8.9 Quake hits off coast of Japan! Live Updates.

# 1011: More from Walt Patterson of Chatham House. He says the presence of the radioactive caesium in the surrounding area does not pose a huge threat to public health in the immediate aftermath of the explosion. "What would be serious is if there was an explosion or fire that lifted this stuff high in the air, meaning it could get carried over a wide area."

Originally posted by Kryties

Originally posted by thomas_

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano has confirmed the explosion at Fukushima-Daiichi. "We are looking into the cause and the situation and we'll make that public when we have further information," he is quoted as saying by Reuters.

It's now official

I guess the person who claimed it was all CGI was wrong. Not that a quick check of all the news sites on the Internet wouldn't have confirmed that.

Yeah that was me. I'm so used to debunking worst case scenarios, it seems that this is as real as it gets. Hard to believe but it's one hell of a disaster...

I wonder is it possible they created the explosion on purpose my thinking is a small dirty bomb is a lot better and more desirable than a meltdown. It's also possible it was just steam although I'm not really buying that I can see a shockwave.

If it's neither of those it's another terrible day for Japan.

reply to post by Jinglelord


Thanks bro

Originally posted by defenestrator
reply to post by randyvs

 

I think you mistook my point, but, yeah I know containment is breached on one reactor. We shall see. If you live in the Western USA go buy your potassium iodide before it is sold out. No joke, do it now. We have perhaps days until we know, and before fallout arrives, better to be prepared than to go without the protection you need. If you don't have any, go get it now!

I hear you and I'm on it. I am in the west and the potasium iodide amoungst other things are going to go through the roof. I can't believe how fast all this is coming about. But I should be at least a little bit ahead of most people here. Once I get mine safe I will be blowing the whistle if it needs blowing. Uhhh Where do they have it?

Originally posted by Teknikal
I wonder is it possible they created the explosion on purpose my thinking is a small dirty bomb is a lot better and more desirable than a meltdown. It's also possible it was just steam although I'm not really buying that I can see a shockwave.

If it's neither of those it's another terrible day for Japan.

AN explosion would cause the radiation to travel further....that would be worste case. No, this explosion was probably hydrogen being used as a coolent.

# 1016: The BBC's environment correspondent Roger Harrabin says he understands the blast at the nuclear plant may have been caused by a hydrogen explosion - also one of the possibilities laid out by Walt Patterson of Chatham House. "If nuclear fuel rods overheat and then come into contact with water, this produces a large amount of highly-flammable hydrogen gas which can then ignite," our correspondent says.

Please stop the fear mongering, the notion that even the worst case a meltdown of a plant or two occurs would kill off people all the way on the west coast of the usa from fallout and you all need to evacuate is ludicrous and all started from a stupid 4chan troll map. Theres 5000+ miles of open space bewteen the west coast and japan. Chernobyl would have wiped out all of europe and asia if deadly amounts of radiation could spread that far from a nuclear plant melt down.

reply to post by captaintyinknots

Not a problem... thanks for the warning.. it's sorted now..
Sorry for the delay..was dealing with issues at home..

reply to post by Brainiac


One thing I have learnt from my many years here on ATS is to use critical thinking and double-check ALL sources. That way you are fully informed and cannot make silly mistakes.

great great job guys. i cant believe how on top of all this you are

and i cant believe im the only one out of all my family and friends thats talking and worrying about all this. maybe they need a tsunami to hit em to make them sit up and wake up.

my daughter has gone out tonight and she is checking her phone every half hour incase i call her home. i just have this very bad chill that the west coast of america may end up in the crap, and send a wave our way.

A new tsunami alert has been issued.
While we are all bricking it with worries about contamination coming our way, god help those poor people out in the open.

Originally posted by darkest4
Please stop the fear mongering, the notion that even the worst case a meltdown of a plant or two occurs would kill off people all the way on the west coast of the usa from fallout and you all need to evacuate is ludicrous and all started from a stupid 4chan troll map. Theres 5000+ miles of open space bewteen the west coast and japan. Chernobyl would have wiped out all of europe and asia if deadly amounts of radiation could spread that far from a nuclear plant melt down.

It is in no way fear mongering, in fact, if something forces the radiation into the jetstream, it is a likelihood, not a possibility.

You need to read more about chernobyl, thats all i will say on that.

Just to confirm Captain's theory about hydrogen, they were showing lots of drawings of the coolant system on the Japanese news and talking about it being hydrogen.

reply to post by darkest4


It isn't fear mongering it is possible that radioactive material can get into the jet stream and get to the west coast of the US. It might not be likely but then how likely is it that primary power for the cooling would fail only to have the secondary source flooded and ruined?

I think we just learned a worst case is possible...

reply to post by randyvs


SSKI - Potassium Iodide solution can be bought at most drug stores.
I'm heading to WalMart shortly, better safe than sorry, maybe then I can sleep. If there was another 24 hour store in my town I wouldn't break my wallyworld boycott. This is looking to be truly horrific. I'm not one to fearmonger, but criminy, s&#t just got serious on a global scale. Not that it wasn't before.

Originally posted by Jakes51
This situation is a disaster of epic proportion and in my years on this earth, I can't recall an event this devastating. It just continues to spiral out of control. From the massive earthquake, periodic aftershocks, water logged towns and cities, probably untold thousands dead, and this ever changing nuclear emergency. As bad as the other affects from this disaster are, this Fukishima nuclear emergency gives me the creeps.

From increasingly high temperatures in the core, inoperable emergency generators, and now reports of an explosion. This is shaping up to be a re-run of Chernobyl, but this time they have an environmental disaster to trudge through to respond to the emergency at the plant, and it will no doubtingly hamper any evacuation efforts. It seems very difficult to compartmentalize the response to this disaster, because to many serious scenarios are all happening at once and in real time. This is a disaster for the ages. I am attentively watching this scenario very closely.

The Plant #1 is a light water plant, so it can't be like Chernobyl, which is still radioactive today i believe. Radioactive Fallout is still a serious health threat, and that's why they've expanded the Dead Zone to 25k out from the Plant. They are worried if they have to expand it anymore, because the next step is to try to evacuate 1 million people with no transit or roads...

Originally posted by Brainiac
reply to post by balon0

 

It's the real deal. Wonder why Youtube removed it? Are they part of the Governments policy of keeping the public numb to danger...

Move along people there's nothing to see here...

edit on 3/12/2011 by Brainiac because: Explosion was real. Japan in more trouble.

So how long before their get to ATS feed and instand reporting
my quess is 24 hour'

In agreement with what captain is saying about Chernobyl, the fallout eventually made it's way through much of Eastern Europe and travelled in the wind all the way to UK.

Ok, second time ive said this, but this time its for real. Gonna try and get some sleep. 2:30 am is about my limit. Keep up the good work guys, ill be checking in on the new developments in the morning.

Be safe everyone .

Originally posted by bluestones
reply to post by thomas_

 

That same person claims to be a CGI artist too

At least we know who not to rely on for any future analyzation of videos. The shockwave looked pretty intense... BBC World is showing a few videos on a loop so if anyone hasn't seen the explosion you can check there.

Graphics designer most often know crap about photo-realistic volumetric renders, fluid simulations and soft/hard body simulations necessary to achieve something like that. Not to mention that if he knew better he would know that one can't simply overlay a render over a background plate to have something close to convincing. It involves way more than pushing a "make explosion" button and doing a slap compositing by "overlaying" the image rendered by that magic button.

If it was so simple Hollywood blockbusters wouldn't take a whole year in post-production to get done.

Anyways...

The BBC's environment correspondent Roger Harrabin says he understands the blast at the nuclear plant may have been caused by a hydrogen explosion - also one of the possibilities laid out by Walt Patterson of Chatham House. "If nuclear fuel rods overheat and then come into contact with water, this produces a large amount of highly-flammable hydrogen gas which can then ignite," our correspondent says.

If this is the cause, it sounds really bad...