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14 Mar 2011 10:48

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World: Fukushima evacuees: Reactor trouble completely unexpected

  • It said we had to go to the town hall to evacuate because there was trouble at reactor No. 1. I left with just my purse and the clothes I was wearing.
  • Fukushima nuclear plant employee Yoshiko Watanabe • Describing what happened when she found out the plant was first having trouble on Saturday. Since then, she and others have been sleeping on the floor at a school in the city of Iwaki.  She and other residents of Narahama are among the 200,000 people who have been forced from their homes by the situation at Fukushima. The town had no plan for anything like this and was caught off-guard. That’s because the reactor was made to withstand a quake, but not a tsunami. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

14 Mar 2011 10:28

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Biz, World: Japan quake: Tokyo’s main stock index lost lots of money today

  • 6.2% the drop in Japan’s Nikkei stock index today – the largest single-day drop since 2008
  • 4.88B the number of Tokyo Stock Exchange shares that changed hands – the most since World War II
  • $287B the stock exchange’s single-day loss in value; so much collective value, gone … wow source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

14 Mar 2011 10:17

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World: Japan earthquake: Death toll likely in the tens of thousands

  • The situation here is just beyond belief, almost everything has been flattened. The government is saying that 9,500 people, more than half of the population, could have died and I do fear the worst.
  • International Red Cross Federation official Patrick Fuller • Describing the situation in Otsuchi, just one of the many towns hit by the earthquake in Japan. Death toll estimates are expected to far exceed 10,000 people, and thousands of bodies have already been found. Remember how we gave that warning about early death toll estimates? This was why.  source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

13 Mar 2011 21:17

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Biz, World: After the Tokyo quake, stocks aren’t exactly doing so hot

  • 5% decline in Tokyo’s main stock index in its first few minutes source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

13 Mar 2011 18:37

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World: Quick rundown: What happened at Fukushima’s Unit 1 reactor?

  • 1st Normal cooling measures failed at Fukushima’s Unit 1 reactor, so officials resorted to using seawater to cool the reactor vessel.
  • 2nd Pressure rose within the vessel, so operators released steam from the reactor in order to prevent an explosion.
  • 3rd Due to rising temperatures, the fuel rod casings reacted with the seawater, creating zirconium oxide and hydrogen.
  • 4th The hydrogen-rich steam then reacted with oxygen in the environment, which then caused a hydrogen explosion. source
  • » So, where are we at now? First of all, it’s important to note that this is only one of six reactors in Japan currently placed under states of emergency. That being said: operators at Fukushima’s unit 1 reactor are still frantically trying to cool the unit. The fuel rod casings and the seawater reacted with one another when the temperature reached around 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit; things could get really bad if and when the temperature hits 4,000 degrees. This would cause the uranium fuel pellets to melt, at which point they’d eat through the floor of the reactor vessel, then that of the building, and begin to escape into the environment. At the same time, the walls of the reactor vessel would melt into a “lava-like pile,” react with the remaining seawater, and cause an explosion bigger than the one that already occurred. This explosion would spread the radiation around the environment, and…well, yeah. That would be very bad. We’ll keep you posted as more developments come out.
Posted by Seth Millstein • 0 Comments • Permalink

13 Mar 2011 11:53

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World: Laymen’s terms: Fukushima withstood the quake, not the tsunami

  • Reactors have been designed with such [earthquake] concerns in mind, but preliminary assessments of the Fukushima Daiichi accidents suggested that too little attention was paid to the threat of tsunami. It appeared that the reactors withstood the powerful earthquake, but the ocean waves damaged generators and backup systems, harming the ability to cool the reactors.
  • A piece from the New York Times • Explaining what appears to have happened, calmly and simply, with the current nuclear crisis. Overall, the effect is that Japan’s precautionary methods for nuclear plants were successful in what they were designed to do. The problem is, the design of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant didn’t anticipate something far different. Which is why the current situation has escalated. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

13 Mar 2011 11:32

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World: Japan could face some really big aftershocks very soon

  • 70% the chance that a large aftershock – 7.0 or higher – will hit Japan in the next three days
  • 50% the chance that a large aftershock will hit Japan in the three days following that source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

13 Mar 2011 11:16

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World: Japan’s economy may struggle to bounce back from crisis

  • 1995 Despite the very large Kobe quake, which at a $100 billion was the costliest quake in history, Japan’s economy bounced back relatively quickly without any serious long-term effects. The quake killed 6,000 people in one fell swoop.
  • 2011 Japan has the largest public debt ratio for a country of its advanced makeup – double its $5 trillion GDP – and its economy was already struggling before the quake even happened. Plus, the nuclear trouble adds another dimension. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

13 Mar 2011 10:58

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World: Japan PM: The worst crisis “in Japan’s 65 years of postwar history”

  • This is the toughest crisis in Japan’s 65 years of postwar history. I’m convinced that we can overcome the crisis.
  • Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan • Speaking about the current crisis. ”We have no choice but to deal with the situation on the premise that it (the death toll) will undoubtedly be numbered in the ten thousands,” he continued. Kan’s statements come amid reports of many thousands of people missing. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

12 Mar 2011 22:19

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World: Fukushima meltdown: Low level radiation leaks, iodine distributed to locals

  • All right, everyone, here’s where we’re at. Radiation has leaked from the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan. This is bad. However, it’s apparently not as bad as it could be, because the reactor core container itself wasn’t damaged. Furthermore, the mist hovering above the plant implies that radiation levels are low-ish. Officials are ranking it as less serious than both the Three Mile Island meltdown and the Chernobyl disaster. Nuclear meltdowns are ranked on a scale of 1-7; Three Mile Island was a 5, Chernobyl was a 7, and this one is currently being pegged as a 4. However, they’re nevertheless distributing iodine to the locals, which helps prevent the thyroid cancer that can result from radiation exposure. We’ll keep you posted as more news comes. source
Posted by Seth Millstein • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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