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[F1er]

My thoughts go with the people of Japan. They will rebuild and recover as they are clever and strong people.

[myownalias]

I have been watching the devastation on BBC News 24; if this can happen to a country that is the most earthquake prepared country in the world; what would happen if something this big hit a US mainland city? Sounds like the worse is to come in Japan with the two nuclear power plants temperatures rising as cooling systems fail!

[Denthúl]

I'm hearing a nuclear power station is having cooling problems and i hope to f*ck that is meda overstatement....

According to the BBC, there's been an explosion at one of them and there are fears that the reactors have gone in to meltdown. :/

[LazorRamone]

Thats pretty scary.

My friend lives in Tokio and although the situation there is not so serious like in other parts of Japan, I cant imagine what they go through now when reading his mails.
And those people living in tsunami areas or 400 kms away from Tokio where the situation is the worst....

[What's Burning?]

Also, i heard there's just been a quake in Cuba.... 7.8

where that been reported mate?

A friend told me by BB........ It may well be a rumour, but since Cuba has not too much internet and so on, we may have to wait a bit to know for real.

The USGS knows when earthquakes occur and where they occur... always. There are a handful of earthquakes every day on this planet, leave it to the news media to report every single one for the next couple of weeks.

[What's Burning?]

I have been watching the devastation on BBC News 24; if this can happen to a country that is the most earthquake prepared country in the world; what would happen if something this big hit a US mainland city? Sounds like the worse is to come in Japan with the two nuclear power plants temperatures rising as cooling systems fail!

Other than the PAC Rim of the us, there thankfully isn't any heavily active fault areas. There is actually a small fault going right through uptown Manhattan! But to your comment as to what would happen to an unprepared city, we saw it last year with Port Au Prince.

[scotty]

I'm hearing a nuclear power station is having cooling problems and i hope to f*ck that is meda overstatement....

According to the BBC, there's been an explosion at one of them and there are fears that the reactors have gone in to meltdown. :/

Yup. Haven't heard any more on that in the past few hours.

I just read that the north eastern coastline of Japan has been fundamentally altered - some parts are now going to be permanently underwater!

[vlad]

Damn, this earthquakes keep happening, even now...

[darwin dali]

The situation with the 6 (!!) nuclear plants next to each other looks very dire. TEPCO, the owner and operator of the plants just announced that they withdrew the last 50 workers who tried to keep the reactors cool citing health risks. That company has a quite shady rap sheet re. doing the right thing, being open about problems and even got caught lying about issues in the past.
And WTF? Nobody left there to try to contain things and prevent an outright meltdown and a huge catastrophe??? Yes, those workers would be doomed with a very short life expectancy, but what happened to good old kamikaze in the name of Nippon? What happened to harakiri?

And where the hell is the Japanese government? Leaving this huge crisis in the hands of the incompetent TEPCO and their measly 50 workers is reckless.

And where the hell is the IAEA, huh?!? Situations like the one in Japan are exactly why the International Atomic Energy Agency exists. Why aren't they taking over with their highly qualified experts and resources and workforce?!?

This all smacks of amateurish botching with very dangerous consequences for millions of people not just in Japan, but worldwide considering the wind patterns in that region of the world...

The only solace I take from this is that in all likelihood the nuclear industry will have a bit more difficulty trying to sell us their dangerous poison.

[bud]

Its not good huh,
They were talking about Nuclear power as possibilities here but since this catastrophe its been put well and truly down the drain.

[Hammer278]

The situation with the 6 (!!) nuclear plants next to each other looks very dire. TEPCO, the owner and operator of the plants just announced that they withdrew the last 50 workers who tried to keep the reactors cool citing health risks. That company has a quite shady rap sheet re. doing the right thing, being open about problems and even got caught lying about issues in the past.
And WTF? Nobody left there to try to contain things and prevent an outright meltdown and a huge catastrophe??? Yes, those workers would be doomed with a very short life expectancy, but what happened to good old kamikaze in the name of Nippon? What happened to harakiri?

And where the hell is the Japanese government? Leaving this huge crisis in the hands of the incompetent TEPCO and their measly 50 workers is reckless.

And where the hell is the IAEA, huh?!? Situations like the one in Japan are exactly why the International Atomic Energy Agency exists. Why aren't they taking over with their highly qualified experts and resources and workforce?!?

This all smacks of amateurish botching with very dangerous consequences for millions of people not just in Japan, but worldwide considering the wind patterns in that region of the world...

The only solace I take from this is that in all likelihood the nuclear industry will have a bit more difficulty trying to sell us their dangerous poison.

This is what I've been talking about with people around me, it's ridiculous. For a country with forward thinking mentality, this is being handled as if "Ahh, things can't get much worse anyway...let's take a chill pill". This can become a very big issue which might strain relations between Japan and countries around if things get totally out of control.

Also since Japan is the main export economy in the region, the tsunami might turn out to be a secondary issue in the long term context of things.

Hope things are being handled better than we think they are.

[SennaVille]

A google Earth map animation of the tremors leading up to the earthquake, the earthquake itself, and then aftershocks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xylDxj6-9dY" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The amount of aftershocks recorded is amazing

[myownalias]

I wonder if the Japanese president / prime minister (delete as applicable) really believes his own propaganda? It's a lot worse than what is being made out; fires and explosions; the reactor buildings are in ruins; the Japanese people are certainly not buying in; many heading south to get away from the radiation and the capital!

[TacoMac]

Based on the videos, pictures and reports, it is a HUGE testimony of the People of Japan on how good they really are. Haiti didn't even have half the quake at a 7.0 that Japan did, and they didn't face any tsunami's at all and 316,000 people died. Japan was completely blitzed, and the worst case scenario figure is estimated at 10 to 12 thousand. Presently, they haven't reached 4 thousand yet. (The one instance of the less, the merrier.)

Japan and it's people did a hell of a job building their nation. It's going to be a tough row to hoe for them, but they'll build it back again. They'll be just fine.

Chin up, Japan. You'll beat this thing.

[Denthúl]

Dominic Jones, who's originally from Cornwall, lectures at a university in Sendai. He told the BBC his family are packing their bags: "Amazingly, outside our apartment they're building a new house and the builders came back and started building yesterday, which I thought was a bit crazy. And the Post Office have come round and delivered some parcels. So there is some kind of normality. But I think especially the foreign nationals are very worried about the nuclear situation. And as we have two young children, we've decided that it's best for the children to move back to England temporarily."

Things like this always leave me stunned. The fact that they can carry on so quickly after the disaster is amazing and may well be key to any recovery from these events.

The most worrying thing I'm seeing at the moment is the continuation of aftershocks. Does anyone know how long they are likely to go on for? A magnitude 6.0 aftershock is going to be very devastating on its own, and I believe they've had at least one at that strength already. Efforts will likely be hampered if it goes on for too long.

The only solace I take from this is that in all likelihood the nuclear industry will have a bit more difficulty trying to sell us their dangerous poison.

That would be a great shame, to be quite honest. Nuclear energy is by far the best option for the future at the moment, with fossil fuel supplies highly limited and renewable sources not yet being good enough for the levels of energy we require. I find the fear of nuclear energy unjustified. Yes, the current issue with the nuclear plants in Japan is unpleasant and I feel for those affected, but this should not be used as a way of dismissing nuclear energy. What has to be remembered is that these reactors are as much as 40 years old and were not designed for a disaster on the scale of that which they have been subjected to, so the very fact that the workers are even in a position where they can fight to control the situation is nothing short of remarkable in itself.

The future of nuclear power should be much safer, with reactors designed with an extra 40 years of knowledge and experience, as well as (assuming that the research and testing proves successful) the use of a better, cleaner and safer fuel in Thorium. If nuclear fusion can be achieved on the scale required and the methods made commercially viable, then again the dangers could be reduced even further because unlike with fission, catastrophic events like Chernobyl and Three Mile Island will not be possible and the waste fuel from the process will be of a short-lived radioactivity, making it easier, safer and quicker to dispose of correctly.

I don't think that it should be the longest-term plan, but certainly investment in nuclear energy to provide the bulk of our power whilst renewable green sources are perfected is the way to go, in my opinion. The dependence on fossil fuels needs to be broken and whilst it would be brilliant to be able to replace them with renewable green energy sources, on a large scale that is not practical right now.