Major Earthquake N Japan - Pacific Tsunami Warning

[Craig 6590]

The doomsdayers will be disappointed but the Japanese look to have things under control

 

Really? I mean it hasn't gone completely kaboom, but they look to be scrambling to me.

 

The power station is wrecked and will have to decomissioned. I think if they can contain the reactors for the next 48 hours there will be no siginifcant leaks though which is the important thing.

 

Also important to remember how old this station was. All the modern ones came through this unscathed, the kind that would be built in the UK.

 

For decommissioned read mothballed surely?

[Craig 6590]

Its their instinct in a crisis, retreat.

 

[trophyshy 7064]

Japan in absolute crisis, us Brits rally round to bash the Frogs.

[snakehips 0]

There is one sure fire way to determine the extent of radiation, and how bad/acceptable it is: the number of foreign reporters there. At the first sign of 'trouble', they will be hot-footing it outta there quicker than someone getting out of CT's taxi once they had realised it was him driving.

[Craig 6590]

Japan in absolute crisis, us Brits rally round to bash the Frogs.

 

Each and every opportunity

[Tom 14002]

''Alright mate can you just drop us off at.....''

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ChezGiven 0]

Glenn Beck has been on Fox demonstrating the safety of the nuclear reactors in Japan using M&Ms and a wok to illustrate his point

[Park Life 71]

The doomsdayers will be disappointed but the Japanese look to have things under control

 

Really? I mean it hasn't gone completely kaboom, but they look to be scrambling to me.

 

Aye, dropping seawater on a nuclear facility from a helicopter is somewhat stretching the plausibility of 'things under control'.

 

[Park Life 71]

The French are telling everyone to get out of Japan and that they dont trust the Japs have it under control. Air France putting on more flights.

 

The frech are basically the world experts on nuke power.

 

Also they sold jpn a lot of the fuel so they know what is going on.

[Billy Castell 0]

Glenn Beck has been on Fox demonstrating the safety of the nuclear reactors in Japan using M&Ms and a wok to illustrate his point

 

Sounds like his medication has had some interesting side effects. Was he talking to an apparently invisible Ken Hom during the task? Or did he wear the wok on his head so President Obama and the other 'Marxists' couldn't read his thoughts? It is amazing what passes for journalism these days. Especially in the USA.

 

As for the Air France flights, how many will be able to return before the pilots, ground crew air traffic control go on strike?

[trophyshy 7064]

Can't Charlie Sheen do anything?

[Park Life 71]

Nuke France. Let's level this playing field a bit.

[Monkeys Fist 41380]

Can't Charlie Sheen do anything?

He's on his way…

[Ken 119]

They could use Ken actually. "Aw look, you know the Japs. They are industrious little fuckers and right now they are flat out like a lizard drinking putting this business to bed. If it was the poms I reckon there'd be cause for concern, but your average Jap's a cut above. No worries."

 

Look, I'm no pommy-basher, the whinging, whiny pricks that they are known to be.

 

But back to things more serious, reports suggest reactor 4 may be bone-dry. If that is the case then we have now reached doomsday-status. It is denied by the Japanese company who runs the fucking thing, and they reckon they're on the verge of connecting power to those pumps to keep the situation stable. Of course they'd say that though as their value on the share market tumbles down...

[Ken 119]

All you on here, with the "it's not that bad" crack. Tokyo is 160 miles away the way the crow flies, and radiation levels are 10 times their normal level in the city, a rate known to harm humans, and the worst is possibly still yet to come. I don't think Japan or the world is even 20% through this yet, and all you speculative people can't contradict that for sure.

 

Ten times normal is absolutely nothing Stevie. You get hundreds of times normal radiation every time you have an X-ray and thousands of times normal every time you fly, and it is of absolutely no harm to human health. That was a one off reading as well.

 

Not saying this is over by a long shot but conversely you seem to be predicting the worst case scenario is going to happen.

 

Too right. I don't think anyone's daft enough to try and suggest that this situation will be resolved quickly. A nuclear accident takes years to fix up, but the immediate issue of stopping/preventing fallout will take months. Rods in a nuclear reactor takes ages to cool down and stabilize.

Edited March 16, 2011 by Ken

[McFaul 35]

In The Telegraph in the morning, the French are now saying Japan is fucked. Tokyo is going to be like the scene at the end of Logan's Run in a years time. Mark my words.

 

Japan nuclear plant: Just 48 hours to avoid 'another Chernobyl'

Japan has 48 hours to bring its rapidly escalating nuclear crisis under control before it faces a catastrophe “worse than Chernobyl”, it was claimed last night.

 

This image made available from Tokyo Electric Power Co. via Kyodo News, shows the damaged No. 4 unit of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex in Okumamachi, northeastern Japan Photo: AP

Gordon Rayner and Martin Evans 10:52PM GMT 16 Mar 2011

Nuclear safety officials in France said they were “pessimistic” about whether engineers could prevent a meltdown at the Fukushima power plant after a pool containing spent fuel rods overheated and boiled dry.

Last night radiation levels were “extremely high” in the stricken building, which was breached by an earlier explosion, meaning that radiation could now escape into the atmosphere. Tokyo Electric, the owners of the plant, said five workers had been killed at the site, two were missing and 21 had been injured.

Last night a US nuclear safety chief said that the Japanese government had failed to acknowledge the full seriousness of the situation at the Fukushima plant and that warnings to citizens had been insufficient and understated.

Gregory Jaczko, the chairman of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, warned that if “extremely high” radiation levels increased it would become impossible for workers to continue to take “corrective measures” at the plant as they would be forced to flee.

As Japan resorted to increasingly desperate measures — including dumping water on the site from helicopters — there were accusations that the situation was now “out of control”.

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The Foreign Office responded to the latest developments by advising all British citizens to leave Tokyo – which is 140 miles south of the plant – and the whole of northern Japan. The EU has even urged member states to check Japanese food imports for radioactivity. Emperor Akihito made a rare address to the nation, urging the Japanese to pull together, but hinted at his own fears for the nuclear crisis saying: “I hope things will not get worse.”

In London, the FTSE-100 share index slumped as news of the latest emergency emerged, closing 1.7 per cent down.

The official death toll from last Friday’s earthquake and tsunami stood at 4,314 last night, with another 8,606 listed as missing.

Thousands of people still waiting for food aid in the most remote areas of the disaster zone endured fresh misery yesterday as heavy snow began to fall across northern Japan. But all eyes were on the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant as Japanese authorities admitted concerns over rising temperatures in three pools containing spent fuel rods.

A failure of the cooling system that has crippled the entire plant led to water boiling in the No 4 pool. Last night the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (USNRC) said there was no water left in the pool, resulting in “extremely high” radiation levels. An earlier fire and explosion in the No 4 reactor building is thought to have breached the protective walls around the pool. A statement from the USNRC said: “We believe that secondary containment has been destroyed and there is no water in the spent fuel pool and we believe that radiation levels are extremely high which could possibly impact the ability to take corrective measures.”

If the water has gone, a US nuclear safety official warned, there is nothing to stop the fuel rods from getting hotter and ultimately melting down. The outer shell of the rods could also ignite with enough force to propel the radioactive fuel inside over a wide area, .

Jeremy Browne, the Foreign Office minister, said: “There is clearly an evolving situation and things are clearly getting worse at the Fukushima nuclear plant.”

Attempts to cool the site by dumping sea water from helicopters had to be aborted at one stage because of dangerous radiation levels in the air above the plant. A police water cannon was brought in to help blast water into the overheating reactors and pools, but there were warnings that it may be too late to prevent a disaster. Thierry Charles, a safety official at France’s Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN), said: “The next 48 hours will be decisive. I am pessimistic because, since Sunday, I have seen that almost none of the solutions has worked.” He described the situation as “a major risk”, but added: “All is not lost.”

Asked about the maximum possible amount of radioactive release, he said “it would be in the same range as Chernobyl”.

The incident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine on April 26 1986 is estimated to have caused 57 direct deaths, with some 4,000 additional deaths from cancer.

Francois Baroin, a French government spokesman, went further, saying: “In the worst of cases, it could have an impact worse than Chernobyl.” He added: “They have visibly lost the essential of control the total mugs.”

Malcolm Grimston, a British nuclear expert at the Chatham House think tank, played down suggestions of an impending disaster, saying Fukushima was not like Chernobyl.

“We’re nearly five days after the fission process was stopped, the levels of radioactive iodine will only be about two-thirds of where they were at the start, some of the other, very short-lived, very radioactive material will be gone altogether by now,” he said.

Earlier, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, France’s ecology minister, had said that “the worst scenario is possible and even probable”. At one point, radiation levels at the plant rose to such dangerous levels that all workers were evacuated from the site. A 180-strong team was later allowed back to continue attempts to cool the fuel rods, but the government raised the maximum allowable radiation exposure for workers from 100 millisieverts per year to 250, which it said was “unavoidable due to the circumstances”.

The Pentagon ordered its armed forces, which had been sent to Japan to help with the relief effort, to retreat to 50 miles away from the plant, more than four times the 12-mile limit imposed by the Japanese government.

Yukiya Amano, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s director general, said the situation was “very serious” and announced he would fly to Japan today for a first-hand briefing on the crisis.

Edited March 17, 2011 by McFaul

[LoveTheBobby 1]

Have you edited that with ya billy stamper ! ? Half way through ". . the total mugs" haha

 

On serious note, understand Japan's playing down - cultural, economic and to avoid panic but readong that found myself primarily annoyed. I'm sure an onlooking and concerned world would think no worse of them to be upfront at he severity / accept or appeal for further help. Goes without saying, I hope its not too late to avert a full on catastrophe but was hearing this yday how they were looking at bringing in police water cannons after abandoning the helicopter dousing. Pissing in the wind . Time to drop the front Japan c'mon !

[Rob W 0]

Have you edited that with ya billy stamper ! ? Half way through ". . the total mugs" haha

 

On serious note, understand Japan's playing down - cultural, economic and to avoid panic but readong that found myself primarily annoyed. I'm sure an onlooking and concerned world would think no worse of them to be upfront at he severity / accept or appeal for further help. Goes without saying, I hope its not too late to avert a full on catastrophe but was hearing this yday how they were looking at bringing in police water cannons after abandoning the helicopter dousing. Pissing in the wind . Time to drop the front Japan c'mon !

 

 

so what are you suggesting that would actually help?

[ewerk 29562]

Aye Bobby, what the fuck have you done to help resolve this nuclear crisis?

 

Some people...

[McFaul 35]

Have you edited that with ya billy stamper ! ? Half way through ". . the total mugs" haha

 

On serious note, understand Japan's playing down - cultural, economic and to avoid panic but readong that found myself primarily annoyed. I'm sure an onlooking and concerned world would think no worse of them to be upfront at he severity / accept or appeal for further help. Goes without saying, I hope its not too late to avert a full on catastrophe but was hearing this yday how they were looking at bringing in police water cannons after abandoning the helicopter dousing. Pissing in the wind . Time to drop the front Japan c'mon !

 

 

so what are you suggesting that would actually help?

There is no solution unless people are willing to give up their lives. Where's the kamakaze style spirit now? I wouldn't dee it like.

[McFaul 35]

Have you edited that with ya billy stamper ! ? Half way through ". . the total mugs" haha

 

On serious note, understand Japan's playing down - cultural, economic and to avoid panic but readong that found myself primarily annoyed. I'm sure an onlooking and concerned world would think no worse of them to be upfront at he severity / accept or appeal for further help. Goes without saying, I hope its not too late to avert a full on catastrophe but was hearing this yday how they were looking at bringing in police water cannons after abandoning the helicopter dousing. Pissing in the wind . Time to drop the front Japan c'mon !

Aye haha, just that one line just a bit of crack. Like on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, there's a prize for the finder, I decided the first one to spot it was getting £5k when I win the national lottery.

[Ken 119]

Have you edited that with ya billy stamper ! ? Half way through ". . the total mugs" haha

 

On serious note, understand Japan's playing down - cultural, economic and to avoid panic but readong that found myself primarily annoyed. I'm sure an onlooking and concerned world would think no worse of them to be upfront at he severity / accept or appeal for further help. Goes without saying, I hope its not too late to avert a full on catastrophe but was hearing this yday how they were looking at bringing in police water cannons after abandoning the helicopter dousing. Pissing in the wind . Time to drop the front Japan c'mon !

 

 

so what are you suggesting that would actually help?

There is no solution unless people are willing to give up their lives. Where's the kamakaze style spirit now? I wouldn't dee it like.

 

Happening as we speak champ. The 50 who are still there in the nuke plant know they will die for being there. They've tweeted messages saying it is their duty to the nation. Apparently they do what they do for ten minutes spurts before getting out otherwise they'd fry.

Here in Australia the media are dubbing them "samurai warriors".

Edited March 17, 2011 by Ken

[Ken 119]

Just following on from that as well, watching the news here, one of the blokes in that facility fighting the fires was supposed to retire in 6 months time. He volunteered to stay on and knows he won't survive this.

[JawD 99]

Have you edited that with ya billy stamper ! ? Half way through ". . the total mugs" haha

 

On serious note, understand Japan's playing down - cultural, economic and to avoid panic but readong that found myself primarily annoyed. I'm sure an onlooking and concerned world would think no worse of them to be upfront at he severity / accept or appeal for further help. Goes without saying, I hope its not too late to avert a full on catastrophe but was hearing this yday how they were looking at bringing in police water cannons after abandoning the helicopter dousing. Pissing in the wind . Time to drop the front Japan c'mon !

 

 

so what are you suggesting that would actually help?

There is no solution unless people are willing to give up their lives. Where's the kamakaze style spirit now? I wouldn't dee it like.

 

Happening as we speak champ. The 50 who are still there in the nuke plant know they will die for being there. They've tweeted messages saying it is their duty to the nation. Apparently they do what they do for ten minutes spurts before getting out otherwise they'd fry.

Here in Australia the media are dubbing them "samurai warriors".

 

Samurai Waterers surely?

[LoveTheBobby 1]

Have you edited that with ya billy stamper ! ? Half way through ". . the total mugs" haha

 

On serious note, understand Japan's playing down - cultural, economic and to avoid panic but readong that found myself primarily annoyed. I'm sure an onlooking and concerned world would think no worse of them to be upfront at he severity / accept or appeal for further help. Goes without saying, I hope its not too late to avert a full on catastrophe but was hearing this yday how they were looking at bringing in police water cannons after abandoning the helicopter dousing. Pissing in the wind . Time to drop the front Japan c'mon !

 

 

so what are you suggesting that would actually help?

 

Well I haven't quite sussed that one yet but I can pm y the cure for the common cold if that's any good t ya ?

I was coming from the angle that its obvious they're struggling, and as noble as they are I think a brave front is not really convincing anyone all's under control.