Earthquake has hit Japan

[NTSC-J]

I've been in Tokyo for over a week now and it's more or less the same. A lot of the neon lights that are a Tokyo signature are off, stores close a little earlier, there's a 10% increase in mask wearing, and bottled water sells fast. I'm not sure why I still find empty bread shelves, surely everyone is now well-stocked in unhealthy white bread.

Also kind of funny how my radiation-alertness quickly diminished after the first few days. Day one I had the scarf, hat, mask, gloves, etc. Day two, just the mask. By day three I was doing long soaks in reactor 3. Most everyone else also seems to not care, although I've seen two guys wearing those crazy gas masks.

[sven666]

I've been in Tokyo for over a week now and it's more or less the same. A lot of the neon lights that are a Tokyo signature are off, stores close a little earlier, there's a 10% increase in mask wearing, and bottled water sells fast. I'm not sure why I still find empty bread shelves, surely everyone is now well-stocked in unhealthy white bread.

Also kind of funny how my radiation-alertness quickly diminished after the first few days. Day one I had the scarf, hat, mask, gloves, etc. Day two, just the mask. By day three I was doing long soaks in reactor 3. Most everyone else also seems to not care, although I've seen two guys wearing those crazy gas masks.

meanwhile here in sweden theyre calling the nuclear situation is worse and worse each day, altho its bumped well of the front page.

"..and there we leave the report from Forsberg's summer house, oh and btw the situation in Japan is meltdown is imminent and all rescue workers have been evacuated, directly harmfull levels of radiation have been measured in the surroundings of the plant, more news same time tomorrow, good night"

[moozooh]

Well, let's round up the last week's news then.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/27_26.html — new aerial footage of the plant, taken yesterday.

http://www.jaif.or.jp/english/news_imag ... 98620P.pdf — leakage is suspected in Unit 2's containment vessel. Still no official confirmation, although by this point it should be obvious (see below). The US has delivered loads of fresh water to the site as salt from seawater has started to coat the surfaces inside the reactor vessel and clog the pipes (which may actually be leaking). The incident is still at INES 5 officially, but it seems it's only a matter of time before it's promoted to INES 6.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/ ... 327x1.html — more than 1 Sv/h was detected in pools of water in the basement of Unit 2's turbine building. From the same source: "the level of radioactive iodine detected in seawater near the Fukushima No. 1 plant has skyrocketed to 1,850 times the limit, from 1,250 times the previous day."

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/81122.html — Three workers were exposed to radiation in the underground of No. 3 reactor's turbine building, and two of them were hospitalized due to radiation burns to their legs, after standing in a puddle of contaminated water. The workers received an estimated equivalent dose of 2–6 Sv to the skin below their ankles (later confirmed by IAEA). They were not wearing protective boots, as their employing firm's safety manuals "did not assume a scenario in which its employees would carry out work standing in water at a nuclear power plant". It would have been funny if it wasn't so goddamn sad.

tl;dr version: the situation is getting worse, the power line connected earlier is (so far) of no help to Units 1 through 4, new measures are taken with variable success rate, new casualties are occurring and more expected to occur.

[Skykid]

WOW, Japanese people got out on the street and actually had a march in protest to the use of nuclear power.

Japanese people. Unified. Marching. Protesting. In the street.

Wow.

[ZOM]

^Yeah I've seen this the other day on TV - had to look twice at the screen. Unusual, to say the least.

[adversity1]

WOW, Japanese people got out on the street and actually had a march in protest to the use of nuclear power.

Japanese people. Unified. Marching. Protesting. In the street.

Wow.

Something not uncommon up until the end of the 1970s actually.

Only thing recently I can think of that brought out a lot of people were the Iraq war protests in 2003/2004 (ironically, there were basically no protests in Tokyo against the crackdown on Egyptian protesters in January/slaughter of people in Libya, Bahrain etc.). But certainly this would be a situation to merit large-scale protests.

[rancor]

Its not so strange - I passed through a union/workers rights/socialist rally at the end of last summer. There were a few thousand people there and they were quite vocal.






yes - that's a man in a bikini and wig -

[sven666]

holy shit, this video really shows of the destructive force of a tsunami!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... b-2iByqHVI

definetly puts a little perspective to it more than "its a huge wave"...

[StarCreator]

WOW, Japanese people got out on the street and actually had a march in protest to the use of nuclear power.

Japanese people. Unified. Marching. Protesting. In the street.

Wow.

... sorry if this is rehashing something already discussed in this topic, but if they stopped relying on nuclear power, what the hell else would they rely on? I can't think of any other source of power that would produce enough to meet current demand without polluting the air to all hell. This ain't SimCity 2000 where you can beam in energy from space.

[moozooh]

They actually rely a lot on the thermal power sources (read: fossil fuels), a table some pages ago said something around 70% of all energy output in Japan was generated from those.

[Skykid]

Its not so strange - I passed through a union/workers rights/socialist rally at the end of last summer. There were a few thousand people there and they were quite vocal.

Good for them. If socialists don't protest, they practically don't exist, so it's good to see the unions getting it on JP. Those guys have really shitty/hardly any working rights as it goes.

"Sorry you're sacked."

"Why?"

"Just don't need you any more. Bye."

[Skykid]

holy shit, this video really shows of the destructive force of a tsunami!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... b-2iByqHVI

definetly puts a little perspective to it more than "its a huge wave"...

Holy crap, unreal!

[CHI]

am suppose to catch a flight to Tokyo next week, now the flight has to be postponed

dates has been changed... mid June... i hope the radiation will be cleared by then

holy shit, this video really shows of the destructive force of a tsunami!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... b-2iByqHVI

...

[Ex-Cyber]

am suppose to catch a flight to Tokyo next week, now the flight has to be postponed

dates has been changed... mid June... i hope the radiation will be cleared by then

It won't really be "cleared", just more diluted. I'm sure people will be debating for years what concentrations should be considered "normal" or at least "acceptable".

[dcharlie]

Those guys have really shitty/hardly any working rights as it goes.

"Sorry you're sacked."
"Why?"
"Just don't need you any more. Bye."

errr.... is this true? My employment lawyer certainly doesn't think it is!

(well, they can fire you but you are going to get some hot severance pay action!)

More likely i see this :

"We have absolutely no use for you..."
"... okay..."
"and we want to make you redundant...."
"... um... okay..."
"but we don't want to pay you off...."
"... err... right..."
"so here... sit in this room with no windows and just a desk. Forever."
"oh god, the shame of it... i must quit"
"thank you for saving the firm more money"

[GaijinPunch]

Japanese people. Unified. Marching. Protesting. In the street.

The conservatives have been doing it for decades, and Gay Pride actually has a good turn out here.

Those guys have really shitty/hardly any working rights as it goes.

Japanese enjoy better workers rights (for anyone not just Unions) than at least America and I assume many other western nations. Lifetime employment no matter how awful you are is starting to dwindle, but you can expect a decent pay out in the case you're laid off, assuming you work for a decent company. This isn't 100% guarantee but it's unheard of in the states, and most other western countries AFAIK.

EDIT: What dcharlie said. The fabled window seat. Just threaten to sue and take the pay out if you're threatened to be made redundant.

[greg]

"Sorry you're sacked."

"Why?"

"Just don't need you any more. Bye."

Wait... you're talking about the United States, right? That's exactly how it is here.

[GaijinPunch]

For you American expats that care, the US Embassy will issue you 7 Potassium Iodide pills if you show your valid passport. It's going on now (still, even though it was only through the 25th originally) at the New Sanno Hotel.

All you white people from other places? Fucked as usual.

[Alien Soldier]

Magic Knight is SAFE!

He's checked in at AO and has a pretty crazy story:

http://forum.arcadeotaku.com/viewtopic. ... 0&start=75

Quite a relief.

And his entire 176 strong PCB collection survived in the upstairs of the house while the downstairs was Tsunami gutted!

Thanks Skykid ! I'm glad it's true.

Btw, here's a video I've just found on youtube (28th of march) WARNING A HUGE FRENCH ACCENT IS APPROACHING FAST !

Seriously though, same thing is happening here, we didn't hear from japan for days and now the Canadian Election Circus is in town and choosing between aids or cholera is the new hot thing to talk about. I wish people could catch years of radiation effects on millions of people in a 2 minutes videotape so TV news could make sensationalism of out it. That would bring backs some attention to the people who're starving and dying right fucking now. Fuck this world, really.

[brentsg]

The thing that drives me the craziest is when I come across some link that looks interesting and informative.

I click even though there's a video symbol, hoping that I can pause it and just read an associated story about Japan (or other important subject). But then there's no text, and a 30 second advertisement has to play first. So at this point, it's like death and destruction, brought to you by Cheetos.

[BPzeBanshee]

death and destruction, brought to you by Cheetos.

Sig-worthy.

[DragonInstall]

So they said they found plutonium, which means the reactor has been breached. Also a town 20 kilometers away had radiation levels as high as Chernobyl.

Can't they just dump cement all over the reactor?

[ryu]

Also a town 20 kilometers away had radiation levels as high as Chernobyl.

source? i'm having trouble believing this

[DragonInstall]

Also a town 20 kilometers away had radiation levels as high as Chernobyl.

source? i'm having trouble believing this

lol news. But yeah it seems unbelievable.

[austere]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/ma ... ar-reactor

Not surprised, I was hoping they were planning countermeasures behind the scenes but at this point in time it's only a matter of time.

As for that Chernobyl claim: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2 ... nobyl.html

Radioactive caesium and iodine has been deposited in northern Japan far from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, at levels that were considered highly contaminated after Chernobyl.

The readings were taken by the Japanese science ministry, MEXT, and reveal high levels of caesium-137 and iodine-131 outside the 30-kilometre evacuation zone, mostly to the north-north-west.

Iodine-131, with a half-life of eight days, should disappear in a matter of weeks. The bigger worry concerns caesium-137, which has a half-life of 30 years and could pose a health threat for far longer. Just how serious that will be depends on where it lands, and whether remediation measures are possible.

The US Department of Energy has been surveying the area with an airborne gamma radiation detector. It reports that most of the "elevated readings" are within 40 kilometres of the plant, but that "an area of greater radiation extending north-west… may be of interest to public safety officials".

NewScientist tends to be one of the better popsci rags out there.

[GaijinPunch]

I'm back in Tokyo. Going to be hard to get back into my routine, but I will do my best. My gym is STILL fucking closed, and the Narita Express is not running. The latter doesn't bother me much, but the former fucks me off to no end. Went to Shinjuku today, and noticed all the big TV screens are off, obviously to save energy. Other than that, people walking about, not paying attention to anyone else.... same as usual.

[Blackbird]

Man, that Guardian article is so sensationalist. He's obviously making blind speculation based on the same information that everyone else has - that there's a lot of very radioactive water in the basement. It could have just as easily been washed down there from the spent fuel pool, they have been spraying water in there constantly, after all.

[DragonInstall]

So I think they gave up on stopping the leak. Chernobyl #2

[GaijinPunch]

So I think they gave up on stopping the leak. Chernobyl #2

'you think' being the operative words, right?

[austere]

USA is sending Japan some radiation hardened equipment so I don't think they're throwing in the towel at all. They're just not letting anyone know what they're planning. First priority is to figure out what is going on in the RPV, some thermal imagers would be nice...

In other news:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/ ... 0620110330