Large earthquake in Northeast Japan

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
622

Hi China Guy. Yes, we are back in Taipei now. We left on Thursday. Tokyo is having rolling blackouts, and the train to the airport was questionable, so we, along with 10,000 of our closest friends all went by bus.

Narita was a mess, with huge lines at the airline counters. Fortunately, we had checked in online the previous day, so we could skip the long line. We also arrived 5 hours early, to be on the safe side. (It’s my wife who plans these things out.)

Beta-chan had a couple of predictable tantrums, probably felt the tension in the air, so what’s a 2 1/2 year-old going to do? And, of course, you have to wear blue shoes if you have blue socks, and that’s worth screaming about for the 15 minute taxi ride to the bus station. She didn’t get her nap, which added to the crankiness but was able to sleep for a while on the plane.

The youngest one (5 months now) decided that crying at the top of his lungs would be a good way for me to get exercise as I walked the aisles to try and calm him. Fortunately people were pretty good about it.

My SIL just bought a condo as an investment, but there aren’t renters yet, so we are able to stay here. No internet connection and we are using a wireless connection from one of the cell phone carriers. It’s really spotty, though.

Beta-chan is having a great time, being with her aunts, and going to my SIL’s kindergarten/daycare.

We’re in Younghe city, right by Taipei.

I’m going to use my time to take Chinese lessons next week. I signed uptoday.

There are so many conflicting news reports it will be good to take a step back and see how things go. It’s nice to be able to buy gasoline, toilet paper, diapers, rice, and any food at all. To have electricity all day and not worry about the trains topping. Even without any concerns about radiation, taking a break from that is nice. If feel guilty about that, while JpnDude and others are still fighting the shortages.

I worry about our neighbors and friends as well as the ones from the board. Then there are all the people up in the afflicted area and those, like Hokkaido Brit’s husband who are doing such as tough job in such horrible conditions.

It’s turning out to be such a terrible disaster. :frowning:

623

Tnanks for the update, TokyoPlayer. This disaster is terrifying, and it’s having all sorts of knock-on effects too.

624

I don’t quite understand the level of discussion here. The hydrogen was a problem because a building that explodes with damage like thisis going to have serious problems with the equipment it once held. You don’t have to see picture to know that an explosion heard 25 miles away is going to result in serious damage. This is on top of a 9.0 earthquake that certainly twisted and strained all the piping inside. If a valve assembly gets twisted out-of round by even a small amount it’s going to stick. As I said before, the outer buildings blew up because they were able to vent the gas away from the inner structure. They already announced that they had problems with one of these valves sticking. One of the problems at 3 mile Island was a stuck valve. The safety of a nuclear plant is only as good as the functioning equipment inside it.

Yes, burning spent fuel rods is a serious problem. They are trying to keep them immersed and deal with reactor 2. This is the reactor that the newly run electrical line will power first.

This is where the hydrogen gas comes from. If for any reason the vent system fails then hydrogen gas will build up. I’d imagine that a normal facility has systems designed to cool water vapor down in the event of an emergency but obviously they aren’t working at the moment.

Thisis an acknowledgment by government officials of how serious it is.

“The boss of the company behind the devastated Japanese nuclear reactor today broke down in tears - as his country finally acknowledged the radiation spewing from the over-heating reactors and fuel rods was enough to kill some citizens.”

I don’t know if he’s referring to the plant workers or the public at large. I’d expect a followup on that statement from every news provider. Yesterdaythe radiation levels were rising instead of falling. No explanation given but the assumption is that the water dumped on the reactors is coming back in the form of dirty steam. Hopefully we’ll hear some good news with the restoration of electricity.

625

For anyone looking for information on the Fukushima I plant, this page on Wikipedia has an interesting (and very comprehensive) day-by-day summary of events and status of the individual plant elements. Naturally, Wikipedia is only as accurate as its editors, but there appear to be plenty of citations of external information sources.

626

A friend who is planning a vacation in Japan (his wife is Japanese, and they go every year) just linked this great educational video they’ve put out in Japan to help children understand what’s going on with the nuclear plants:

Pretty awesome :smiley:

627

I just ran across Google’s crisis response page. It’s a handy collection of links related to the disaster in Japan.

628

I clicked the link to the story about the TEPCO official weeping as he admitted the radiation levels were much higher than previously revealed, only to find the Daily Mail is carrying lots of stories the AP isn’t even touching.

Elderly hospital patients left to die:

30 children sit silently in classroom waiting for parents to collect them

Reporters have been forbidden to talk to the children to guard against false hope, the story says.

Mayor claims his city has been ‘abandoned’ by government

If you are in Japan and you have the means to get out, PLEASE do so. You can always go back if it turns out everything is OK. If everything isn’t OK, at least you will have your life.

My philosophy: plan for the worst; hope for the best.

629

I came across this article, written in 2005, which is especially poignant to read now:

The wall that Taro-cho built.

Taro is a small town close to Miyako. In 1896, and again in 1933 it was almost completely destroyed by tsunamis. After 1933, they were determined to do something about it. They built a 10-metre wall stretching more than a mile across the front of the town.

Last week’s tsunami was 20 metres high at Taro. :frowning:

630

But even kids know - everybody poops. So not such a great metaphor.

631

SnoBo I know your heart’s in the right place, and I thank you for your concern, but the immediate earthquake and tsunami threats are over for now. Sure, bad things happened, but I’m not sure we can start pointing fingers just yet. In any case, there are unlikely to be too many more victims from those two (earthquake and tsunami) events than have already succumbed.

Instead, what we have remaning in terms of unknown threats are the damaged nuclear reactors.

And there are places in China and Russia that are closer to those threats than other places in Japan, so calling for a blanket evacuation from Japan is unwarranted, and not helpful.

Thanks.

632

Seriously, there’s a reason people call it the Daily Fail.

633

If we don’t like a story, then it can’t be true.

634

The headlines are certainly sensationalized beyond what is expected to sell papers.

It looks like the food chain in the immediate area is affected. radiation levels in spinach and milk exceeded government safety limits. Doesn’t sound like they got much of a break from the prevailing westerly winds. It would be nice to know the distance from the plant. People in the area need to be informed.

635

Spinach? In the winter? Must be from a greenhouse. I’m sure a little strontium, cesium and radioactive iodine isn’t that big a deal.

636

The tainted milk was found 20 miles away. The spinach was collected from six farms between 60 miles and 75 miles to the south.

637

If a greenhouse has those levels already, it’s a lot worse than even I thought it was.

638

Spinach can actually be a winter crop, harvested in the very early spring. I don’t know if the Japanese crop was in a greenhouse or not, but it could be a regular crop.

639

It’s odd, but I find myself hoping it was from outside. Because if it was from a greenhouse, the poo is going to hit the fan in about 20 minutes.

640

Greenhouses are ventilated with air from the outside, so if there’s contamination inside the greenhouse, it was probably sucked in from the outside.

The scary thing is that it’s unsafe to eat food from 75 miles away in the safe zone. Oops.

641

Milk is a problem for cesium because the cows eat so much grass they take in a lot, and basically it’s a case of concentrating it in the food chain.

Spinach takes up heavy metals in the environment very readily. That’s why it’s so full of iron and calcium and other good stuff. But it also soaks up bad things, too, like lead… and cesium. In fact, it’s so good at it that spinach is used to help decontaminate soil - you grow several years of spinach on the soil and it soaks up metallic elements, leaving the soil healthier for growing food crops (of course, if you do that you don’t eat the contaminated spinach).

So milk and spinach are two of the first things that will show signs of contamination. Other crops in the area, like carrots, are not showing signs of contamination, or much, much lesser degrees of it, and will continue to be monitored.

Meanwhile, growing plants like spinach near the plant will help reduce the environmental impact of the accident. Just don’t eat that particular spinach, or compost it for use on food crops, or otherwise return it back to the food chain.

ETA: By the way, spinach is a cold tolerant crop, I’ve had spinach from my garden as early as the end of March. It will even survive like frosts or brief snowfalls if it’s had a chance to establish itself. So yes, early spinach is a possibility at this time of year. Keep in mind, too, they won’t necessarialy wait for it to be mature before testing - no reason they can’t test sprouts or immature plants, you know.