Tsunami Devistates Japan's Coast

[Guest DCpages Staff]

A massive 8.9 magnitude earthquake occurred in northern Japan early on Friday. The earthquake's epicenter is 130 km (81 miles) east of Sendai, in the Honshu island of Japan. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the epicenter was at a depth of 24.4 km (15.2 miles).

The earthquake triggered tsunamis in various parts of the country. Japan issued a tsunami warning immediately after the earthquake, followed by tsunami warnings for New Zealand, Australia, Russia, Chile, Guam, Philippines, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Nauru, Hawaii, Northern Marianas (USA), Taiwan, and California. It is confirmed for the Philippines that if the tsunami doesn't hit the country for 2 hours (5:00 - 7:00) it will be slightly safer, it is currently alert number two for all regions.

The tsunami attained a height of 10 meters, and swept houses, buildings and cars according to reports. Shinkansen stopped the bullet train service following the quake. According to reports, an oil refinery was set ablaze by the quake at Ichihara, Chiba prefecture to the east of Tokyo.
2011 Sendai earthquake - refinery fire

The National Weather Service said that earthquakes "of this size" often "generate tsunamis potentially dangerous to coasts outside the source region." "Based on all available data a tsunami may have been generated by this earthquake that could be destructive on coastal areas even far from the epicenter," it added.

About 20 people were reportedly injured in Tokyo following the collapse of a roof of a hall. 4 million people are estimated to be without power in the capital. In Sendai, several people are feared to be buried under the remains of a collapsed hotel.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan said there had been no nuclear plant radiation leaks caused by the disaster. He expressed sympathy to all victims in his address, promising help, and stating that an emergency response headquarters had been set up. 288 people have been confirmed dead so far.

However, a 2-3 km area around the Fukushima Nuclear Power plant has been evacuated as a precaution as the temperature inside on of the nuclear reactor has "remain[ed] at a high temperature" despite the plant being shut down. Trade Minister Banri Kaieda advised that there is a possibility of a radiation leak at the plant.

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/

[Guest HUMAN]

Got friends over there. From Tokyo too Fukushima is just over 500 miles away and of course the weather patterns "http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFL3E7EC0A620110312".

 

They had other concerns, but this one was the over-riding question.

[Guest Luke]

One of our former staff members lives there and his house is ruined.

 

Here is the donation and information he suggested

 

http://www.google.co.jp/intl/en/crisisresponse/japanquake2011.html

[Guest HUMAN]

Very ordered in how the Japanese people are handling this crisis.

 

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One of our former staff members lives there and his house is ruined.

 

Here is the donation and information he suggested

 

http://www.google.co.jp/intl/en/crisisresponse/japanquake2011.html

[Guest LAW]

AT&T* today announced it has implemented international calling and texting support efforts for U.S. residential wireless and wireline consumers trying to connect with loved ones in Japan, following last week’s tragic earthquake and tsunami.

 

Effective beginning last week, March 11, and continuing through March 31, AT&T wireless postpaid customers will not be charged for:

 

* International long distance usage from the United States and Puerto Rico to Japan

* Text messages to Japan, originated from a U.S. wireless number

 

In addition, and also effective March 11 through March 31, residential wireline customers can seek credits for up to 60 minutes of direct dial calling to Japan:

 

* Upon receiving their wireline bill, customers may call AT&T to receive adjusted calling for up to 60 minutes. In other words, no charges for up to 60 minutes of call time from the United States to Japan between March 11 and March 31.

 

For any of the above activity, customers will either see no charges reflected on their monthly statement, or they will see a full credit applied to their statement for activity between March 11 and March 31.

 

“We want to help our customers connect with loved ones in Japan in anyway we can,” said Mark Collins, senior vice president, Voice and Data Products, AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets. “Connecting with family and friends is most important at times like this— we want to make it as easy and worry free as possible for our customers.”

 

Still available, AT&T wireless customers can text “redcross” to 90999 to give a $10 donation to help the Red Cross with disaster support efforts in the area. No text message fees apply.

 

And, TV Japan – the 24 hour Japanese news channel – is available for free through March 17 to all U-verse® TV subscribers, allowing viewers to follow the news and recovery efforts. TV Japan can be found on channel 3680.

 

*AT&T products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. under the AT&T brand and not by AT&T Inc.

[Guest Rod]

An explosion occurred in part of the Fukushima Daiichi facility’s No 2 reactor known as the suppression chamber, which was believed to have been filled with contaminated water and air. Radiation at Fukushima nuclear power plant has briefly hit 8,217 micro sievert per hour.

[Guest human]

http://www.intomobile.com/2011/03/15/apple-stores-tokyo-go-above-and-beyond-during-2011-earthquake/

[Guest BG Spence]

The largest quakes do occur near the full moon (or to a lesser degree the new moon)

 

The source data:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_earthquakes#Largest_earthquakes_by_magnitude

 

http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/moonphases.html

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/83092173@N00/5518198459/

 

Oddly, this current Japanese quake is an outlier!

[Guest Chuck]

Japan will need to rebuild and this will help businesses across the world, bringing more jobs to the area.

[Guest American4Progress]

The Japanese government has formally asked the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for assistance, which dispatched experts to Japan to provide technical assistance. Joe Cirincione, a nuclear expert and president of the Ploughshares Fund, said, "This is an unprecedented crisis. ... You have multiple reactor crises at the same time. We've never had a situation like this before."

 

NUCLEAR DEBATE: The nuclear crisis in Japan has renewed debate over the safety of nuclear power not just in the United States but around the world. Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) said on Face the Nation, "I don't want to stop the building of nuclear power plants. ... But I think we've got to quietly put...the brakes on until we can absorb what has happened in Japan as a result of the earthquake and the tsunami." Rep. Ed Markey, (D-MA) has called for a "timeout" on new reactors and said that the U.S. should have a moratorium on building reactors in seismic areas of the country. The crisis threatens the bipartisan consensus that emerged over the need for more nuclear power. Nuclear power has been seen as an alternative to burning fossil fuels since it omits zero carbon. William Saletan of Slate warned: "Let's cool this panic before it becomes a political meltdown. ... If Japan, the United States, or Europe retreats from nuclear power in the face of the current panic, the most likely alternative energy source is fossil fuel. And by any measure, fossil fuel is more dangerous." At the same time, Joe Romm and Richard Caperton of the Center for American Progress write that the nuclear crisis "remind us that nuclear power is inherently risky. ... Let's be clear: If something goes wrong with a U.S. nuclear reactor, the American public will be in double jeopardy -- we'll suffer the health consequences and then also have to pay for it."

 

ROLE OF GOVERNMENT: The crisis in Japan clearly demonstrates the importance of government safety regulations. As we learn the full causes and outcomes of the Japanese disaster, the U.S. should revisit and improve safety rules for both existing and proposed reactors. Romm and Caperton explain that, "because taxpayers have so much to lose in a nuclear disaster, the government has a responsibility to take every precaution to minimize that risk." David Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists explains in the New York Times that there is a "need to revisit emergency plans to ensure that people get the help they need even when disasters overlap." Yet Media Matters reported that "in the wake of the crisis at Japanese nuclear reactors, the conservative media have pushed for the removal of 'obstacles' to nuclear power and a faster nuclear permit process for nuclear plants." The proposed budget cuts from Republicans in the House of Representatives further threaten to undermine the safety of the American people. Romm and Caperton warn that "Congress must not cut funding for NOAA's tsunami warning service. House Republicans have proposed cutting funding to NOAA -- the agency directly responsible for tsunami monitoring and warning -- restricting the government's ability to respond. America has a number of reactors that could be affected by a tsunami." Furthermore, despite the massive 9.0 earthquake, much of the damage in Japan was not caused by the earthquake, but by the tsunami. Thousands of lives were saved due to the strict government enforced building codes that were absent in a country like Haiti or China, which experienced a significantly higher death toll.

[Guest NIA]

Japan will need to rebuild and this will help businesses across the world, bringing more jobs to the area.

 

It is unbelievable just how many of the economists featured by the mainstream media are calling the disaster in Japan a "stimulus" for not only the Japanese economy, but also the U.S. economy. When a country is forced to rebuild an asset that it already had, it is not stimulating the economy, but is spending resources that could have went towards increasing the production of goods and services. When Japan is eventually finished rebuilding the parts of the country that were devastated this past week, the country isn't going to be better off than they were before the crisis. They will likely be even more deeply in debt, with less foreign currency reserves, and a much larger money supply. The Nikkei will likely be a lot higher than it is today due to inflation, but the yen will be worth a lot less and the Japanese will be far less wealthy as a result.

 

America has nothing to benefit from Japan's rebuilding efforts. Most of the commodities that Japan will import as part of their rebuilding efforts will likely come from Australia, China, and even Canada, with very little of it coming from the U.S. All of the fear and uncertainty in the world today is not going to cause another rush into the U.S. dollar like there was in 2008. When the world dumps risky assets in uncertain situations, the U.S. dollar is going to become one of the risky assets that it dumps. With all of the world's central banks now fixated on printing money in order to "solve" any short-term economic problems, gold and silver will be the new beneficiaries of all safe haven buying during times of crisis. Don't let yesterday's dip in gold and silver fool you. Precious metals were due for a dip and would have sold off no matter what. Now is the time to load up with precious metals before the Federal Reserve begins dropping hints of QE3.

[Guest HUMAN]

One of the medical gear that I use comes from Japan. Others make it, but NOT to the level of quality that the Japanese medical manufactures’ make there products at.

 

I have already begun to stock up. It's a pity that our manufactures’ don't have the same standards.

[Guest 3rd Eye]

The world is bigger than we are.

[Guest fallout range]

Fukushima Daiichi was the center of the quake.

 

FUKUSHIMA UPDATE

 

* Reactor 1: Fuel rods damaged after explosion. Power lines attached

* Reactor 2: Damage to the core, prompted by a blast, helped trigger raising of the nuclear alert level. Power lines attached

* Reactor 3: Contains plutonium, core damaged by explosion. Fuel ponds refilled with water in operation

* Reactor 4: Hit by explosion and fire, temperature of spent fuel pond now said to have dropped after water spraying

* Reactors 5 & 6: Temperature of spent fuel pools now lowered after rising dangerously high. Diesel generators powering cooling systems

[Guest HUMAN]

No one has asked what type of Nuclear Reactor is located at Fukushima?

 

I know what type they have and the technology used, but I want the rest of you to start thinking about that.

 

As well as whether it is a passive system or not?

 

As far as I know? no one is asking these type of questions in the media.

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Fukushima Daiichi was the center of the quake.

 

FUKUSHIMA UPDATE

 

* Reactor 1: Fuel rods damaged after explosion. Power lines attached

* Reactor 2: Damage to the core, prompted by a blast, helped trigger raising of the nuclear alert level. Power lines attached

* Reactor 3: Contains plutonium, core damaged by explosion. Fuel ponds refilled with water in operation

* Reactor 4: Hit by explosion and fire, temperature of spent fuel pond now said to have dropped after water spraying

* Reactors 5 & 6: Temperature of spent fuel pools now lowered after rising dangerously high. Diesel generators powering cooling systems

[Guest Ecoguy]

Three groups – Friends of the Earth (FOE), the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) and Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) – announced today that they have filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to get to the bottom of what led the U.S. government to call for a 50-mile evacuation radius for Americans near the Japanese reactor crisis in Fukushima.

 

The FOIA requests filed with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) are available online at http://foe.org/sites/default/files/FOE-NIRS-PSR-RadiationFOIA-3-22-11.pdf . The three groups are not satisfied that the incomplete summary provided so far by the DOE at http://www.energy.gov/news/10194.htm provides the full picture of the scale of the radiation.

 

On March 16, 2011, NRC Commissioner Gregory B. Jazcko told Congress that he was recommending the 50-mile evacuation radius. (See http://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/organization/commission/comm-gregory-jaczko/0317nrc-transcript-jaczko.pdf.) The scope of the recommended evacuation is highly unusual and suggestive of extraordinarily high radiation levels in excess of those reported to the public in Japan and the U.S., the three groups said. In the U.S., nuclear reactor licensees and local governments are only asked to provide for evacuation out to 10 miles.

 

As concerns grow about food and water contamination in Japan, the three groups filing the FOIA request are seeking to determine the answer to this key question: What made Jaczko exceed the limits of his own agency's regulations by five times?

 

Tom Clements, Southeastern nuclear campaign coordinator, Friends of the Earth, said: "The radiation monitoring information being collected by the U.S. Government in Japan is of urgent interest to the public in the U.S. and internationally and we expect an expedited response to the FOIA request. If the full data set is not immediately released, the government can rightly be accused of attempting to cover up the radiation threat posed by the disaster. This would severely undermine regulators' credibility."

 

Michael Mariotte, executive director, Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Takoma Park, MD, said: "By recommending a 50-mile evacuation zone for U.S. residents, NRC Chairman Jaczko gave a strong signal that the Fukushima accident was much worse than reported by the Japanese government and the utility. We believe that he was getting information about the severity of the accident from airborne radiation measurements taken by U.S. Department of Energy aircraft. But neither DOE nor the NRC has published those measurements in full."

 

Attorney Diane Curran of Harmon, Curran, Spielberg & Eisenberg, LLP, who filed the FOIA request for the groups, said: "We think the American and Japanese public have a right to see the complete details of the Fukushima radiation data and, therefore, we have requested the NRC and the DOE to release the information under the Freedom of Information Act. If necessary, we are prepared to go to federal court to get the uncensored set of measurements."

 

As the FOIA request explains, the three groups "seek expedited release" of the requested information, "so that they may timely inform their members and the general public about the unfolding events at the Fukushima reactors, including the significance of the public health and environmental threat posed by radiation releases from the Fukushima reactors. Requesters believe that requested disclosures will do a great deal to fill currently existing information gaps and resolve inconsistencies in the currently available reports about the severity of the Japanese radiological releases."

 

The groups also contend that expedited release of the information is justified in order to allow them to participate in and comment on any proceedings the federal government may undertake to evaluate the lessons learned from the Fukushima accident, including the 90-day review of the safety of U.S. reactors recently announced by the NRC. According to the FOIA request letter, a better understanding of the severity of the Fukushima releases is "essential to Requesters' ability to evaluate and participate in any such review."

[Guest HUMAN]

WOW!!! You and those three groups are simply not thinking. Just like there are different models of cars, there are different models of reactors.

 

It's a waste of time to file a "foia" when the information is already out there.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_reactor_types

 

 

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf08.html

 

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Three groups – Friends of the Earth (FOE), the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) and Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) – announced today that they have filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to get to the bottom of what led the U.S. government to call for a 50-mile evacuation radius for Americans near the Japanese reactor crisis in Fukushima.

 

The FOIA requests filed with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) are available online at http://foe.org/sites/default/files/FOE-NIRS-PSR-RadiationFOIA-3-22-11.pdf . The three groups are not satisfied that the incomplete summary provided so far by the DOE at http://www.energy.gov/news/10194.htm provides the full picture of the scale of the radiation.

 

On March 16, 2011, NRC Commissioner Gregory B. Jazcko told Congress that he was recommending the 50-mile evacuation radius. (See http://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/organization/commission/comm-gregory-jaczko/0317nrc-transcript-jaczko.pdf.) The scope of the recommended evacuation is highly unusual and suggestive of extraordinarily high radiation levels in excess of those reported to the public in Japan and the U.S., the three groups said. In the U.S., nuclear reactor licensees and local governments are only asked to provide for evacuation out to 10 miles.

 

As concerns grow about food and water contamination in Japan, the three groups filing the FOIA request are seeking to determine the answer to this key question: What made Jaczko exceed the limits of his own agency's regulations by five times?

 

Tom Clements, Southeastern nuclear campaign coordinator, Friends of the Earth, said: "The radiation monitoring information being collected by the U.S. Government in Japan is of urgent interest to the public in the U.S. and internationally and we expect an expedited response to the FOIA request. If the full data set is not immediately released, the government can rightly be accused of attempting to cover up the radiation threat posed by the disaster. This would severely undermine regulators' credibility."

 

Michael Mariotte, executive director, Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Takoma Park, MD, said: "By recommending a 50-mile evacuation zone for U.S. residents, NRC Chairman Jaczko gave a strong signal that the Fukushima accident was much worse than reported by the Japanese government and the utility. We believe that he was getting information about the severity of the accident from airborne radiation measurements taken by U.S. Department of Energy aircraft. But neither DOE nor the NRC has published those measurements in full."

 

Attorney Diane Curran of Harmon, Curran, Spielberg & Eisenberg, LLP, who filed the FOIA request for the groups, said: "We think the American and Japanese public have a right to see the complete details of the Fukushima radiation data and, therefore, we have requested the NRC and the DOE to release the information under the Freedom of Information Act. If necessary, we are prepared to go to federal court to get the uncensored set of measurements."

 

As the FOIA request explains, the three groups "seek expedited release" of the requested information, "so that they may timely inform their members and the general public about the unfolding events at the Fukushima reactors, including the significance of the public health and environmental threat posed by radiation releases from the Fukushima reactors. Requesters believe that requested disclosures will do a great deal to fill currently existing information gaps and resolve inconsistencies in the currently available reports about the severity of the Japanese radiological releases."

 

The groups also contend that expedited release of the information is justified in order to allow them to participate in and comment on any proceedings the federal government may undertake to evaluate the lessons learned from the Fukushima accident, including the 90-day review of the safety of U.S. reactors recently announced by the NRC. According to the FOIA request letter, a better understanding of the severity of the Fukushima releases is "essential to Requesters' ability to evaluate and participate in any such review."

[Guest Tesla]

Donations via Wire Transfer:
Bank Name:Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation
Branch Name: Aoyama Branch
Branch Number: 258
Account Number: 6973031(Japanese yen account)
Account Name: Civic Force
Bank Address: 3-8-38 Minami Aoyama, Minatoku, Tokyo 107-0062 Japan
Bank Tel: +81-3-3404-2112
Swift code:SMBCJPJT

Donation via Credit Card: JustGiving.com
http://www.justgiving.com/civicforce-japan

[Guest Sergjnq]

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We are used to the fact that we know only religious and public holidays and celebrate only them.
I found out about this only yesterday after visiting the site https://whenisholiday.com/.
It turns out that every day there are from 2 to 10 different holidays that surround us and make our lives happier.
Here is one of the holidays that will be today:
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