Explosion at the Fukushima Daiichi No. 1 reactor
Friday’s 8.9 magnitude earthquake and 10-meter high tsunami on the coast of northeast Japan devastated cities and villages, killing as many as 1,300. It also significantly damaged at least five nuclear reactors at two power plants. Yesterday afternoon, a massive explosion rocked the Fukushima Daiichi No. 1 reactor, causing a portion of a building to crumble, and injuring four workers. Radiation is now leaking from the reactor which is at risk of a melt-down.
Explosion rocks Japanese nuclear power plant; 5 reactors in peril
Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency had warned that the reactor, whose cooling system had been crippled by the giant earthquake on Friday, could be nearing a meltdown and that two radioactive substances, cesium and radioactive iodine, had already been detected nearby.
The full extent of the blast remained unclear, but footage on Japanese television showed that the walls of the building housing the reactor crumpled, leaving a skeletal metal frame, according to the Associated Press.
The unit, built 40 years ago by General Electric, is just one of five reactors severely imperiled by the earthquake and subsequent disruptions in the power supply the reactors used for cooling systems.
Earlier, Japanese authorities had declared a state of emergency for the five reactors at two nuclear power complexes as military and utility officials scrambled to tame rising pressure and radioactivity levels inside the units and stabilize the systems used to cool the plants’ hot reactor cores.
Radiation had earlier surged to around 1,000 times the normal level in the control room of one reactor, Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) said. Meanwhile, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Saturday that the temperatures at two other reactors at a different power plant were rising and that it had lost control over pressure in three reactors there.
The earthquake has led to the shutdown of 11 of the Japan’s 55 nuclear power plants, representing nearly 20 percent of the country’s capacity. It will deal an economic blow to Japan, which relies on nuclear power for one-third of its electricity generation, and could complicate economic recovery efforts.
I knew that wasn’t smoke, but radioactive steam!
Japanese Government Confirms Meltdown
March 12, 2011 | 2148 GMT
Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) said March 12 that the explosion at the Fukushima Daiichi No. 1 nuclear plant could only have been caused by a meltdown of the reactor core, Japanese daily Nikkei reported.
http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110312-japanese-government-confirms-meltdown#ixzz1GTgTmKKu
No sign-in needed for this NY Times article.
Published: March 13, 2011
Satellite Photos of Japan, Before and After the Quake and Tsunami
Move the slider to compare satellite images, taken by GeoEye, from before and after the disaster.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/13/world/asia/satellite-photos-japan-before-and-after-tsunami.html?src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB
I should mention the photos in the above, mouse over them, a small blue slider shows-up, drag it left and right.
I think who ever put this together messed-up.
Move the blue slider to the right on the first Sendai photo and do the same for Arahama photo.
The camera position has changed, but basically they are the same photo. You can tell by comparing the major roads and even the park on the ocean side (right).
I’ve notified NY Times of this mistake.
What’s more important is the direction in which they lie. Today Japan is full of power plants and fuel reservoirs that have been killing people. All the plants had been burning, and all the reservoirs contained, much more expensive fuels than the Fukushima plants, and the Japanese government is a major beneficiary of that expense.
If it must lie, won’t it lie in the direction of favoring its fossil fuel income?
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