Posted on 03/11/2011 4:24:37 AM PST by NowApproachingMidnight
BREAKING NEWS: 2,000 residents near Fukushima nuclear power plant urged to evacuate
Good point. I’m going to go out on a limb here and predict that the recovery efforts in Japan are going to get very little attention here in the U.S. media over the next few months. It will be utterly embarrassing when Japan makes more progress in the first 48 hours after this earthquake than Haiti has made in more than a year after the January 2010 disaster.
From the TEPCO (Operator of plant) website
*** caution ***
A big earthquake occurred in the northern part of Japan at 2:46 today. Due to the earthquake, our power facilities have huge damages, so we are afraid that power supply tonight would run short. We strongly ask our customers to conserve electricity.
If you find any disconnected transmission lines, please do not touch them.
Another reason
This board is in steep decline.
Picky Nanny Mods.
Today at approximately 2:46PM, turbines and reactors of Tokyo Electric Power Company's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station Unit 1 (Boiling Water Reactor, rated output 460 Megawatts) and Units 2 and 3 (Boiling Water Reactor, Rated Output 784 Megawatts) that had been operating at rated power automatically shutdown due to the Miyagiken-oki Earthquake. For the above 3 units, off-site power was lost due to malfunction of one out of two off-site power systems, leading to automatic startup of emergency diesel generators. Subsequently, at 3:41PM, emergency diesel generators shutdown due to malfunction resulting in the complete loss of alternating current for all three units. Hence, at 3:42PM, it was decided that a specific incident stipulated in Article 10, Clause 1 of the Act on Special Measures Concerning Nuclear Emergency Preparedness has occurred and a "First Level Emergency" was declared and in accordance with the aforementioned Act, the Minister of Economy, Trade, and Industry, the Governor of Fukushima Prefecture, the Mayor of Okuma Town, and the Mayor of Futaba Town along with other involved organizations were notified of the incident. TEPCO is taking steps to determine the exact cause behind the shutdown of the emergency diesel generators and is working towards their restoration. (already notified) Subsequently, since the status of reactor water coolant injection could not be confirmed for the emergency core cooling systems of Units 1 and 2, at 4:36PM, it was decided that a specific incident stipulated in Article 15, Clause 1 of the Act has occurred. We have then notified the Minister of Economy, Trade, and Industry, the Governor of Fukushima Prefecture, the Mayor of Okuma Town, and the Mayor of Futaba Town along with other involved organizations of the incident. Article 15, Clause 1 of the Act was cleared when the reactor water level monitoring function was restored for Unit 1. However, at 5:07PM, specific incident stipulated in Article 15, Clause 1 of the Act was applied again for Unit 1.
So their diesel backup generators or power lines got swamped by Tsunami waters after the Earthquake ? Not good.
It’s shut down but they’re having problems keeping the core cool... it feels more serious than they’re saying.
UPDATE 1-Heightened state of alert at Japan atom plant--IAEA
God love them all, but there’s no comparing the Japanese with the Haitians..civilization-wise or anything else...the Japanese are far more sophisticated a people and will recover very quickly and resiliantly from any disaster that befalls them.
Loss of offsite power + failure of emergency diesels = serious.
UPDATE 1-Japan trying to fix nuclear plant cooling problem
TEPCO confirmed that water levels inside the reactors at its Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant were on a falling trend, but added it was working to maintain water levels to avert the exposure of nuclear fuel rods.
The company has been trying to restore power to its emergency power system so that it can add water to the inside of the reactors, a TEPCO spokesman said.
Ouch. They have 6 reactors there. Hopefully only the 3 reported earlier have the problem.
” Senior gov’t officials are heading there now. “
That’s an encouraging sign - you’d expect ‘Senior Govt Officials’ to be heading the other direction, as fast as their chubby little legs would carry them, if there were any chance of immediate danger.....
If those Senior officials are from the US Japan is deep do do.
...to go golfing.
Maybe that’s why they need US help, to get emergency generators to the scene.
FoxNews just reported that one nuke reactor cooling situation was “under control”. Sorry, I didn’t catch where they were talking about.
Why? Seems our guys would be pretty good...
I have difficulty believing anyone associated with our current administration is worth their salt, maybe that’s a stretch lumping everyone in but that’s it.
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