Edano is getting grilled

Right now there is a news conference, and the reporters are laying into Edano. The US has issued an alert to it's nationals saying they should evacuate up to 80 Km from the Fukushima plant. Japan has evacuated up to 20 Km and says people within 30 Km should stay inside.

Quite the disparity no?

We're like 1000+ Km away, so my family is personally safe, and for the situation that allowed me to make such a decision early on I am very grateful. I hope these people have somewhere to go. Keep in mind it was 5 Km at one point. Now we're at 80 Km from the US. France and Germany told their nationals to get out of Japan entirely.

I wonder how close we are to the peak of this.

Sent from my iPhone 4

Radio Silence

TEPCO and the Japanese Government have been on radio silence since late yesterday - there have been occasional talks, but they are always a rehash of old information. Not the flurry of news conferences that immediately followed the disaster.

So - what changed?

The chemical reactions didn't just stop or run out of energy. They haven't paused to catch their breath.

The tactics to fight rising temperatures haven't suddenly become more effective (although the overall temperature in the region has dropped dramatically - but not enough to counter nuclear fission).

This is the calm before the storm I would say. Perhaps it's a bit on the negative side - I could be much more optimistic and say "wow they got it under control! Great!"

Is there anyone that would believe that? Anyone foolish enough to accept that our leaders are somehow more capable than we are? It's really unnerving to have so much media attention, chain-explosions, radiation spikes and drops - and then...

Nothing at all.

Let me save you some embarrassment

When I first came to japan, when I bought my first おにぎり, I had absolutely no idea how to open it. I found where the plastic was folded together and started pulling and tearing. Now this might seem like a no-brained to most (and I'll admit I'm weak in the 常識 area) but for those of you who don't know how to do it, I thought I would post a simple pic and leave you with some simple advice:

Look for the red arrows.

It says "したにひく" or "Pull Down"

のどごし

The Japanese really have a flair for onomatopoeia. This word - のどごし means "the feeling of a drink going down your throat".

In English we might say "gulp" or "glug glug glug" depending on which part of which country you grew up in. I'm sure there are other words we use for this as well.

And you may even see it in a cartoon or hear it on tv.

The Japanese go and name a best-selling beer using such a word. They love them some onomatopoeia!

And yes, it felt good going down my throat (door is wide open folks - get it? WIDE open?)

Man I hate double-speak

Isn't saying "The Japanese Government will bear most of the burden" the same thing as saying "the citizens of Japan will have to pay more in taxes for perhaps multiple decades to recover from the damage that ultimately was caused by private for-profit industry while those companies who are really responsible for poor design and inadequate safety measures will be free to return to profitability as soon as possible"?

I mean - why wouldn't the NYT just call a spade a spade?

Compared to the past

Activities of Aftershock
The activities of aftershocks of "The 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku Earthquake" has been very active. As of 12:00 JST, 15 March, the aftershocks larger than magnitude 7.0 occurred 3 times, and those larger than 6.0 occurred 45 times. The aftershocks have occurred in the large area off the coast of Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima, and Ibaraki Prefectures. When compared to past cases, the activity of aftershocks is very high.


I think that says it all - this is different than anything before it. People are freezing, people are hungry, the earthquakes keep happening... So sad :(

M6.0 off the coast of Chiba @ around 1 pm JST

This place cannot get any relief. I think that the 70% chance of the 7.0+ will come true at some point - and that it'll be big. I hope it won't go to 9.0 like the original biggun - but it feels like the 9.0 was just the beginning - I don't know why I feel that way, probably just nerves saying that where there's smoke there's fire and that worse things are coming.

We're far far away now - so I can only watch and hope people are ok.

Radiation "increased sharply" Wednesday at 10 am JST - GET OUT!

Iodine-131

One of the isotopes that we're facing (if things crack and go nuts) is the radioisotope Iodine-131.

I'm learning all kinds of interesting stuff about chemistry and physics (with respect to the wind and movements of particles):

Radioactive decay

131I decays with a half-life of 8.02 days with beta and gamma emissions. This nuclide of iodine atom has 78 neutrons in nucleus, the stable nuclide 127I has 74 neutrons. On decaying, 131I transforms into 131Xe:

The primary emissions of 131I decay are 364 keV gamma rays (81% abundance) and beta particles with a maximal energy of 606 keV (89% abundance).[3]
The beta particles, due to their high mean energy (190 keV; 606 kev is the maximum, but a typical beta-decay spectrum is present) have a tissue penetration of 0.6 to 2 mm.[4]
131I is a fission product with a yield of 2.878% from uranium-235,[5] and can be released in nuclear weapons tests and nuclear accidents. However, the short half-life means it is not present in significant quantities in cooled spent nuclear fuel, unlike iodine-129 whose halflife is nearly a billion times that of I-131.

Want a list of all the earthquakes?

You can actually see a list of how bad things are over the last few days.

Anywhere else on Earth get even half this many earthquakes in a calendar year? I'm not sure - I should check.

We need to cool it down - but the workers cannot approach the building

Can you say "holy shit"?

This thing is out of control - it's been out of control - it was never under control. It's a Nuclear chemical reaction! There's a reason we bury these things under tons of concrete.

Great - she just announced there is a huge earthquake warning coming. Fukushima is getting knocked the hell out these days.

"Please get under something and avoid falling objects..."

Unreal.