot worse than every happened in Chernobyl. Meanwhile, the head of TEPCO is sick, so naturally, no questions can be answered regarding their horrendously unsafe practices. So sorry!