5.5 magnitude earthquake shakes Tokyo as Fukushima decomissioning reaches critical stage

[GliderGuider]

5.5 magnitude earthquake shakes Tokyo, halts trains: nerves frayed as Fukushima decomissioning reaches critical stage

November 16, 2013 – TOKYO, JAPAN - A 5.5 magnitude earthquake hit eastern Japan on Saturday. Tremors were felt from inside Tokyo skyscrapers, and the city’s high-speed train service was halted as a precaution. The earthquake struck at 8:44 p.m. local time (11:44 a.m. GMT) at a depth of 63 kilometers (39 miles) in the Chiba prefecture which neighbors Tokyo, the US Geological Survey reported. The quake shook skyscrapers in the Japanese capital and temporarily halted the city’s high-speed train service, according to AFP. The trains soon resumed after a track inspection. Local broadcaster NHK assured that neither Tokyo’s Narita International Airport nor regional nuclear installations were affected by the earthquake. There were no reports of damage or casualties. It comes just one week after another 5.5 earthquake struck close to the capital, and three weeks after a major 7.3 magnitude quake sent small tsunamis to Japan’s northeast coast and prompted an evacuation at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

While earthquakes of different magnitudes are not uncommon in Japan, the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster that triggered the core meltdowns of three reactors at the Fukushima plant has made every quake report in the region particularly alarming. As the world watches with apprehension at how Fukushima’s decommissioning work unfolds, prominent Japanese-Canadian scientist David Suzuki warned last week that another nearby earthquake of magnitude 7 or higher could trigger a serious nuclear catastrophe, decimating Japan and reaching the U.S. west coast. “If the fourth {reactor} goes under an earthquake and those rods are exposed, then it’s bye, bye, Japan and everybody on the west coast of North America should be evacuated. And if that isn’t terrifying, I don’t know what is,”, Suzuki said.

Warming and methane in the Arctic, earthquakes and radiation in Japan. Welcome to the future, your new home. For a short while, anyway.

[flamingdem]

1. yow

[LouisvilleDem]

2. I'm not in favor of nuclear...

...but this seems a little far fetched to me:

“If the fourth {reactor} goes under an earthquake and those rods are exposed, then it’s bye, bye, Japan and everybody on the west coast of North America should be evacuated. And if that isn’t terrifying, I don’t know what is,”, Suzuki said.

Chernobyl didn't have a containment structure when it had a melt down. That is basically equivalent to exposing control rods in the Fukushima reactor. There are several large cities downwind of Chernobyl that are a hell of a lot closer than the west coast is to Japan, and none of them were evacuated.

[tavalon]

4. Have you checked recently on the stats for those "downwinders"

They are having a lot of um, unexpected troubles.

It's weird calling them downwinders, since I'm a downwinder from the nuclear testing here in the US but just like us, those downwinders are suffering.

[LouisvilleDem]

6. Could you be more specific?

I'm wondering why people have to be so incredibly vague in this discussion. Phrases like "bye bye Japan" and "unexpected troubles" don't exactly describe occurrences that can be independently verified or scientifically measured. If someone is calling for the 50+ million people of the West Coast to be evacuated, don't you think we deserve a little more in depth description of the problem?

[tavalon]

7. People hundreds of miles around Chernobyl

are experiencing, to this day, higher rates of birth defects than statistically, they should. Many kinds of cancer, thyroid especially, are quite high in those areas. Those people should have been evacuated but were not.

When the Fukishima disaster first started, do you know what the west coast of the US did? I do, because I was following the disaster closely and not surprisingly, live on the west coast. They shut down the radiation monitoring stations up and down the coast. Can't worry about something you're not looking for, right?

There will be no evacuation. Tepco will lie to its people and our government to us. And life will go on. And no one will answer my questions when I ask why for the first time in a decade, we had kids being born with hypothyroidism (I would have expected thyroid cancer).

There aren't concrete answers because the powers that be have decided that the sand looks pretty damn good about now and who cares if a little gets in their ears when they bury their head. Better than trying to explain fubar.

[LouisvilleDem]

8. Links?

Do you have links to support these claims? I'd be very interested to read more about this.

[FBaggins]

9. Much of that is untrue

People hundreds of miles around Chernobyl are experiencing, to this day, higher rates of birth defects than statistically, they should.

"Statistically" compared to what? Birth defect rates in the area were higher pre-Chernobyl and have been comparable to other poor nations (keeping in mind that birth defect rates are driven far more by other factors - like parental alcohol abuse and nutritional deficiencies). Most studies have shown no significant lasting impact on birth defect rates... and the few that have shown an impact, lack critical data (such as radiation dose estimates, diet & alcohol consumption, etc).

Many kinds of cancer, thyroid especially, are quite high in those areas. Those people should have been evacuated but were not.

Really it's primarily thyroid cancer (by a large gap). And yes, it's because people weren't treated or evacuated when they should have been. That wasn't the case in Japan. For all their errors, they were miles ahead of the former Soviet Union... and radioiodine exposure rates were much lower.

When the Fukushima disaster first started, do you know what the west coast of the US did? I do, because I was following the disaster closely and not surprisingly, live on the west coast. They shut down the radiation monitoring stations up and down the coast.

Then you were "following" bogus sources... because that simply isn't true. Radiation monitoring stations were up and down at essentially the same rate they had been pre-disaster and LOTS of them were up the entire time. NONE of them showed radiation rates anywhere close to those that would cause concern.

And no one will answer my questions when I ask why for the first time in a decade, we had kids being born with hypothyroidism

I'll answer it. The premise of the question is flawed. Congenital hypothyroidism diagnosis rates were climbing long before Fukushima - likely due to better screening.

[bananas]

5. Chernobyl was a single core, these are high-level waste from many cores

This is the high-level waste from decades of operations,
this is the waste that has to be buried for millions of years under a mountain.

[gopiscrap]

3. yikes hope everyone is ok