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.
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