JAPAN hit by an 8.9 earthquake!!

[Keeshah]

Japan was hit by an 8.9 strength earthquake at 2:39am EST.
That is the fifth strongest on record!
an 33 foot Tsunami went a shore on the mainland..
an 24 foot Tsunami hit the airport they built out in the ocean, unknown at this time if anything of the airport survived.

At the time of this posting, the Tsunami wave should be reaching Russia right now.
Hawaii is sounding Tsunami warning sirens.

[Aquablast]

Ouch, I can only hope that they are okay...

[Alex]

Oh wow, that's terrible news. I just hope not too much damage is done.

[jopencjusz]

I've just heard about it in TV, it's very sad news. Hope that the damage won't be very high and there won't be many suffer.

[44R0NM10]

I hope they're fine, but the tsunami that's followed after the earthquake is a monster. It looks like something out of a movie it's so bad. I hope everything is fixed quickly...

[Karl]

That's horrible. I hope those poor people will be able to manage somehow and they will be fine.

[Penwrite]

One news report I read stated that around 200 bodies have been found already...

[ReCreate]

I heard about this last night minutes after it happened. It's horrible. D: Raw footage has been uploaded to youtube of it, http://youtube.com/citizentube In case if you guys haven't seen it yet. I hope they're okay, especially if anybody here lives in the effected areas.

[CaptainPea]

We were watching BBC coverage of this all morning during science class, it's really quite chilling.
Do we have any forum-ers from Japan?

[FlyAwayNow]

I have a friend out on deployment on the USS George Washington, the carrier that I think is docked in Singapore right now. He posted something a few hours ago on my home forum about the flight deck being inoperable due to the conditions during the great waves.

[trekkie]

My thoughts and prayers are with the Japanese right now. Seriously, the destuction is scary.

[ShadowMew295]

I feel real bad for Japan, I'm glad nothing like that happens to me.

[zeroslash]

This is just awful. First an earthquake, then a tsunami, then a 6-point-something aftershock, and now a nuclear power plant explosion that could lead to a meltdown. This is just insane!

[Bino]

Hopefully things will calm down in Japan soon, they've already suffered enough. I hope that it doesnt continue and hit other places like i heard it was going to do

[CaptainPea]

Hopefully things will calm down in Japan soon, they've already suffered enough. I hope that it doesnt continue and hit other places like i heard it was going to do

I hear the tsunami was supposed to hit the pacific islands, but I haven't heard anything from them since.
It hit Hawaii, but by that time it was only some 6 feet tall (as opposed to 30 in Japan) so the damage was probably minimal.

I have a friend out on deployment on the USS George Washington, the carrier that I think is docked in Singapore right now. He posted something a few hours ago on my home forum about the flight deck being inoperable due to the conditions during the great waves.

At least you got to hear from him, I can't imagine what it must be like for people with families in that area.

[Liam]

Apparently the gas the operators of the damaged power plant had to release in order to avoid over-pressure and thus a meltdown irradiated several hundreds of people and breached the 20 km evacuation circle around the plant. I really hope they can contain this disaster.

[Bino]

Several HUNDREDS of people? What an awful way to die too!

[Keeshah]

Apparently the gas the operators of the damaged power plant had to release in order to avoid over-pressure and thus a meltdown irradiated several hundreds of people and breached the 20 km evacuation circle around the plant. I really hope they can contain this disaster.

What happened with the nuclear plant..

The nuclear plant went into full shut-down, at the start of the quake, the control rods were fully deployed into the pile stopping the nuclear reaction in the four reactors, however it takes a very long time for the reactors to actually cool down.
The quake knocked out the electric grid, which supplied the power to run the main cooling pumps.
The following Tsunami wave, took out the back-up diesel generators leaving the plant with only battery power to run the pumps.

As the battery power ran down, there ability to keep the piles cool started to fail...
the #1 reactor had a partial meltdown, ( the same thing that happened at Three mile island )
an the containment building filled with radioactive gases along with hydrogen gas, as the pressure built-up, they tried to vent the building like the Americans did at 3 mile island, but the building exploded.. altho the reaction chamber remains intact. only a brief low level radioactivity was released.

They started pouring sea water on the reactors, to try to keep them cool.
it's the last ditch way to keep them cool.

Later last night they reported that they believe that the #3 reactor was experiencing a partial meltdown like the #1 reactor did.. later, it's containment building also exploded from the hydrogen gas build-up. #3 reaction chamber also remains intact.

[Bino]

Are the radioactive gasses released enough to cause significant harm to anyone?

[zeroslash]

As far as I know, the radiation is not at an exceedingly dangerous level, but the Japanese government is not taking any chances and called for evacuations. They also say a meltdown is possible, yet nothing is certain.

[Bino]

I also heard something similar to that. The government ordered an evacuation just in case of some form of explosion or anything. The company also evacuated all "non essential personnel" from the facility.

I also heard something about a minor explosion catapulting some nuclear debris onto a nearby US Navy ship. Can anyone confirm this?

[Keeshah]

I also heard something similar to that. The government ordered an evacuation just in case of some form of explosion or anything. The company also evacuated all "non essential personnel" from the facility.

I also heard something about a minor explosion catapulting some nuclear debris onto a nearby US Navy ship. Can anyone confirm this?

Yes the carrier task force was stationed downwind of the radioactive cloud, but it has since been moved farther north.

[Obbl]

Though apparently the radiation levels outside the evacuation zone are negligible. As in you'd pick up more radiation from a chest x-ray (50 μSv) than is being measured in Tokyo currently (23 μSv). When you hit 1 Sv (10,000 μSv) is when you start panicking.
I mean, you obviously don't want to go outside and just play around in the stuff, but if you try to keep your skin unexposed when outside and stay indoors as much as possible (which is exactly what they are suggesting), it really isn't going to do you much harm.

And I've heard that the Japanese government has asked the other governments of the world to stop over-hyping the news on the Fukushima power plants, so things probably aren't quite as bad as we're hearing.

[Regular Bird]

I heard we're expected to have a huge earthquake over in California, I hope its not true.

[Karl]

From what I know, they currently have sixth degree of risk. Skale is from 1 to 7. Seven means catastrophe compared to Chernobyl.

Twenty years have passed since Chernobyl. Since then, I heard many opinions that nuclear power plants are safe now because technology has highly advanced. Seems not yet.

Poor people. So many died because of earthquake and flood. And now, they live in fear because of the radiation. I really feel sorry for them. No one should experience such thing. If there was only some way to help those people.