Japan

Details of the extent of damage and mortality in the Japan earthquake/tsunami have been emerging slowly. I'm sure by now we've all seen the videos of the sea inundating the land. I at first assumed the areas had already been evacuated, but then in some places I saw it overtaking traffic, and now with a few preliminary estimates of missing in some towns coming in from a long swath of coast I sat down to do a back-of-the-envelope estimate of the time between the earthquake and the tsunami.If the earthquake was 150 miles from shore, and if tsunami's travel at 500 mph, then residents had roughly 20 minutes to escape, and I'm trying to project what that means. On the one hand it feels very dire to me, but on the other we know that Japan takes the threat of tsunamis seriously and no doubt has detailed evacuation plans for the coast.--Percy

The funny thing is on a few videos you can see some people walking camly on the roads while the tcunamie isdestroying everything around them .On this video you can see one on the bridge around the 40tieth second

It is a terrible thing to happen anywhere. I think the damage done to the infrastructure probably caused many not to be able to escape from the tsunami.On a more disturbing note, the nuke plants worry me. They are currently using seawater to cool several reactors and Japaneese Govt done said a second explosion may occur. Any water coming in to contact with the core is going to be radioactive, where is the water being pumped in going...back to sea I would think. Normally the seawater used to cool the plants does its job in a heat exchanger, water used to cool the core is in a closed loop, normaly. I wonder how radioactive the water is after coming into contact with a damaged core?? I havent heard anyone on the news talking about that.Edited by fearandloathing, : No reason given.

we still dont know how badly the reactor is damaged worst case scenario its cernobil 2 in that case iradiating some seawater to try and stop the worst from happening is the lesser of 2 evilsgiven that we know there where some explosions my best guess is that the wather in the closed loop got too hot and too much pressure caused a rupture somewhere in that case the only way to cool the reactor is to pump more new wather in.

The coating on the fuel rods creates Hydrogen gas, when they vented it from the reactor pressure vessel int the containment building it exploded. There has been cesium detected, that only happens if fuel is exposed. There is no doubt that they are doing the best they can...lesser of 2 evils. The big question is how much damage, I knew it was worse than they are letting on when they said they were using boron. When you use boron. boric acid usualy, you don't plan on ever using that reactor again. Boron injection is also something that normally wouldn't be done unless some fuel has melted. Once a fuel assembly melts and pools up in the reactor bottom it has nothing to moderate it as the control rods are above the molten fuel, boron is one of the only things you can do to try and moderate the reaction. I lived about 4 miles from a plant in NC here...Sharon Harris, I read up little when I lived there. They are giving out Iodine also, also an indication of bad things. Iodine keeps your thyroid from absorbing the radioactive isotope of iodine which is created in fission reaction, contrary to the way news portrays it as being anti-radiation pills, they are not, they simply keep your thyroid safe from the most likely form of exposure due to a release.If you have a shortwave radio that can receive single sideband, ssb, tune to 11.175 upper sideband. It is one of USAF global HF frequencies, you can find listings for navy ect...just google it. They have been busy last 48 hrs. Edited by fearandloathing, : No reason given.

It wasn't. It was 130 Km from shore, which would make it about 80 miles. Only in deep sea, the moment it gets shallower, their speed decreases, reaching a maximum of about 80 Km (50 miles) per hour. Reports of a wave 10 meters (33feet) high reaching and flooding Sendai airport are as early as 15:55. Given that the Earthquake began at 14:46, that leaves only 9 minutes from the first tremors until the tsunami was hitting the land. Regardless of how efficient you are at evacuation, I don't think that is sufficient time.

Hmm, 15:55-14:46 = 1h09min. Is there a typo somewhere?

I'm about to say something that on its face value appears heartless. But someone has to say it. If a devastating earthquake and tsunami have to occur, thank goodness it wasn't another 3rd world country. The level of suffering doesn't linger as long in a 1st world country as it does in a 3rd world country.

I see nothing wrong with what you said, I thought the same thing sort of...I told a friend " at least they have better building codes and emergency services than some do, all except for the nuclear situation, they are prepared for this . I don't think realistically they could ve ever been ready for a disaster of this scale any better.All of their nuke plants are on the coast and use seawater as coolant water for their heat-exchangers. This seems unwise to me, but if they had used lakes as source of cooling water and a dam got compromised, then things could ve been worse, at least there is no worry of having enough access to water. Other than that it seems like a foolish place to place one considering Japans history with quakes and tsunamies.

Hi TazIt is true that countries that are prepared for natural disasters are in better shape to deal with them when they occur than those without. Any bets that Japan will be fully recovered before New Orleans?Enjoy.

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Damm this erthquake was powerfull we mesured it and we are practicly on the other side of the globe. The days got shorter by 1 milisecond i think and the erths tilt got mowed by 10 cm.

Wow..I heard on CNN I think earlier that it changed our tilt by 4 degrees and parts of japan was moved 8 feet.

Go to US Google Maps and type in Nuclear power station. Note how many of the red dots are on coasts.

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My heart goes out to all the affected people. This is an unprecedented natural disaster in modern times for Japan.I'd like to make a couple of side observations... please don't misinterpret these as any sort of disrespect to the victims - they are the real story here, and not all of this side chatter.1) I am fascinated how each country's news likes to "big itself up" about helping out ... the US news has (since the first few hours) been full of stories about the US navy helping out, provision of coolant for reactors (which I believe turned out not to be accurate), so on and so forth. Meanwhile the British news mentions nothing of these things, instead having prominently mentioned their disaster response team gearing up for action. Perhaps I'm reading more into this than I should, but it seems to me like these news agencies should be reporting stuff like "nations around the world gear up to help" - and then giving details - rather than focusing on just their own country's contributions.2) How many of you are expecting a Pat Robertson quote soon about how Japan had this coming thanks to their "Godless" society?3) A friend jokingly asked me if a meltdown in that region might be called "The USA syndrome" (as opposed to "the China syndrome" - go wiki that if you don't know what it means). Funny comment, but it reminded me just how ridiculous the notion of a "China syndrome" scenario is... even if a meltdown could melt deep into/through the Earth, it would obviously not overcome the centre of gravity in order to "come out the other side". What idiot came up with that notion in the first place I wonder lol?4) Shame that it took a massive disaster to get Charlie Sheen off the front pages.

Lol ours (only got one,only 2 million of us dont need more) is also built on a faultline tough safe from tcunamies.dunno why they built it there probably the worst spot to put it in slovenija.