Author Topic: Japan Earthquake  (Read 12147 times)

FNM

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Re: Japan Earthquake
« Reply #15 on: March 12, 2011, 01:47:07 PM »
I don't think you can link libya and iraq to natural disasters.
On a humanitarian scale you can

But Libya issue is due to a old man willing to murder his own people that want to be free and have a choice in who runs the country.
Natural Disasters is out of humans control.

I know the difference.
I think he's talking about everything in general that's happening
The fact that we're seeing it happen as it happens is quite destructive mentally and emotionally on some people (me included). Would hate to think what it does to kids

Offline Fishfinger

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Re: Japan Earthquake
« Reply #16 on: March 12, 2011, 02:32:18 PM »

The fact that we're seeing it happen as it happens is quite destructive mentally and emotionally on some people (me included). Would hate to think what it does to kids
So soon after the scarring from the unnatural disaster of the skunks winning the flag as well.
It's 50 of one and half a dozen of the other - Don Scott

FNM

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Re: Japan Earthquake
« Reply #17 on: March 12, 2011, 02:45:25 PM »

The fact that we're seeing it happen as it happens is quite destructive mentally and emotionally on some people (me included). Would hate to think what it does to kids
So soon after the scarring from the unnatural disaster of the skunks winning the flag as well.
Oh you and MT are on the same wavelength today  :wallywink  :rollin  ;)

Offline mightytiges

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Re: Japan Earthquake
« Reply #18 on: March 12, 2011, 03:57:37 PM »
LOL FNM. 

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Japan and NZ are on the major fault lines where tectonic plates meet so major earthquakes are expected sadly.   


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Dubstep Dookie

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Re: Japan Earthquake
« Reply #19 on: March 12, 2011, 06:47:44 PM »
Anyone for a conspiracy theory? This published before the quake

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/i-see-a-supermoon-rising-but-do-i-see-trouble-on-the-way-20110311-1bqrw.html

A "supermoon" is coming and conspiracy theorists believe it will cause a moonageddon.

While astronomers and other scientists suggest everyone just take a chill pill and enjoy the prospect of a larger moon on March 19, US astrologist Richard Nolle believes it heralds disaster.

Supermoons are closer to Earth and occur every 10 to 20 years - the most recent being in 1955, 1974, 1992 and 2005.

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On March 19, the moon will be 356,577 kilometres from Earth, the closest it has been since 1992.

The lunar perigee, or supermoon - a term that Mr Nolle said he coined in 1979 - takes place because the moon does not orbit the Earth in a perfect circle, but in a slightly elliptical manner.

"Supermoons, in fact, have a historical association with strong storms, very high tides, extreme tides and also earthquakes," Mr Nolle told ABC Radio this week.

"Supermoons are like eclipses. We have roughly five to six per year ... and so it can be very close to Earth but we don't have to have one at the maximum close approach to have a notable effect."

Mr Nolle said the most recent supermoon on February 18 had an impact on Earth from February 12 to 21. He drew a link between the lunar phenomenon and the Christchurch earthquake, which hit New Zealand on February 22.

He also linked the 1948 Ashgabat earthquake in Turkmenistan, the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991 and 2005's Hurricane Katrina in the United States to periods of supermoon activity.

But Mr Nolle's theories were dismissed by astronomers and seismologists, who said natural disasters happen regardless of whether there's a supermoon or not.

"I would say that the chances of disaster from this supermoon is as great as the chances that the world will end on December 21 next year," said Australian Astronomical Observatory's research astronomer Simon O'Toole, citing interpretations of the Mayan calendar that suggest December 21, 2012 is the day when the world ends.

"So, basically, zero."

Dr O'Toole said there was only a 1 to 2 per cent difference in the distance of the moon from Earth when a perigee (closest) or apogee (furthest) occurs, and so, instead of encountering a bad moon on the rise on March 19, we would only experience a "slightly higher tide" and of course, a larger-looking moon.

"The gravity of the moon is tugging on the Earth and causing a slight sort of distortion as the moon orbits the Earth and that leads to tides eventually.

"But I think that the main thing that we will expect to see [on March 19] is that the moon will look very slightly bigger ... and we may not even be able to perceive that it is bigger."

Clive Collins, a senior seismologist at Geoscience Australia agrees, said that, while many scientists have studied whether there is a link between lunar cycles and seismic activity, none have found any clear connections.

"You get tidal effects which do cause changes in the stress on the Earth but it's not shown that you can predict that earthquakes occur at certain lunar cycles," he said.

"There have been some indications and some circumstances when you get small earthquakes during high tides where you've got lunar and solar gravitational effects occurring at the same time ... but there is no clear correlation, particularly with large earthquakes."

Conspiracy theory or not, Dr O'Toole is certain that the supermoon event will generate assumptions about its impact.

"I think what will most likely happen is the supermoon will come and go next week and then people will look back and say, 'Ah-ha! On March 18 or 19 or 20, all of these things happened and it must have been caused by that.'

"And of course if you look back a couple of weeks ago, you had a giant earthquake in Christchurch. And that was not related to anything like that. It just happened.

"The Earth is a dynamic system - you get all sorts of events independent of the moon and the sun."

Further reading:

The links between astronomy and tides (The US's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

When do lunar perigees and apogees occur? (Geoscience Australia)

Ox

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Re: Japan Earthquake
« Reply #20 on: March 12, 2011, 07:06:49 PM »
in theory it's all plausible however,i think the fact that the country is in/on the seismically unstable archipelago, located on the "Pacific Rim of Fire".

I mean as sad as it is,it's really just a game of time.


Dubstep Dookie

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Re: Japan Earthquake
« Reply #21 on: March 12, 2011, 07:49:25 PM »
Reported 14 mins ago...
 

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/special-reports/japan-declares-nuclear-emergency-following-huge-earthquake/story-fn7zkbgs-1226020058265


UPDATE 7.39pm: FOUR people have been injured in an explosion that occurred at the No. 1 reactor of the quake-hit effushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, the operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Saturday.

The explosion was heard at 3.36 pm following large tremors and white smoke was seen at the facility in effushima Prefecture, the company said.

The four workers were working to deal with problems caused by a powerful earthquake that hit northeastern Japan on Friday. However there is no word on injured worker's condition,  Jiji news agency says.

effushima prefecture says TEPCO'S no.1 reactor ceiling has collapsed, Jiji reports.

Radioactivity at the plant was 20 times over the normal level, and Japan's Nuclear Safety Commission has said it may be experiencing meltdown.

Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) says explosion may have been hydrogen used to cool effushima plant, Kyodo reports.


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TV reports have confirmed the Tokyo fire department is sending special nuclear rescue team to effushima.

Pressure has reportedly been growing at the plant, with Japanese officials racing against time to cool the reactors that were disabled by yesterday's massive earthquake and tsunami or face a nuclear meltdown.

TEPCO is racing to cool down the reactor core after a highly unusual "station blackout" - the total loss of power necessary to keep water circulating through the plant to prevent overheating.

Daiichi Units 1, 2 and 3 reactors shut down automatically at 246pm local time yesterday due to the earthquake. But about an hour later, the on-site diesel back-up generators also shut, leaving the reactors without alternating current (AC) power.

That caused TEPCO to declare an emergency and the Government to evacuate thousands of people from near the plant. Such a blackout is "one of the most serious conditions that can affect a nuclear plant," according to experts at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a US based nuclear watchdog group.

"If all AC power is lost, the options to cool the core are limited," the group warned.

TEPCO also said it has lost ability to control pressure at some of the reactors at its Daini plant nearby.

The reactors at effushima can operate without AC power because they are steam-driven and therefore do not require electric pumps, but the reactors do require direct current (DC) power from batteries for its valves and controls to function.

If battery power is depleted before AC power is restored, the plant would stop supplying water to the core and the cooling water level in the reactor core could drop.

Radiation release

Officials are now considering releasing some radiation to relieve pressure in the containment at the Daiichi plant and are also considering releasing pressure at Daini, signs that difficulties are mounting. Such a release has only occurred once in US history, at Three Mile Island.

"(It's) a sign that the Japanese are pulling out all the stops they can to prevent this accident from developing into a core melt and also prevent it from causing a breach of the containment (system) from the pressure that is building up inside the core because of excess heat," said Mark Hibbs, a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

While the restoration of power through additional generators should allow TEPCO to bring the situation back under control, left unchecked the coolant could boil off within hours. That would cause the core to overheat and damage the fuel, according to nuclear experts familiar with the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania in 1979.

It could take hours more for the metal surrounding the ceramic uranium fuel pellets in the fuel rods to melt, which is what happened at Three Mile Island. That accident essentially froze the nuclear industry for three decades.

Seven years later the industry suffered another blow after the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine exploded due to an uncontrolled power surge that damaged the reactor core, releasing a radioactive cloud that blanketed Europe.

The metal on the fuel rods would not melt until temperatures far exceed 1000 degrees F. The ceramic uranium pellets would not melt until temperatures reached about 2000 degrees F, nuclear experts said.

 The Government declared an atomic emergency amid growing international concern over its reactors after an 8.9 magnitude earthquake, the biggest in Japan's history, unleashed tsunamis that swept all before them.

The US Air Force, which has many bases in Japan, delivered coolant to a Japanese nuclear plant, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said yesterday, without specifying which plant.

The two nuclear plants affected are the effushima No.1 and No.2 plants, both located about 250km northeast of greater Tokyo, an urban area of 30 million people.

Tokyo Electric Power vented radioactive vapour at five reactors between both plants to release building pressure.

"We are not in a situation in which residents face health damage," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters today, according to Jiji.

However, the evacuation area was expanded. A total of 45,000 people living within a 10km radius of the No.1 plant were told to evacuate.

Officials today ordered the evacuation of people living within a 3km-radius of the second plant, with those up to 10km away told to stay indoors.

When Friday's massive quake hit, the plants immediately shut down, along with others in quake-hit parts of Japan, as they are designed to do, but the cooling systems failed, the Government said.

The major fear is that fuel rods, which create heat through a nuclear reaction, could become exposed and release radioactivity.

When reactors shut down, cooling systems must kick in to bring down the very high temperatures. These systems are powered by either the external electricity grid, backup generators or batteries.

This is key to prevent a "nuclear meltdown" and major radioactive release.

Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan early today left on a helicopter to effushima to assess the situation at the plants operated by Tokyo Electric Power, and other areas in the disaster zone.

Military personnel have been dispatched to effushima, including a chemical corps and an aircraft on a "fact-finding mission".

The UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Japanese officials had kept it informed of their efforts to restore power to the cooling systems while monitoring a pressure build-up.

Early in the crisis Prime Minister Kan said no radiation leaks were detected among the country's reactors after the quake.

According to the industry ministry, 11 nuclear reactors automatically shut down at the Onagawa plant, the effushima No.1 and No.2 plants and the Tokai No.2 plant after the strongest earthquake ever to hit the country.

As an industrial powerhouse nation poor in energy resources, Japan also draws about 30 per cent of its total power from its 53 nuclear plants.

Earlier today the Tokyo Electric Power, which runs the plants, had released some radioactive vapour at the plants in a bid to relieve building reactor pressure.

Ox

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Re: Japan Earthquake
« Reply #22 on: March 12, 2011, 07:55:45 PM »


He will save us all!

Dubstep Dookie

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Re: Japan Earthquake
« Reply #23 on: March 12, 2011, 08:38:12 PM »
Confirmation of major explosion now on HS website

Ox

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Re: Japan Earthquake
« Reply #24 on: March 12, 2011, 09:18:56 PM »
Don't worry about it.
Sensationalist headline.
Wankers.

Offline Fishfinger

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Re: Japan Earthquake
« Reply #25 on: March 12, 2011, 09:39:54 PM »
I just checked and the HS website is still intact.  :P
It's 50 of one and half a dozen of the other - Don Scott

Offline tiger101

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Re: Japan Earthquake
« Reply #26 on: March 12, 2011, 10:26:11 PM »
Just watching the news they haven't said anything about an explosion they are monitoring the winds though they are currently blowing south and they don't want it to blow south west cause it could carry over Tokyo the reporter said.


Ox

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Re: Japan Earthquake
« Reply #27 on: March 12, 2011, 10:50:34 PM »
so they would prefer it to blow out to sea and invariably,other countries-lol

Offline tiger101

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Re: Japan Earthquake
« Reply #28 on: March 12, 2011, 10:53:18 PM »
so they would prefer it to blow out to sea and invariably,other countries-lol

They was more talking about the steam. If it blew out to the pacific it would break down before reaching any land.

Footage looks pretty amazing though.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/DHfR_wybvw0


Ox

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Re: Japan Earthquake
« Reply #29 on: March 12, 2011, 11:11:37 PM »
Rupert is making a packet.
I've seen bigger explosions come out of my ars after a week on the Lois.
Humbug.