My Wet Coast Life

In the last week, I saw the numerous M5+ quakes happening off the coast of Japan. I have been working on an earthquake related project and hope to have it done soon and based on that, following quakes and related information a lot more intently. In my opinion, the Japanese earthquakes were happening more frequently and with greater intensity instead of subsiding like most other quakes. Early last week, over eight M5+ quakes in under 10 hours off the Japanese coast. Before I went to bed on Thursday night, I pointed this fact out to my wife that something big was going to happen soon which gave me even more motivation to finish my project as quickly as possible (and at time of this post, about 80% complete).

Yesterday, we woke up and once again witnessed the power of Mother Nature with the tragic M8.9 earthquake in Japan followed by numerous M5+ aftershocks. Keep in mind, each time the Magnitude scale goes up by 1, that is 10 times stronger. This was over 800 times more powerful than the Haiti quake (but deeper and off coast). This in turn caused a very powerful tsunami that raced across the Pacific ocean at over 800km/h. Japan took the full brunt of the wave quoted at over 10 meters high and decimating complete villages in the blink of the eye and barely losing any speed.

Luckily, I did not see any reports of damage for B.C coast but Oregon and California did have some damage and one person swept out to see trying to take pictures. Sorry but I need to put my two bits in on this. If you're dumb enough to go down and try and get pics of a TSUNAMI, at least ensure you are in a safe location. This way, you'll save others having to risk their lives to go rescue your ignorance and stupidity. You'd have thought after seeing footage of the previous large tsunami and how devastating and quickly it moves, people would learn not to go intentionally to the waters edge for a photo op. Remember, you cannot move faster than the wave and it only takes around half a foot of water to float a car. Okay? Let's move on.

Today, Japan's natural disaster continued but this time with much more potential global ramifications. During the initial quake, one of the nuclear plant's cooling systems that sustained damage in the quake has been leaking coolant. Parts of the No. 1 reactor's nuclear fuel rods were briefly exposed to the air after cooling water levels dropped. This is what keeps the reaction in check instead of send temperatures up into the thousands of degrees Celsius range and causing a possible meltdown like Chernobyl. Today one part blew up. This is the before/after of what blew up and some video.

Now at this point, I am starting to get worried but then my coffee kicks in. My brain reminds me, it is the news, do some checking because death and destruction sells and they tend to leave out the lighter side of the info (sometimes). We don't need any more panic and thanks to the Australian Radioactive Service's image of projected fall out you see above, it does not get my hopes up. ಠ_ಠ

Checking the jet stream, shows it is currently over the southern part of British Columbia. This is not how I wanted to start my Saturday. Time to do some more checking.

Luckily, this type of reactor is a light water reactor. Loss of coolant means a temperature rise, but it also stops the reaction. Naoto Sekimura, a professor at the University of Tokyo was quoted:

"Even in the worst-case scenario, that would mean some radioactive leakage and equipment damage, but not an explosion. If venting is done carefully, there will be little leakage. Certainly not beyond the 3 km radius."

So hopefully the scientists are correct and we will just have to wait and see what happens. I assume if there was an explosion on the actual reactor, that can still cause radiation fall out but if they keep the temperatures in check, this should be contained to a couple kilometers around the site. If you are trying to find someone in Japan or get more information, you can go to Google's Crisis Response page. You can also search for people on Google's Person Finder service. If you need more news and footage, here is a good page with links to live streaming and real time updates.

Follow up:

In the mean time, we can use this for yet another wake up call to make sure we are prepared. I wrote 2 articles almost a year ago to this date, the first was right after the Haiti quake asking if British Columbia in line for the next big one? I then followed it up asking about Earthquake Preparedness. Are you ready? Now that I have you reading this, STOP and THINK for a second, are you REALLY PREPARED? Ask yourself the following questions and if any are a NO, they you have some work to do.

1. Do you have enough food and water for you (and your family) to survive for a minimum 72 hours, preferably 1 week?
2. Do you have enough medication to fit your needs? (Diabetics, blood pressure, etc)
3. Is your emergency kit easily accessible?
4. Do you know what that sign and symbol means that you see to the right?
5. Do you have a small kit in either your vehicle or at work?
   (Japan's quake was in the afternoon)
6. Do you have an out of city and/or country emergency contact to check in with?
7. Do you know your city/municipality/region/etc emergency plan? Emergency Social services locations?
8. Some cash in small denominations plus coins?
   (Remember, no guarantee cells or bank machines will work and even if they do, you need power to charge phone)
9. If a quake struck right now, do you know what to do?
   (umm...if your still reading this, here's a hint, you should be under your desk right now holding on)
   
   

So wakeup call? For sure.

Are we next? Only mother natures knows that.

We have had a couple quakes recently in the M4 range for the Pacific Northwest. A couple were off Oregon's coast, another at Mount St. Helen's and a couple off the coast of Vancouver Island so enough to say, we could be next. We are the last "corner" to be hit. Haiti, Chile, Bali, Japan all have had large scale quakes within the first 3 months of the year.

Based on this pattern, we are the only ones left without such an event so my "educated" guess for question most west coasters ask, "When will the Big One hit B.C.?", is between January to March 2012. I sure hope I am not right and rather we have decades instead of months to prepare. Yet again, if I am correct, you have 9 months to ensure you are prepared and I hope you don't leave it to December 2011 as it could easily be tomorrow....or now. Be proactive not reactive and go visit the Provincial Emergency Preparedness website and ensure you are ready.