8.8 earthquake hits Japan

I hadn't seen a number that high, but haven't been following closely enough to know. A very terrible natural disaster that wiped out entire towns, cities and even complete passenger trains. Even so the death toll in other earthquakes in unprepared cities has been as high as 50,000 in the last century. It is very odd to contemplate the relative importance attached to this one aspect of the event.

The apparent calm endurance and stoicism of Japan and the Japanese is truly admirable.

Mon Mar 28, 2011 4:59am EDT

TOKYO, March 28 (Reuters) - Radiation above 1,000 millisieverts per hour was found in surface water in trenches outside the No. 2 reactor of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, operator Tokyo Electric Power said on Monday.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/28/idUSLKE7DP00A20110328

There's a political agenda in spreading panic to credulous citizens - the Greens used it to great effect in Baden-Württemberg. The media of course love it because panic sells advertising. Then there are ghoulish characters who seem to eagerly anticipate nuclear catastrophe for reasons I can't even begin to understand. But the fact is this slow-motion systems breakdown at Fukushima Daiichi will continue for weeks if not months; hot spots are spreading and moving around. As long as the plumbing holds it will stay slow-motion and that seems the best to be hoped for given the damage already sustained.

Technical specs for status of reactors as of 1600 hrs local time, March 28, as published by the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum on its site:
http://www.jaif.or.jp/english/news_images/pdf/ENGNEWS01_1301298620P.pdf

Theres no reason to purposely play down the significance of the event as if your audience were three years old. It could still be a very serious outcome or we could dodge a bullet and not have a Chernobyl on our hands. THere are some brave people that are risking theior lives to prevent further events and to cap the existing problem.
No amount of personal advertisement will change that.

The cost in future teratogenic , radiation induced diseases and carcinomas wont be predictable until population sizes and dose responses for major emitters will be calc'd. This will be an epidemiological task that Im sure the Japanese are capable of doing without our "guidance".

JAIF (see above) seems most reliable local analyte source so far. Best public analyte list for air (obviously limited) so far comes from Seattle, WA:

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/26571/?fb_ref=blog and (more technical) http://arxiv.org/abs/1103.4853

Exactly - that's what I just wrote(*). What do you suggest I posted here that's "personal advertisement"? I'm neither JAIF nor am I located in Seattle.
(*) Quoting from my earlier post on this page (for my comments on heroism of Daiichi employees see my several posts on previous pages)

Meanwhile, Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO), operator of Fukushima nuclear plant, is seeking help from France (French energy giant EDF, nuclear group Areva and CEA, the atomic energy commission), to tackle the "critical" situation.
Source

Japan had to urgently consult the French because plutonium was found today in water inside / (around?) the plant; the reprocessed fuel is produced in France.

I don't think anyone is "playing down" the significance of any aspect of the catastrophe that has struck Japan, including the attandant system failures at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. I agree that there is serious risk of the release of fission products to the environment, although it appears that gradually the situation is being brought back under control. The widespread destruction of surrounding infrastructure - power systems & utilities; roads and transport; whole cities and their populations have been wiped out - has seriously impeded the effort.

The fact is that, compared to everything else on which the people there depend, the power plant held up fairly well - as it should. I think the central point here is that, compared to every other aspect of this terribly destructive, and unusual, natural disaster, the failures at the nuclear power plant are but a relatively very small component of the current problem and the expected recovery .. in terms of both the attendant human cost and the economic consequences. Despite this, it has and continues to get a vastly disproportionate share of the public reporting.

Who are you anyways, the last man in America who thinks that NEWS is what the experts decide is most important? Most people now think that news is what people want to hear about....and I suspect that most would at this point give you the stink eye for your sustained (several posts over a day) bitching about the appetites of the masses..

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/29_01.html

Tsunami raised water levels over 40km inland

Japan's Land Ministry has found that the tsunami on March 11th ran more than 40 kilometers upstream from river mouths.

The ministry collected data of water levels from major rivers in the affected areas and calculated how far the waves traveled upstream.

The records show that the water of the Kitakami river in Miyagi Prefecture rose by 11 centimeters about 49 kilometers inland nearly 3 hours after the earthquake.

The Tone river rose by 30 centimeters at a point more than 44 kilometers from the estuary.

The ministry believes the waves would have reached further upstream if all the floodgates had been open. 6 of the 9 gates located 18 kilometers from the shore were closed when the tsunami hit one of Japan's longest rivers.

The tsunami caused severe destruction along a river several kilometers inland from the coastline.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011 02:22 +0900 (JST)

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/28_24.html

Over 28,000 dead or missing in Japan disaster

More than 28,000 people have died or are missing following the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan's northeast coast on March 11th.

The National Police Agency says that as of 9 PM on Monday, 11,004 people had been confirmed dead and 17,339 listed as missing. Police have identified 8,030 of the bodies.

The largest number of deaths --- 6,692 --- has been reported in Miyagi Prefecture, with 3,264 dead in Iwate and 990 in Fukushima.

Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima are the prefectures hardest-hit by the quake and tsunami.

The number of confirmed deaths in Fukushima is low because search operations have been suspended in areas 20 kilometers from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

The number of dead and missing is expected to rise sharply in some coastal areas devastated by the tsunami when local officials grasp the whole picture of the damage.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/28_22.html

Housing the survivors

The construction of temporary housing began on Monday in disaster-stricken Miyagi prefecture.

The prefecture said that since more than 80,000 residents are taking shelter within Miyagi, it will build over 1,000 housing units in the cities of Sendai, Ishinomaki and elsewhere.

Work on the foundations for 135 emergency homes began on land owned by Ishinomaki city, where more than 25,000 residents remain in evacuation centers.

Workers laid down fresh gravel and drove pickets into the ground.

The city also began accepting applications on Saturday from people hoping to occupy these units. As more than 730 applications were filed on Saturday alone, lots are to be drawn in late April to decide who will live there.

A man who applied on Monday expressed the hope that authorities would build as many temporary housing units as possible, as the quake victims cannot stay in evacuation shelters indefinitely.

Miyagi prefecture says the units will be rent-free for up to 2 years.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/28_33.html

Exposed workers okay

Three men exposed to high levels of radiation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have left the hospital with a clean bill of health.

The 3 workers left the National Institute of Radiological Sciences in Chiba Prefecture on Monday.

They had been receiving special medical treatment after having been exposed to radiation while installing power cables at the Number 3 reactor complex on Thursday.

Two of the men stood in radioactive water for about 2 hours. They were due to receive treatment for burns, but doctors at the institute found that this was not necessary.

The institute says the level of their exposure was up to 3,000 millisieverts, less than initially thought.

The 2 men reportedly show no symptoms of burns, and their internal organs were exposed to very low levels of radiation.

The institute says the third man also has no symptoms.

The 3 men will undergo checks at the institute in several days' time.

Doctor Fumiaki Nakayama of the institute says that even if the men do develop symptoms, they do not need treatment, and the symptoms will eventually disappear.

I see that theyve admitted to finding Plutonium is the surroundings "It was at very low levels". Plutonium is like smoking in an asbestos factory .
The fuel rods were U/Pu. This was the first that theyve admitted to fuel associated radionuclides.

I think the hydrogen explosions and the fission products have already confirmed the failure of the fuel cladding.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/29_02.html

Plutonium found in Fukushima plant soil

Tokyo Electric Power Company says plutonium has been found in soil samples from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

It says the radioactive substance appears to be related to the ongoing nuclear accident, but the level detected is the same as that found in other parts of Japan and does not pose a threat to human health.

TEPCO collected samples from 5 locations around the power plant over 2 days from March 21st and found 2 samples contaminated with plutonium.

Plutonium is a byproduct of the nuclear power generation process. At the number 3 reactor of the Fukushima plant, plutonium is an ingredient in mixed oxide, or MOX, fuel.

Radioactivity from plutonium can be shielded by a sheet of paper. But it can remain in lungs and other organs to cause long-term damages including cancer.

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency says the detected level is the same as that found in the environment and not health-threatening for workers who conducted the sampling, nor residents in surrounding areas.

The agency said it is awaiting the results of another survey by the Science Ministry outside of a 20-kilometer radius from the plant, as well as a further survey by TEPCO in the plant compound.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011 02:20 +0900 (JST)

I chuckled at this line in the report from TEPCO:

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/11032812-e.html

I'm sure Farmerman knew that - he just seems focused on some entirely different topic; hell, I'm sure he can recite the half-life of each of the 15 plutonium isotopes in his sleep, so I only mention this because we have posters here who don't know there's more than one kind of plutonium and worry needlessly.

Isotopes found near the plant were Pu-238, -239, and -240, in concentrations similar to those found worldwide from the atmospheric nuclear tests before 1980, so they don't particularly add to the contamination risk. The plumbing leaks however do, and they're getting worse; some of that radioactive water tests at 1 Sv/hr and containment tanks and ditches are filling up fast. The robots have started arriving; there's electricity for remote monitors and batteries charges, but they have to be tethered to fiber-optic cables as radio wave communications are said to suffer interference from ambient radiation in the plant.

That datum worried me a bit - wouldn't it take runaway fission to produce so much interference? Even if things are so bad, why can't the robot operators switch to longer frequencies? There's got to be longer waves that get through any electromagnetic storm. Thanks for any information. Link and pictures:

http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/37164/page1/

Mon Mar 28, 2011 9:03am EDT

TOKYO (Reuters) - Greenpeace called on the Japanese government to extend an evacuation zone around the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant, saying it had found high radiation levels outside the zone.

The environmental group said it had confirmed radiation levels of up to 10 microsieverts per hour in Iitate village, 40 km (25 miles) northwest of the nuclear plant.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/28/us-japan-quake-greenpeace-idUSTRE72R2XV20110328

No need to make me sound like I know more than I do. I readily admit that my fmiliarity with plutonium is limited to Pu 244 (long half life ,often natural in ceratin cases , and therefore useable for geochron) and I had to write a section of a DOE paper on muromontite which is a nasty mineral that is essentially a natural reprocessor. I have never, nor do I do any U/Thor Pu MAss spec work, we only use a single geochron GC and Nat Lab reactor for dating so I have no idea how the various isotopes of Pu are even separated (I admit to zoning out when reading all the QA data and BLP crap). SO Ill assume that no long lived Pu was found at Fukooshma. K/ When the newspapers reported the Pu presence I thought of the necessary energy that was needed to take this aerosol and drive it around the plant and into the soil. (It reminded me, as I said before, of the Pu 239 at JAckass Flats at NTS) That was 1200 acres about 2 square miles. Thats about 200000years for 9 half lives

244 is my favorite also, that's how I remember how old our planet is - only 50 Pu-244 half-lifes! There's still some of it lying about in them thar hills, I think. But do you have any idea about radio communications with the robots inside the plant? Pu on soil outside probably seeped out with water, not as aerosol.

There was detectable plutonium in the soil around Rocky Flats: the concentration was 1/10E5 that of the naturally occurring Thorium, but the EPA mandated that the PU governed and that we haul off the top meter of soil to Envirtocare in Nevada ... from a 2 x 2 mile area. Just a little math and some NTSB statistics made it easy for us to put together a case that the removal and haulaway would probably kill about 25 people and cost about a billion. That didn't move them at all. Happily we soon came upon a newly named subspecies of field mouse, the Prebles Meadow jumping mouse, one of whose few remaining habitats was the buffer zone at Rocky Flats. So we set Fish & Wildlife against EPA and the critter folks won.

The mice loved it.