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Reactor construction aside, there is another factor that makes it different (less dangerous) than Chernobyl. Its the government reaction, amount of information available and speed at which it spreads (communication issues aside). When Chernobyl exploded there was no info about it, nothing to prepare for. Once the news broke out it was long after the explosion and radioactive cloud was already spread out everywhere.
I'm an optimist and hope they are responsible and prepared enough that nobody will be harmed because of this explosion and aftermath. There are also positive effects (long term) for agriculture, plants/crops flourish after floods and moderate radiation.
I think its amazing how well Japan is prepared for this, if it happened in another country it would be a different scale of a problem. Its a disaster of epic proportions and we're still talking about a death toll around 1k, I just hope it will stop at that level.
Edited: 2011-03-12, 5:22 am
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In which way people living in western tokyo would be affected in case of a nuclear meltdown in Fukushima? The German news here are rather incomplete and contain obviously less details than the news from CNN/BBC or any other japanese broadcaster, which is another proof for communication issues obviously, hm. I hope you guys will be alright. Slightly worried right now~
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If the plant meltsdown it won't be anywhere near Chernobyl. Thats not to say that leaking radioactive material is a good thing, but it can't reach Chernobyl scale. Mostly because a) Cher. occured because they didn't drop the fuel rods b) Cher. was a completely different type of reactor c) Because the fukushima reactors are Light Water Reactors, they have lots of safety features, plus the rods have already been dropped. The worst that can happen is the water completely boils off and the rods melt through the core containment and spill out. Possibly a steam explosion, but I think they have enough control that they won't let that happen.
That said recent news releases mention that almost half of the fuel rods (4m in length) are exposed (1.7m exposed). Pressure is down, but the fire trucks pumping coolant in haven't been able to keep up and they are now looking at using ocean water to help. Evacuation radius for plant 1 and 2 has been expanded to 20km around each plant.
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The following is me writing down what Katz from yokoso news is translating from the Japanese press conference:
...
Hydrogen trapped b/t the concrete and the reactor caused the explosion from heat - the radiation leakage was not affected by this explosion and in fact the amount of leakage has been lowering since the explosion. The radiation container is STILL intact.
The reason why the radiation was increasing is because of the vented up vapor being released to relieve pressure.
They are going to use ocean water for something (he didn't translate this clearly) to prevent re-reaction the nuclear reactor. Something about filling the container with ocean water to act as coolant? They will continue monitoring the nuclear status of the plants. They are planning to cover the nuclear reactors.
For the worst case scenario they extended the radius of evacuation to 20 km for safety reasons.
The nuclear reactors themselves are not damaged in any way by the hydrogen explosion either.
They are using measures that have never been tried before, explaining why they increased the radius to 20 km.
What is the risk of using ocean water? It is still being analyzed by experts and nuclear agencies and councils, but they have concluded that using the ocean water presents no obvious risk.
--------- He takes a long pause here to watch the video of the press conference. He seems nervous and I personally find it strange that he stopped translating ---------
When the tsunami hit the nuclear plant, it was much higher than they expected or prepared for, so the facility container got soaked, causing malfunctions in the cooling system.
When they tried to release increased pressure out of the reactors at 2 PM, the vapor which was causing meltdown risk, radiation began leaking out. Somehow hydrogen started accumulating between the container and the concrete. Oxygen went in causing a chemical reaction causing the explosion we are all talking about here. This explosion b/t the nuclear reactor and concrete, but it did not damage the actual reactor in any way.
The radiation level was at 1015 microsievert at that time of the explosion (3:29pm), but then went down to 860 microsievert (3:40 pm), which leads them to believe that the explosion had no relationship with the radiation levels and there is no association between those two events.
By the evening, the radiation level went down to about 70.5 microsievert (6:50 pm), which means a significant drop. Leakage has ceased and meltdown is very unlikely.
Because the concrete was blown up, they are using ocean water to seal the reactor in addition to typical cooling systems. Because this has never been done before, they extended the evac range to 20 km, explaining that increase.
Edited: 2011-03-12, 7:09 am
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I'm in Japan (Tokyo and save), as I understood the news:
- Hydrogen exploded, it broke the outside concrete walls, there is no more walls in fact. But they have checked and there is not increased radiation and the container is still intact
- The excesive radiation is intentional, they released some of the inner gas because pressure + heat would be too much.
- They can not cool it down because all the electric backup systems failed but the force of self-defense brought new systems.
- They have started to use sea water to cool it down.
- They are going to use boric acid to take neutrino from inside (I didn't understand this completely)
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Power just came back to the part of Aomori I'm in. I hope it stays on because reading books by candlelight in the the freezing cold, gets pretty old fast.
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I just read from the BBC site that the Japanese authorities are preparing to distribute iodine to the residents near the Fukushima nuclear power plants. I think I know what iodine is, but can someone enlighten me why the authorities would be distributing this to people around the nuclear power plants at this time?
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They're reporting another earthquake now, 6 on the Richter scale in Fukushima.
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CNN did, too. And he is doing a great job, what is in his power - my respect to him.
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i found this yesterday, if any of you living in Japan are interested...
http://cais.gsi.go.jp/UJNR/6th/orally/O43_UJNR.pdf
page 4 is the probability of earthquakes occurring in different areas of japan over the next 30 years, and a projected magnitude. I'm not sure, but is this one the Miyagi-Ken one given a probability of 99%? If so, seems like this could be useful...
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^ That is extremely freaky.
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Indeed. Freaky, and nerve-wracking, were it I walking in the park that was trying to return to the bay. >_>a
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some keywords from the last half hour of tbs news:
被曝
避難
壊滅
全壊
援助
住宅を飲み込みました
無残
呆然
遺体
復旧
原発
放射線
崩落
発電所
会見
放射性物質
臨界
燃料
吹き飛ぶ
防具
i keep hearing a word like ほわいん or ほあいん but i can't work out what it is, does anyone know?
p.s. the basics of the nuclear thing according to tbs is that they've managed to control the temperature, but since the middle has no protector since it was blown off, the situation from now is still critical. 3 people admitted to hospital had been exposed to radiation.
Edited: 2011-03-12, 4:31 pm
