The Fukushima Accident Until Friday, Noted at Level 4 - Same as Ibaraki Prefecture Nuclear Accident in 1999: Now Level 5

Mon, 2011-03-21 08:57 — mdmcdonald

The Japanese government raised its rating on Friday of the problems at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant to the same level as the 1979 Three Mile Island accident.  

Updates - Center for Excellence - Japan Earthquake and Tsunami

Sat, 2011-03-19 23:41 — Kathy Gilbeaux

All Updates:

Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Update 03/19/2011

March 19, 2011

A View from Japan on Present Crisis: Dr. Satoru Hashimoto

Sat, 2011-03-19 23:12 — mdmcdonald

Here in Japan, still chaotic but I hope it will be settled down by many people's effort. Unfortunately even in Japan the route to Tohoku area is limited and many offers from abroad have been declined. But please tell them we are not arrogant, but the system is not working well now. It is beyond our system. Anyway internet is doing its best. There are so many threads and mailing lists, people were united with this new tool which we did not use when we had an earthquake 16 years ago in Kobe (death toll was about 6000). The problem is the earthquake this time is far beyond our power.

Official Website - Prime Minister of Japan and His Cabinet - Speeches and Statements

Sat, 2011-03-19 21:55 — Kathy Gilbeaux

Countermeasures, Speeches, Statements, and Blog

  • Telephone Conference Between Prime Minister Kan and US President Obama
    [March 17, 2011]
  • Message from the Prime Minister
    [March 15, 2011]
  • Message from the Prime Minister
    [March 13, 2011]
  • Telephone Conversation with President Barack Obama of the United States of America
    [March 12, 2010]
  • Statement by Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Tohoku district - off the Pacific Ocean Earthquake
    [March 11, 2011]

    • (Link to official website below)

    http://www.kantei.go.jp/foreign/index-e.html 

    NASA Photo - Flooded Coast Near Sendai, Japan - March 14, 2011

    Sat, 2011-03-19 10:07 — Kathy Gilbeaux

    (Link to .pdf file)

    http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/fullmaps_sa.nsf/luFullMap/B210036541A6D6CD8525785400721ABB/$File/map.pdf?OpenElement

    http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/RKRR-8EYSAN?OpenDocument&rc=3&cc=jpn 

    Japan Raises Severity Rating of Nuclear Disaster

    Fri, 2011-03-18 08:51 — mdmcdonald

    Japan has raised the severity rating of its nuclear disaster, as firefighters continue efforts to cool highly radioactive fuel rods at a nuclear reactor complex crippled by last week's earthquake and tsunami.

    Japan on Friday increased the severity of the crisis at the Fukushima site from 4 to 5 on a 7-point international nuclear event scale. 

    Firefighters are dousing water on damaged reactor buildings with powerful hoses.  But they have to limit their time inside the complex due to the high radiation levels. 

    Japanese engineers also are extending an emergency power cable to the nuclear reactor complex.  A steady supply of power could enable workers at the Fukushima plant to get water pumps working again. 

     

    For More Information:

    Winds from Japan won't endanger Californians, state experts say

    Fri, 2011-03-18 04:34 — mdmcdonald

     

    Winds passing over Japan's stricken nuclear power plant are reaching California and moving inland, but health experts say the plumes pose no danger to the public.

    There is mounting alarm in the public's mind as news continues of explosions and loss of reactor cooling water at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, and its intensely radioactive fuel rods.

    But winds from Japan have been blowing eastward across the Pacific at altitudes four to five miles high, and are "continually mixing with the upper atmosphere," said Kenneth Bowman, a noted atmospheric physicist at Texas A&M University and an expert on computer-based modeling of wind behavior.

     

    Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/03/18/MNGU1IDTMQ.DTL

    United States Boosts Radiation Monitoring in Western States

    Thu, 2011-03-17 22:55 — Kathy Gilbeaux
    Forums: 
    US West Coast Preparation and Response

    KODIAK, Alaska — The United States is deploying extra radiation monitors to western US outposts Alaska, Hawaii and Guam to detect any fallout from Japan's crippled nuclear plant, an official said Thursday

    The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is sending the portable units, to boost an existing network of monitors, to Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands as well as Juneau and Nome in Alaska, said the official.

    Alaska already has detectors in Anchorage and Fairbanks. The decisions to deploy the units came "this week" and the official could not say when they would begin operating.

    The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, stressed that the move is precautionary. "We don't expect any significant amounts of radiation," he said, adding that the EPA was expected to brief reporters later in the day.

    The US western states of California, Oregon, and Washington State have also been monitoring for any increase in radiation levels from Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant, damaged by last Friday's earthquake and tsunami.

    Some experts says radioactivity could reach the US West Coast as early as Friday, although well below levels which could harm human health.

    Power Line Connected to Help Cool Japanese Reactor

    Thu, 2011-03-17 21:47 — Kathy Gilbeaux
    Forums: 
    Fukushima Nuclear Powerplant

    Power Line Connected to Help Cool Japanese Reactor

    by Stephen Shankland

    The Tokyo Electric Power Co. has successfully restored power to part of a dangerously overheating nuclear power plant damaged by last week's earthquake and tsunami, a key move in efforts to cool the site.

    The power company, also called Tepco, connected a power line to reactor 2, one of six at the Fukushima Daiichi power station about 140 miles northeast of Tokyo. The site has six reactors; keeping them and their associated spent-fuel ponds cool has been a problem ever since the massive magnitude 9.0 earthquake and resulting tsunamis knocked out power and damaged auxiliary cooling pumps.

    The International Atomic Energy Agency reported that the new power cable was connected to reactor 2, which suffered a serious explosion Monday that breached its primary containment vessel. Due next for a connection is reactor 3, which suffered an explosion of its own and which is fueled by a more hazardous combination of uranium and plutonium oxide.

    Japan Imagery Post-Tsunami

    Thu, 2011-03-17 19:32 — Katie Rast

    Tokyo Passengers Trigger U.S. Airport Detectors, N.Y. Post Says

    Thu, 2011-03-17 17:58 — Kathy Gilbeaux

    Radiation detectors at Dallas-Fort Worth and Chicago O’Hare airports were triggered when passengers from flights that started in Tokyo passed through customs, the New York Post reported.

    Tokyo Passengers Trigger U.S. Airport Detectors, N.Y. Post Says
    By Alan Purkiss -

    Mar 17, 2011 1:08 AM CT

    Tests at Dallas-Fort Worth indicated low radiation levels in travelers’ luggage and in the aircraft’s cabin filtration system; no passengers were quarantined, the newspaper said.
    To contact the editor responsible for this story: Alan Purkiss at ***@***.***

    Details of the incident at O’Hare weren’t immediately clear, the Post said.

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-17/tokyo-passengers-trigger-u-s-airport-detectors-n-y-post-says.html 

    A Major Earthquake in North America Imminent?

    Thu, 2011-03-17 17:48 — Katie Rast

    Fox News With: Neil Cavuto

    Special Guests | Jim Berkland - Former USGS Geologist

    CAVUTO: California, Oregon or whatever, would that mean? What type of quake or disturbance or disruption would that be?

    BERKLAND: Well, if it was, one in the northwest, in the Cascadia Trench, like we had in 1700, that would be a nine magnitude quake. I'm not predicting that. But I'm saying we just had a massive fish kill. Maybe a million fish died in Redondo Beach. They had a massive fish sweep in Mexico. We just had a bunch of whales come in close to San Diego.

    CAVUTO: What does that presage? When you have events like that, what does that generally mean? What's going on in the waters?

    BERKLAND: Changes -- changes in the magnetic field that off then precede larger earthquakes. Most animals have the mineral magnetite in their bodies, including people. But it causes homing pigeons to enable them to get home. Just before big quakes, they often can't get home. There is the delay factor. So we look for those kinds of things.

    Animated map shows radioactive material's path across Pacific toward California

    Thu, 2011-03-17 16:27 — Katie Rast

    Austria's Federal Ministry for Science and Research has released this map showing radioactive material from the disaster in Japan moving across the Pacific Ocean toward California.

    As The Times' Ralph Vartabedian reported, small amounts of radioactive isotopes from the quake-crippled Japanese nuclear power plant are being blown toward North America. Though they could reach California by Friday, officials said they see no health danger and stressed that any radiation reaching here would be well within safe limits.

    Federal officials are monitoring radiation levels in places such as Anaheim, Bakersfield and Eureka.

    Read more...

    ______________________________________________

    as submitted by David Hastings

    Forecast for Plume's Path Is a Function of Wind and Weather

    Historical Context for Radioactive Particulates Moving from Asia to the US

    Thu, 2011-03-17 14:18 — Katie Rast

    As as the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory wrote last December:

    About a third of the airborne lead particles recently collected at two sites in the San Francisco Bay Area came from Asia, a finding that underscores the far-flung impacts of air pollution and heralds a new way to learn more about its journey across vast distances.

    In a first-of-its-kind study, scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the California Air Resources Board tracked variations in the amount of lead transported across the Pacific over time.

    It's well known that particles and other aerosols cover long distances through the Earth's atmosphere. But the details of this transport, such as that of the lead particles' 7,000-mile journey from the smokestacks of China to the west coast of North America, are largely unknown.

    From 2001:

    http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=1352

    From 2010:

    http://newscenter.lbl.gov/feature-stories/2010/12/01/lead-isotopes-air-pollution/

    From 1998:

    Jetstream Analysis from SFSU Meteorology

    Thu, 2011-03-17 14:03 — Katie Rast

     

    More info at the SFSU Meteorolog page.

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