Explosion at Japanese Nuclear Plant ...

TOP POST OF THE DAY - JAPAN - MIDNIGHT RIDER AND PASTORIUS WILL BE UPDATING

Third Reactor

Reuters:

Japan Fukushima nuclear plant faces new reactor problem

Reuters) - A quake-hit Japanese nuclear plant reeling from an explosion at one of its reactors has also lost its emergency cooling system at another reactor, Japan's nuclear power safety agency said on Sunday.

The emergency cooling system is no longer functioning at the No.3 reactor at Tokyo Electric Power Co's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility, requiring the facility to urgently secure a means to supply water to the reactor, an official of the Japan Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency told a news conference.

On Saturday, an explosion blew off the roof and upper walls of the building housing the facility's No. 1 reactor, stirring alarm over a possible major radiation release, although the government later said the explosion had not affected the reactor's core vessel and that only a small amount of radiation had been released.

The nuclear safety agency official said there was a possibility that at least nine individuals had been exposed to radiation, according to information gathered from municipal governments and other sources.

Nikkei:

Meltdown Caused Nuke Plant Explosion: Safety Body

TOKYO (Nikkei)--The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) said Saturday afternoon the explosion at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant could only have been caused by a meltdown of the reactor core.

The same day, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501), which runs the plant, began to flood the damaged reactor with seawater to cool it down, resorting to measures that could rust the reactor and force the utility to scrap it.

Cesium and iodine, by-products of nuclear fission, were detected around the plant, which would make the explosion the worst accident in the roughly 50-year history of Japanese nuclear power generation.

An explosion was heard near the plant's No. 1 reactor about 3:30 p.m. and plumes of white smoke went up 10 minutes later. The ceiling of the building housing the reactor collapsed, according to information obtained by Fukushima prefectural authorities.

At a news conference Saturday night, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano discounted the possibility of a significant leak of radioactive material from the accident. "The walls of the building containing the reactor were destroyed, meaning that the metal container encasing the reactor did not explode," Edano said.

The amount of radiation detected inside the plant after 4:00 p.m. slightly exceeded the dose people can safely receive in a year, according to information obtained by the Fukushima prefectural government.

The No. 1 reactor shut down automatically soon after a massive earthquake hit the area Friday, but its emergency core cooling system failed to cool the reactor's core sufficiently.

NISA is affiliated with the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

AP:

Japan reports emergency at second nuclear reactor

TOKYO (AP) -- Japan's nuclear safety agency is reporting an emergency at a second reactor in the same complex where an explosion had occurred earlier.

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said early Sunday that the cooling system malfunctioned at Unit 3 of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant. The agency said it was informed of the emergency by Tokyo Electric, the utility which runs the plant.

No further details of the troubles at Unit 3 were immediately available.

An explosion occurred at another reactor in the complex on Saturday, destroying the building housing the reactor and handing authorities an urgent complication amid rescue and relief efforts a day after Friday's earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan's northeastern coast.

the rest here

CNBC:

About 140,000 evacuated from Japan nuke plants: IAEA

VIENNA - About 140,000 people have so far been evacuated from areas near two Japanese nuclear power plants after Friday's earthquake, the U.N. atomic watchdog said in a statement citing information from Japanese authorities.

"Evacuations around both affected nuclear plants have begun," the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said.

In a 20-km radius around Fukushima Daiichi an estimated 110,000 people have been evacuated. In a 10-km radius around Fukushima Daini about 30,000 people have been evacuated.

"Full evacuation measures have not been completed," it said.

SkyNews:
Japan: Tremor Follows Blast At Nuclear Plant
Richard Williams, Sky News Online

An aftershock has struck near a nuclear plant in Japan - hours after an explosion and radiation leak there sparked fears a meltdown was under way.

The 6.4 magnitude tremor occurred close to the site of dual Fukushima nuclear power plants, where the walls and a roof of a single reactor were destroyed in a blast.

Plumes of smoke were sent billowing into the sky and several workers at the power station were thought to be injured - but officials said the Daiichi Unit 1 reactor's container had not been damaged.

Three Daiichi workers have been taken to hospital after being exposed to radiation at the plant and officials were planning to distribute precautionary doses of iodine to residents.

The nearby Daini power station also suffered a loss of control of pressure in one containment vessel but a spokesman said the reactor pressure remained stable.

the rest here

Times-Standard
Crescent City harbor 'destroyed' in tsunami; man swept off beach near Klamath missing at sea
Thadeus Greenson/The Times-Standard
Posted: 03/12/2011 01:30:18 AM PST

It appears Crescent City and southern Oregon bore the brunt of Friday's tsunami, with officials reporting devastated harbors, sunken boats and a total of seven people swept out to sea, one of whom is presumed dead.

Triggered by a massive 8.9-magnitude earthquake in Japan, the tsunami caused tides to begin rising sharply shortly after 7:30 a.m. in Crescent City and surges pounded the coastline throughout the day, with some waves reportedly exceeding 8 feet.

Early Friday evening, the U.S. Coast Guard announced it was suspending the search for a 25-year-old man who was swept off the beach near the mouth of the Klamath River. According to officials, the man and two other people had traveled to the coast to take photos of the incoming waves when all three were swept out to sea. According to the Coast Guard, two of the people were able to get safely back to shore but the third man was not.

Authorities had not released the man's identity as of the Times-Standard's deadline Friday.

According to the dispatch center for the Curry County Sheriff's Office in Oregon, four people were also swept off a beach near Brookings after venturing down to the shore to get a closer look at the surge waves. All were able to make it back to shore, and only minor injuries were reported, according to the dispatch center.

Though both harbors were safely evacuated, the surge waves caused extensive damage to the ports in Brookings and Crescent City.

”The harbor has been destroyed,” said Crescent City Councilman Rich Enea in a phone interview Friday, estimating the damage at millions of dollars. “Thirty-five boats have been crushed and the harbor has major damage. Major damage.”

Witnesses reported seeing a kind of oil slick on the surface of harbor waters at times Friday, likely the result of diesel fuel spilling from crushed and sunken boats.

Officials in Crescent City also reported that most of the piers and docks in the harbor suffered extensive damage, though they said no injuries have been reported in the area, which they attributed to extensive tsunami preparedness tests.

Before dawn Friday, tsunami sirens sounded throughout Crescent City, alerting residents to the coming surges. Enea said public safety employees also worked quickly to seal off the harbor area, and evacuate low-lying areas of the city, with people being moved to a Red Cross shelter set up at Del Norte High School.

Enea said automated tsunami sirens, installed in September, worked perfectly Friday after faltering in earlier tests.

”Let me tell you, a few weeks ago they tried them and they didn't work -- but, today they're working,” Enea said of the sirens, which receive wireless signals directly from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Enea said Crescent City citizens, hardened from going through tsunami drills every 90 days, reacted calmly.

”Nobody panicked and everybody just did what they were supposed to do,” he said.

the rest here

CNN:
Quake moved Japan coast 8 feet; shifted Earth's axis

CNN) -- The powerful earthquake that unleashed a devastating tsunami Friday appears to have moved the main island of Japan by 8 feet (2.4 meters) and shifted the Earth on its axis.

"At this point, we know that one GPS station moved (8 feet), and we have seen a map from GSI (Geospatial Information Authority) in Japan showing the pattern of shift over a large area is consistent with about that much shift of the land mass," said Kenneth Hudnut, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

Reports from the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Italy estimated the 8.9-magnitude quake shifted the planet on its axis by nearly 4 inches (10 centimeters).

The temblor, which struck Friday afternoon near the east coast of Japan, killed hundreds of people, caused the formation of 30-foot walls of water that swept across rice fields, engulfed entire towns, dragged houses onto highways, and tossed cars and boats like toys. Some waves reached six miles (10 kilometers) inland in Miyagi Prefecture on Japan's east coast.

the rest here

From AP, there was this:

IWAKI, Japan (AP) — An explosion at a nuclear power station Saturday destroyed a building housing the reactor amid fears that it could melt down after being hit by a powerful earthquake and tsunami.

Large amounts of radiation were spewing out and the evacuation area around the plant was expanded but officials did not know how dangerous the leak was to people. Shinji Kinjo, a spokesman for the Japanese nuclear agency, could not say how much radiation was in the atmosphere or how hot the reactor was following the failure of its cooling system.

And then, this:

TOKYO – Japan's government spokesman says the metal container sheltering a nuclear reactor was not affected by an explosion that destroyed the building it's in.

Yukio Edano says the radiation around the plant did not rise after the blast but instead is decreasing. He added that pressure in the reactor was also decreasing.

Pressure and heat have been building at the nuclear reactor since an earthquake and tsunami Friday caused its cooling system to fail.

An explosion Saturday blew out the walls of the building housing the reactor. The government has ordered people within a 12-mile (20-kilometer) radius of the plant in Fukushima to evacuate the area.

Who knows what is really going on?

Other headlines:

Nearly 10,000 people missing from coastal town of 17,000...



Building Housing Fukushima I Reactor Blows Up...
VIDEO...
Top official: There was no explosion...
Radiation leaking, pressure in core unstable...
Caesium detected; points to nuke fuel melt...
'MAY BE EXPERIENCING NUCLEAR MELTDOWN'...
Japan nuke officials: 'High probability'...
'No immediate health hazard,' officials say -- while evacuating 45,000...
REPORT: Evacuation widened to 20 km...
Japan declares emergencies at 5 nuclear units...
Evacuations at Fukushima II...

When An ill Wind Blows From Afar! (Like from Iran, Japan or North Korea!)

Surviving Radioactive Fallout & Radiation Contamination from Iran, Japan or North Korea

Potassium Iodide (KI) or Potassium Iodate (KIO3) before exposure will saturate (fill up) a persons thyroid gland with safe stable iodine to where there is no room for later uptake of radioactive iodine. Once the thyroid is saturated, then any additional iodine (radioactive or stable) that is later inhaled or ingested is quickly eliminated via the kidneys.From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_iodide

John Cooper's comments copied from GatewayPundit:

"Nuclear reactors are not like a pot of water boiling on your kitchen stove. They continue to produce decay heat for weeks after the reactor is shut down due to the radioactive decay of fission by-products. Those megawatts of heat must continuously be removed using the Residual Heat Removal [RHR] system. Failing to cool the reactor after shutdown results in core heatup and possibly core meltdown. The RHR systems I’m familiar with use redundant 400HP vertical shaft centrifugal pumps driven by electric motors to circulate the hot water through heat exchangers to cool the water in the reactor.

When the reactor is shut down (“scrammed”), the plant depends upon offsite utility power to run the RHR pumps and other safety equipment. When the plant loses offsite power (as happened at Fukushima), there are three huge diesel generators that start up automatically to provide emergency backup power. At least that’s the theory.

At Fukushima, some dumb ass design engineer decided it was a good idea to locate the diesels where they could be flooded. No diesels means no electric power to run the emergency systems to cool the plant. Apparently they had the steam-powered auxiliary feedwater pumps for a while.

Now they’re totally fooked. It must be real dark in the control room at the moment.

“In a BBC report a nuclear physicist stated that if they use sea water to cool the reactor, they have written off the reactor for ever being used again. Too many contaminants in sea water, the reactor will be scrapped if they do this.”

That’s exactly correct. The chlorine in the salt water causes stress-corrosion cracking in the stainless steel piping. The plant will never operate again if exposed to sea water.

Also, if they’re desperate enough to pump sea water in there, I’m wondering what they are going to do with the radioactive runoff. Let it drain out to sea, probably. With no electricity, what else can they do?"

NOW A THIRD REACTOR

(Reuters) - A quake-hit Japanese nuclear plant reeling from an explosion at one of its reactors has also lost its emergency cooling system at another reactor, Japan's nuclear power safety agency said on Sunday.

Meltdown Caused Nuke Plant Explosion: Safety Body

TOKYO (Nikkei)--The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) said Saturday afternoon the explosion at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant could only have been caused by a meltdown of the reactor core.
The same day, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501), which runs the plant, began to flood the damaged reactor with seawater to cool it down, resorting to measures that could rust the reactor and force the utility to scrap it.
Cesium and iodine, by-products of nuclear fission, were detected around the plant, which would make the explosion the worst accident in the roughly 50-year history of Japanese nuclear power generation.
An explosion was heard near the plant's No. 1 reactor about 3:30 p.m. and plumes of white smoke went up 10 minutes later. The ceiling of the building housing the reactor collapsed, according to information obtained by Fukushima prefectural authorities.
At a news conference Saturday night, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano discounted the possibility of a significant leak of radioactive material from the accident. "The walls of the building containing the reactor were destroyed, meaning that the metal container encasing the reactor did not explode," Edano said.