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Posts Tagged ‘Tsunami’

Secret Weapons Program Inside Fukushima Nuclear Plant?

April 19, 2011 Comments off

globalresearch

Confused and often conflicting reports out of Fukushima 1 nuclear plant cannot be solely the result of tsunami-caused breakdowns, bungling or miscommunication. Inexplicable delays and half-baked explanations from Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) seem to be driven by some unspoken factor.

The smoke and mirrors at Fukushima 1 seem to obscure a steady purpose, an iron will and a grim task unknown to outsiders. The most logical explanation: The nuclear industry and government agencies are scrambling to prevent the discovery of atomic-bomb research facilities hidden inside Japan’s civilian nuclear power plants.

A secret nuclear weapons program is a ghost in the machine, detectable only when the system of information control momentarily lapses or breaks down. A close look must be taken at the gap between the official account and unexpected events.

Conflicting Reports

TEPCO, Japan’s nuclear power operator, initially reported three reactors were operating at the time of the March 11 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. Then a hydrogen explosion ripped Unit 3, run on plutonium-uranium mixed oxide (or MOX). Unit 6 immediately disappeared from the list of operational reactors, as highly lethal particles of plutonium billowed out of Unit 3. Plutonium is the stuff of smaller, more easily delivered warheads.

A fire ignited inside the damaged housing of the Unit 4 reactor, reportedly due to overheating of spent uranium fuel rods in a Read more…

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Japan may raise severity of nuclear crisis to top level: report

April 12, 2011 1 comment

reuters.com

(Reuters) – Japan is weighing raising the severity level of its nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to a level 7 from level 5, putting it at par with the accident at the Chernobyl reactor in 1986, Kyodo news agency reported on Tuesday.

Kyodo said the government’s Nuclear Safety Commission has estimated the amount of radioactive material released from the reactors in Fukushima, northern Japan, reached a maximum of 10,000 terabequerels per hour at one point for several hours, which would classify the incident as a major accident according to the INES scale.

The scale, short for International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale, is published by the International Atomic Energy Agency and ranks nuclear and radiological accidents and incidents by their severity from 1 to a maximum of 7.

Japan had previously assessed the accident at reactors operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co, which engineers are still trying to bring under control, at level 5, the same level as the Three Mile Island accident in 1979.

On March 11 a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and a massive tsunami triggered the nuclear disaster where reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi complex were crippled due to a loss of power which disabled cooling functions.

A spokesman for the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, Japan’s nuclear safety watchdog, said on Tuesday that the level of the Fukushima incident was still a 5 and that he was unaware of any move by the government to raise the level.

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Strain from Japan earthquake may lead to more seismic trouble, scientists say

April 11, 2011 Comments off

washingtonpost

Japan won’t stop shaking. One month after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, the nation rode out yet another powerful aftershock Monday, the second in four days. This one rattled buildings in Tokyo and briefly cut power to the damaged nuclear plant in Fukushima.

 

With soldiers still looking for the bodies of thousands of people who vanished in the killer wave a month ago, Japan is coping with the painful reality that it sits in a seismic bull’s-eye.

A new calculation by American and Japanese scientists has concluded that the March 11 event may have heightened the stress on faults bracketing the ruptured segment of the Japan Trench.

“There’s quite a bit of real estate on which stress has increased, by our calculations,” said U.S. Geological Survey geophysicist Ross Stein. “The possibility of getting large, Read more…

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MAJOR EARTHQUAKE HITS JAPAN, BLACKOUTS IN SENDAI AND FUKUSHIMA

April 7, 2011 2 comments

businessinsider.com

Could there be a connection with the Solar Storm from yesterday?  Definitely.

quake A major earthquake between 7.1 and 7.4 magnitude hit northeastern Japan at 11:32 Tokyo time. It was focused 60 kilometers below the seabed off Miyagi Prefecture, which also got slammed last time.

The quake has caused scattered gas leaks and fires. A few dozen injuries have been reported.

U.S. markets turned down on the news and Nikkei futures have plunged.

Tsunami warnings were issued, but then lifted an hour after the quake.

Power is out around Sendai and in parts of Fukushima and Yamagata. Even as two of the three local plants are blacked out, however, cooling activities will continue at Fukushima nuclear plant. No new damage is reported at the Fukushima nuclear plant or others. Workers at the Fukushima plant were briefly evacuated.

NHK reports Rokkasho plutonium reprocessing plant has lost off site power and is on emergency backup.

Bullet trains have started running again less than an hour after the quake.  All highways are shut in Miyagi, local police tell Kyodo.

12:16 ET: Japanese officials say there is still a high risk of mud slides and collapsing buildings.

Here’s a video of the tremor in Sendai:   What could that strange blue light be??? Read more…

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Japan stops leaks from nuclear plant

April 6, 2011 Comments off

www.reuters.com

Main Image

TOKYO (Reuters) – Engineers have stopped highly radioactive water leaking into the sea from a crippled Japanese nuclear power plant, the facility’s operator said on Wednesday, a breakthrough in the battle to contain the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.

However, Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) still needs to pump contaminated water into the sea because of a lack of storage space at the facility.

“The leaks were slowed yesterday after we injected a mixture of liquid glass and a hardening agent and it has now stopped,” a TEPCO spokesman told Reuters.

Desperate engineers had been struggling to stop the leaks and had used sawdust, newspapers and concrete as well as liquid glass to try to stem the flow of the highly-contaminated water.

Japan is facing its worst crisis since World War Two after a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami hit its northeast coast, leaving Read more…

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Tsunami alert after Indonesia quake

April 3, 2011 Comments off

bigpondnews

A tsunami warning has been issued after a 6.7 magnitude quake struck off the Indonesian island of Java.

 

Indonesian seismologists issued a tsunami warning early Monday after an earthquake which they said had a magnitude of 7.1 struck in the Indian Ocean south of the island of Java.

Indonesia’s Meteorology and Geophysics Agency said that the quake was 10km deep with its epicentre 293km southwest of Cilacap in central Java.

The quake had the potential to cause a tsunami, it said, asking recipients of its public alert SMS to warn other people of the danger.

The US Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said that there was no risk of a widespread destructive wave, but there was a ‘very small possibility of a local tsunami’.

The US Geological Survey said the quake was 6.7, and it was located 277km south of Tasikmalaya in West Java and 241km east-north-east of Christmas Island.

There is no tsunami threat to the Australian mainland, islands or territories.

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1,000 corpses from Japanese quake left uncollected because of fear of radiation

April 1, 2011 2 comments

www.dailymail.co.uk

The mother of one of the workers who are battling to stop a meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant said today that they all expect to die from radiation sickness ‘within weeks’.

The so-called Fukushima 50 are all repeatedly being exposed to dangerously high radioactive levels as they attempt to restore vital cooling systems following the earthquake and tsunami on March 11.

And speaking tearfully through an interpreter by phone, the mother of a 32-year-old worker told Fox News: ‘My son and his colleagues have discussed it at length and they have committed themselves to die if necessary to save the nation.

Too dangerous: This aerial photograph of the Fukushima plant shows the damaged reactors three and four at the which will now be entombed in concrete after the battle to contain radiation was lostToo dangerous: This aerial photograph of the Fukushima plant shows the damaged reactors three and four at the which will now be entombed in concrete after the battle to contain radiation was lost 

‘He told me they have accepted they will all probably die from radiation sickness in the short term or cancer in the long-term.’

‘They have concluded between themselves that it is inevitable some of them may die within weeks or Read more…

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IAEA finds high radiation levels outside Japan evacuation zone

March 31, 2011 1 comment

cnn.com

Greenpeace members monitor radiation in Iitate on Sunday, 40 kilometers from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi plant.
Greenpeace members monitor radiation in Iitate on Sunday, 40 kilometers from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi plant.

Tokyo (CNN) — Radiation levels in a Japanese town outside a government-ordered evacuation zone have exceeded one of the criteria for evacuation, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Wednesday.

The agency said it advised Japan “to carefully assess the situation.”

The elevated levels were found in Iitate, a town of 7,000 residents about 40 kilometers (25 miles) northwest of the earthquake- and tsunami-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the agency said. The evacuation zone covers a 20-kilometer (13-mile) radius around the plant.

The agency did not say what levels it found in Iitate, but the environmental group Greenpeace said Sunday it had found radiation levels in the town that were more than 50 times above normal.

Though that is far below the level that would cause radiation sickness, it does pose a risk of cancer to residents in the long term, Greenpeace said.

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12 Warning Signs of U.S. Hyperinflation

March 29, 2011 Comments off

inflation

One of the most frequently asked questions we receive at the National Inflation Association (NIA) is what warning signs will there be when hyperinflation is imminent. In our opinion, the majority of the warning signs that hyperinflation is imminent are already here today, but most Americans are failing to properly recognize them. NIA believes that there is a serious risk of hyperinflation breaking out as soon as the second half of this calendar year and that hyperinflation is almost guaranteed to occur by the end of this decade.

In our estimation, the most likely time frame for a full-fledged outbreak of hyperinflation is between the years 2013 and 2015. Americans who wait until 2013 to prepare, will most likely see the majority of their purchasing power wiped out. It is essential that all Americans begin preparing for hyperinflation immediately.

Here are NIA’s top 12 warning signs that hyperinflation is about to occur: Read more…

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Breach suspected at troubled Japanese power plant

March 26, 2011 Comments off

yahoo.com

TOKYO – Two weeks after an earthquake and tsunami triggered a crisis at a nuclear plant, the government said Friday there is a suspected breach at a reactor — another setback that would mean radioactive contamination at the facility is more serious than once thought.

Japanese leaders defended their decision not to evacuate people from a wider area around the plant, insisting they are safe if they stay indoors. But officials also said residents may want to voluntarily move to areas with better facilities, since supplies in the tsunami-devastated region are running short.

The escalation in the nuclear plant crisis came as the death toll from the quake and tsunami passed the grim milestone of 10,000 on Friday. Across the battered northeast coast, hundreds of thousands of people whose homes were destroyed still have no power, no hot meals and, in many cases, no showers for 14 days.

The uncertain nuclear situation again halted work at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex, where authorities have been scrambling to stop the overheated facility from leaking Read more…

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