Thread "Oh great... a Tsunami warning..." in forum "Comic Talk and General Discussion *"

Posted at 6:03AM, Mar. 15, 2011

Regarding the renewed interest on Chernobyl…

I hear that the Russians, in typical Russian fashion, put a huge metal dome around the entire plant and called it a day.
whoa… talk about sweeping your troubles under the rug… or in this case a huge metal dome. I hope they're planning on doing something about it… O_O

Oh, they've been working on that project for years now; I remember hearing about it during my late teens. The original dome was put up in a very speedy rush job, due to the obvious fact that the workers, working on it, had a very limited experation date.

Since the plant is still heavily radiated, they're actually going to build the new dome away from the plant and then slide it over it, once it's ready, like this picture explains:

They're still building the new dome and it's not expected to finish until sometime after 2013.

Posted at 11:03AM, Mar. 15, 2011

I'm hearing that the French Nuclear Safety Authority officials are saying it's clearly a level 6 incident now, but the Japanese ones are trying to say it's still only a 4.

National pride at stake or is it that they just don't want to panic the markets?

Posted at 12:03PM, Mar. 15, 2011

I'm hearing that the French Nuclear Safety Authority officials are saying it's clearly a level 6 incident now, but the Japanese ones are trying to say it's still only a 4.

Was just reading the same thing. I was popping up to report on it but I guess you beat me to it.

National pride at stake or is it that they just don't want to panic the markets?

Well, I think it's already too late for that. The Tokyo stock exchange dropped over 10 percent today.

Ironically, it's having positive effect on global gas prices. Now that Japan is busy recovering from its ordeals and the infrastructure is effectively crippled, Japans demands on resources will temporarily lower, meaning lowered prices for the rest of us.

Posted at 1:03PM, Mar. 15, 2011

In other news, apparently there are a group of people in the states calling the tsunami a karmic payback for the Pearl Harbor…
I… just don't know how to respond to that.
I'm… pretty sure that's a 4chan joke.

I really wish it was just a bunch of trolls (and a part of them probably are) but during the past couple of days I've been discovering more and more evidence that allot of these people are being serious. For example, here's a bunch of facebook comments that a friend of mine found.

On a more interesting note, I found this video that a guy took in a park in Japan:

I remember reading stories about a massive earthquake that happened over 100 years ago in my country, where the quakes lasted so long that people became motion sick. I never had a good reason to believe them until now.

Posted at 3:03PM, Mar. 15, 2011

Wow… they're being serious? And I don't know about this… I thought Japan paid for trying to invade the U.S. with their defeat at the end of WWII, especially with the nuclear bombs they got dropped on them.

Oh, well… I see it like this. Bad things always happen to people. Good, bad, in between… bad things always happen. I guess people feel more comfortable believing that there's a purpose (that pertains to Humanity) behind everything that happens. I guess I just see the Universe as a very chaotic place where anything and everything happens and all we can do is adapt to it…

And thanks to that video I'm starting to doubt the ground I'm standing on. Last time I saw something like that was back in 1993 when we got rocked by an 8.1 earthquake. The ground outside my window looked like it was rolling… O_O

Posted at 3:03PM, Mar. 15, 2011

At any case, regardless of how well they manage to contain this situation, it's quite clear that this plant is going to be out of commission for a veeeery long time.

The damaged reactors were written off as soon as they started pumping seawater into them, the salt will corrode reactor parts. They are probably just trying to keep everything cool long enough to get the processes in progress shut down, I don't think you can just turn off the system once it's started (obviously, or they'd have done it). At least half the reactors were already offline for testing, so it's better than it could have been…

I'm hearing that the French Nuclear Safety Authority officials are saying it's clearly a level 6 incident now, but the Japanese ones are trying to say it's still only a 4.

National pride at stake or is it that they just don't want to panic the markets?

I have read that most experts are unwilling to pin it down on a number at all, since it is fluctuating so rapidly and nothing too irreversible has happened yet (or something like that). But they also say things like, "within the next 24 hours we will know just how bad it can get" which is more than a little scary.

Poor Japan though. What seemed like an unfortunate natural disaster has turned out to be another devastating natural disaster, now compounded with an imminent nuclear disaster.

Posted at 4:03PM, Mar. 15, 2011

In other news, apparently there are a group of people in the states calling the tsunami a karmic payback for the Pearl Harbor…

I really wish it was just a bunch of trolls (and a part of them probably are) but during the past couple of days I've been discovering more and more evidence that allot of these people are being serious.

It's hard to dismiss these idiots with the ol: "yup, the US has more than its share of assholes" but, maybe we should just let them be. Echoing Lonnehart, If they really believe in karmic payback, they must be shitting their pants waiting for the payback from what we did to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

the video was interesting, especially the "still moving" label. Did it mention when the video was shot?

Posted at 6:03PM, Mar. 15, 2011

I'm hearing that the French Nuclear Safety Authority officials are saying it's clearly a level 6 incident now, but the Japanese ones are trying to say it's still only a 4.

It was confirmed that the fire at Unit 4 (which was brought up more recently) did not occur at the spent fuel pool. This is where the residual heat from the radioactive decay of the fission products go to cool down. This is where radioactivity would normally be exposed.

Still, the cause of the fire is still unknown.

Posted at 10:03PM, Mar. 15, 2011

I have read that most experts are unwilling to pin it down on a number at all, since it is fluctuating so rapidly and nothing too irreversible has happened yet (or something like that). But they also say things like, "within the next 24 hours we will know just how bad it can get" which is more than a little scary.

It seems it's still getting worse. Safe to say it probably is a 6 by now.

As for the amount of disasters, it's all part of the same thing really. That's the way I see it- not separate, just all earthquake damage.

It was confirmed that the fire at Unit 4 (which was brought up more recently) did not occur at the spent fuel pool. This is where the residual heat from the radioactive decay of the fission products go to cool down. This is where radioactivity would normally be exposed.

Reactor 3 has suffered some major issue too now, with radiation levels spiking to over 1000 microsieverts per hour at one point and a large cloud of something billowing up out of it, with reports that all workers had been evacuated.

—————–

Interesting when you watch footage of the tsunami, much like the 2004 episode you see that the problem isn't any idea of a fabled "wave", it's that the sea level actually suddenly rises in the vicinity and reaches out to flood low lying areas, so the footage and damage is exactly the same as that of any wide-scale disastrous flood.
So the old name of "tidal wave" is still pretty appropriate after-all since the sea comes in literally like a very high tide.
wow O_o
And I always thought the "tidal" part of the name was redundant. That name was surprisingly well chosen.

Posted at 3:03AM, Mar. 16, 2011

I personally consider Japan's karma for WW2 atrocities already bought and paid for with having 2 nukes dropped onto their cities. So while I feel no guilt or remorse for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I think the quake, tsunami and meltdowns are as tragic as if it happened to any other peaceful 1st-world nation.

Also my best friend currently lives in Tokyo. So hopefully the reactors get under control.

It seems as if the tsunami did more damage than the massive quake? That's a credit to Japanese architecture ethics, I have to say. If that quake had hit China I'm sure the death toll would be 10 million or something, even without a tsunami.

Posted at 4:03AM, Mar. 16, 2011

Over the years one of the most popular genres of SF in Japan has been disaster fiction. Apocolyptic kind of stuff. Now they're living through the plotlines of all that fiction. The only things missing are giant reptiles that breathe radioactive fire.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren't the payback for Imperial Japan's atrocities, it was the fire bombing of Tokyo. That was the true horror of destruction raining from the sky. Thank you Curtis LeMay.

Remember that every horrific disaster that has happened to Japan, the nation has emerged stronger than before. With their economy on the ropes and the rest in ten years they could be the force that stops China from conquering the world.

(And don't make fun of the USS Ronald Reagan CVN-76. CVN-77 is named the George H.W. Bush! Can't we go back to USS Wasp, Intrepid and Essex please!)

Posted at 12:03PM, Mar. 16, 2011

Remember that every horrific disaster that has happened to Japan, the nation has emerged stronger than before. With their economy on the ropes and the rest in ten years they could be the force that stops China from conquering the world.

That reminded me of a nice little article I read pretty recently as a response to the way Japan is handling the disaster.

http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/11/sympathy-for-japan-and-admiration/

If you're unaware of the Japanese culture, it's an eye-opening read that explains why they will persevere over such devastation.