Truer words have never been said. I was living just 12 miles from the epicenter at the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake, and although my apartment was OK (though I didn't have water for weeks and gas for about a month) I had a immediate support system that I got into. I helped friends clean up, and they would feed me. If I could buy 3 bottles of water, I shared 2 of them, and the same was true in my immediate neighborhood. Is that true in other places. I think of the looting in New Orleans and Haiti. You don't see that in Japan.

Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant
 

Not sure that any of containments are completely intact....
Perfaps, they should to increase a level 4 of emergency till 5 or even 6....

We are so lucky to have so many nuclear specialists around here on the forum... What would the Japanese do without them or their help.

Even a few can tell from merely some aerial photos that a country should raise their alert level, others know that no more fish is edible, others with wonder moisturizers can make the radiation disappear... Lucky for the Japanese that us, the users from JapanForum, exist in this world.

BBC News - Japan earthquake: UK rescue team 'foiled by red tape'

Typical British lack of organisation...

Self defensive force gave up discharging water from above

advisors
 

Bud, your poisonous sarcasm isn't appropriate.;) This forum is a place to discuss and we can share opinions without advices of various smart asses:)

As for work of japanese nuclear specialists :

Japan asks IAEA for help in nuclear crisis

VIENNA: Japan has officially asked the UN atomic watchdog to send a team of experts to help in the current nuclear crisis, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Yukiya Amano said on Monday.

Rest of article

How many days Japan has problems with four nuclear reactors?

By comparison, in Chernobyl Soviets immediately gathered a huge group of heavy Mil-26 helicopters, day-to-day dropping tones of boric acid, sand and cement upon a single damaged reactor.

Leave the forum if you don't like what you see... this is a DISCUSSION FORUM... there won't be any discussion if we are experts and are always right.

Most of us are no expert, thats why we ask questions, no one is making recommendation on how to solve this. Others are merely suggesting things base on a surface level understanding of what happened in Chernobyl, nobody wish for something like that to happen again,.

All we can do is sit behind a TV, watching the heroic workers saving the day, praising and admiring what they are doing for the country....

My prayers with the workers and their family.....

merely suggesting things
 

Couldn't agree with you more......

This is not overly scientific or anything but makes for a reasonable read

Some Perspective On The Japan Earthquake: MicroISV on a Shoestring

I live pretty close to Chernobil, I had 2 brothers who died from leuchemia because of that (one was under a year old, the other 3 and a half), so I should know about the effects, but to scare the c...p out of people isn't a discussion. That's exactly what the media does, exaggerating everything, and it isn't helping the people. You're comparing something like Chernobil to this?

discussion
 

As Godwine pointed out, we have all rights to make suggestions and share opinions. That's what this forum intended for.
Speaking for myself : yes, I compare current situation to Chernobyl. Because, speaking of mentioned aerial view, it looks out more like Chernobyl damaged reactor than relatively intact reactor building of american Three Mile Island of 1979.

scheme
 

Current situation inside a block of reactor #4 according to Japanese TV (seems, like exposed rods of spent nuclear fuel due to lower level of coolant (water))

Chernobyl was one of the biggest mistake of the human history, after the war and the nukes.

Chernobyl disaster - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Working in a Nuclear Plants without safe security switch on and put in a Nuclear Plants people that doesn't even know what they touch or press... Soviet Russia, you did it very wrong. It was an avoidable incident.
I'm sorry for you Protheus.


How the situation today in Japan?

incident
 

No doubt.

Another layout of PWR :

I don't know if this information is true or not, since the source is my friend. But, Fukushima plant is spitting out neutron now.

Yes, thats what the media did, and nobody on this forum is trying to do this.... everyone is just monitoring the situation closely and wondering what can be done.

I am comparing this to Chernobyl because the MEDIA already said this is worse than the event at Three Mile, the next step up in history is only Chernobyl, so I don't know what else I am suppose to compare this to.

People's opinion (mine anyways) are mainly base on historical events and figures, so its just natural that I would compare this to something that happened in the past.

Nuclear Power Plant
 

IIRC, they used to say about plutonium inside experimental core of reactor # 3 (enough damaged block) and about exposed spent fuel rods in damaged block # 4. Plutonium as well as spent fuel may be strongest sources of radiation....

meltdown
 

Here is depicted a possible scenario.

quote :

Reactor vessel breachingIn absence of adequate cooling, the inside of the reactor overheats, deforms as the portions undergo thermal expansion, then structurally fails once the temperature reaches the melting point of the structural materials. The melt then accumulates on the bottom of the reactor vessel. In case of adequate cooling of the corium melt, it can solidify and the spread of damage is limited to the reactor. However, corium may melt through the reactor vessel and flow out or be ejected as a molten stream by the pressure inside the reactor. The reactor failure may be caused by overheating of its bottom by the corium melt, resulting first in creep failure and then in breach of the vessel. High level of cooling water above the corium layer may allow reaching a thermal equilibrium below the metal creep temperature, without reactor vessel failure.[5]

If the vessel is sufficiently cooled, a crust between the melt and the reactor wall can form. The layer of molten steel on top of the oxide creates a zone of increased heat transfer to the reactor wall;[1] this condition, known as "heat knife", exacerbates probability of formation of a localized weakening of the side of the reactor vessel and subsequent corium leak.

In case of high pressure inside the reactor vessel, breaching of its bottom may result in high-pressure blowout of the corium mass. In the first phase, only the melt itself is ejected; later a depression forms in the center of the hole and gas is discharged together with the melt, resulting in rapid decrease of pressure inside the reactor; the high temperature of the melt also causes rapid erosion and enlargement of the vessel breach. If a hole is in the center of the bottom, nearly all corium can be ejected. A hole in the side of the vessel may lead to only partial ejection of corium, retaining its portion inside the reactor.[6] Melt-through of the reactor vessel may take from few tens of minutes to several hours.

After breaching the reactor vessel, the conditions in the reactor cavity below the core govern the production of gases. If water is present, steam and hydrogen are generated; dry concrete results in production of carbon dioxide and smaller amount of steam.[7]

Wiki

corium
 

After meltdown, a molten mass of reactor core formed lava-like corium.

Wiki

Hardened corium flows inside a basement of damaged reactor of Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant:

why dont u give it a rest dude ;)

rest
 

Oh, dude, I'm so sorry.....am I overheating your brain?:eek: :D

As serious and for some heart-breaking as this is, a friend sent me a small bit of comic relief, so in the interest of a short decompression, I hope you take this in the spirit it's meant......

"Why haven't the Fukushima explosions woken up Gojira? Where is he anyway? Typical monster; never around when you need him."

"No, we need Mothra. She could fly everyone out while Gamera gobbles up the fires."

(And if you steal my plot line for the next really bad retro sci-fi flic, I will sic Gyaos on you.)

Hope that makes one or two of you smile for a moment.

This whole episode has really put Britain to shame in my eyes and raised my admiration of Japan and it's people to the highest level.
Still not one single bit of any yobbery thugs looters rapists thieves in site, in this day an age I can truly say that is a great achievement. I can't bear to think if that happened here it'd b a dog eat dog situation yobs and thugs would run riot, if the Tsunami didn't kill us the aftermath will.

In my view, the thing that puts British people to shame (and Americans too) is the jokes that are flying around right now about Japan. An example of such a person right now is US-'comedian' Gilbert Gottfried, or however his name is spelt. His jokes were so untasteful, its not even worth spending time trying to spell his name right. Good news is he got the sack after said comments.

comediants
 

Cheap, lousy, brainless clowns. {vomiting smile]

What about that stupid UCLA girl??? Completely heartless....

this is an interesting read. not sure if I agree that we don't need to worry, or that everything is being contained (I think the situation has gotten progressively worse since this was posted too), but this is a good explanation of how this stuff works and some of what happened at the plant.

You Can Stop Worrying About A Radiation Disaster In Japan -- Here's Why

Seriously during this time of crisis? your poping bad jokes? DONT YOU EVER DISSRESPECT JAPAN LIKE THAT AGAIN!!!!! I should punch you for that. be glad im a lover not a fighter.

I just received this from About.com:
Sympathy for Japan, and Admiration - NYTimes.com

Oh, and the irony, the earthquake happened just one day after my birthday -_-

Oh, and I found this too:
The Japan Nuke Problem No One's Talking About
Fission Criticality In Cooling Ponds Threaten Explosion At Fukushima

The Japanese heros at Fukushima have 48 hours to cool down one of the reactors. The experts try to find a solution to put water in the power plant pool.

Which reactor is it? Do you have the source where you got this from?

こんにちは!
 

Hallo Japanese!

My name is Milos Manojlovic and I am from Serbia, if you don`t know, a small country in eastern Europe. Japan is a country which donated over 200 milion $ for our development. I commiserate with Japanese people and triying to find a way how to help you. I and my family donated a small amount of money in order to help people of Japan in one of our bank. A lot of people dont have a shelter in Japan. I am ready to welcome everyone from Japan, while all this troubles stops. My e-mail adress is [email protected]

Greetins from Serbia,

Milos Manojlovic

I'm watching the French news, it's reactor 4 because the pool is empty. I think they are trying to rebuild the cooling system while other experts are trying to cool down the reactor 4.

Yeah. She apologized only after she got in trouble

You know in those shelters,why do they keep showing them the same news?
There's hardly anything new. Surely they could do with watching Mr.Bean or something. They must be depressed.

so far, it is ok in tokyo

live geiger counting

Face meets palm.

All the public university exchange students from my state living in Tokyo have been told to come home.