BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami 11-Mar-2011

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 06:32 PM

In the weeks to come please buy and take Iodine pills as directed. Stop drinking milk and cheeses made after the end of March.
Momitor or measure radioactivity in outside swimming pools.

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: Naemanson
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 06:42 PM

My wife's family is safe. Her brother is in Tokyo and her parents and aunt are in Tochigi Prefecture. They all felt the shaking and my brother-in-law lost his Martin but they are all safe. Aunt Sachiko spent the night in a neighbor's car because of the aftershocks but they all are fine today.

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 06:45 PM

IF TWO OR MORE NUCLEAR PLANTS IN JAPAN MELTDOWN BEYOND THE CONTAINMENT BUILDING:

Wind currents will disperse radiocative cesium, Iodine, Strongtium, plutonium and other nasty atoms world wide.

Of the dizens if nuclear plants in Japan, currently the oldest one bulit in 1960 and finished in 1970 is in the most serious condition of being unable to cool the fuel rods which are now venting radiactive steam. Once the unclooled water turns entirely to steam the fuel will melt and may or may not be contained in the old brittle vessel. The steel in an old plant being bombarded by protons and neutrons for decades will behave like steet that is hundreds of years old. If heated or cooled rapidly the steel will crack wide open. This N plant has no electricty to run the cooling pumps after the back up generators flooded, the back up batteries have run out hours ago.
This part is speculative but when it was reported that Russia and America are rushing "COOLENT" to Japan's N plant it may be refferring to powered boroon to dump on top of the reactor to ease the risk of ...gulp detonation...the wame way Russian firefighters did on Chernobyl. All the first responding firefighters who dumped the boron from helicopters died within weeks.

A second critical N plant is also having trouble cooling down.


Hilary Clinton said we are sending coolant to Japan. The airforce says they they do not know of any flights of coolant.
(Maybe we shipped it Federal Express?!)

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 07:08 PM

Tsumani warning in effect now..Japan E.Q the other thread on the disaster


Japan earthquake live - links to reports, pics & videos
At least 402 people have been killed but Japan's Jiji Press News agency said police and other data showed that the total number of quake dead and missing topped 1,000.

Japan Earthquake in photos

Whirlpool forms after Japan earthquake

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 07:10 PM

How will a looming nuclear disaster as well as the earthquake (which pales in comparison), effect the rest of the world?

Financially only about 10 to 20% of Japan's losses are covered by insurance.

Insurance does not cover natural disasters of nuclear accidents. Even your home owners policy will say this.
The special insurance for natural and atomic accidents is sold in large part by AIG. 70% of AIG is in receivership to the taxpayers of the US. AIG would need a bail out to cover the pay outs.

Toyota and Nissan are shut down with no reopendate in mind.

Imagine buying a product from Japan you might suspect of being radiocative. Not good for nusiness.

Hyundai will take over the Toyota market share of Toyota and Nissan for a year or more.

Japan has a current debt margin of 200% compared to the United States debt margin of 25%

After WW2 the US had a margin of 100.



The US will have to provide money and rescources equivenant to what we spend in Iraq and Afghanistan every week which is about 2.5 billion.
If we are serious about saving Japan, we should consider declaring victory in Afghanistan this coming Monday and shift to help Japan. As Bush senior said "Na-gonna-doit"



Again if the N plants (one or more) melt down there will be more death than there was in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but in slow motion voer decades.

There is no such thing as one possible outcome.

The outcome of a meltdown ranges from an enormous bomb event to a persistant radiation event that is difficult to ever clean up as water explodes from a deep radioactive hole in the ground. If the Zircon shield at the bottom of the ractor holds the way the 3 MIle Island Plant did, we all all be very luckey indeed. Since the N plants are next to the sea. I'm sure you can see the difficulty containing the problem if it goes catasatrophic.

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 07:17 PM

If you place the area that is uninhabital after the Chernobyl meltdown and place it over Japan you will see that one or two of these vast areas would quickly reduce the size of a habital Japan to 70 or 80%,

If two or more go...depending upon where they are

Japan will be virtually 50% habital by humans..

Disagree with my assesment all you want but we all better pray that the N plants can be brought under control in the next three days.

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: Jack Campin
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 07:41 PM

Meanwhile in politics:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42033145/ns/politics-capitol_hill/

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 07:54 PM

Republicans must figure that the warning program is the problem. Defund it and the problem goes away. Actually they did that last month.

Soon they will discover that certain geologic faults can destroy much of the United States. I bet they move to defund those nasty earthquake faults.

As Boehner says "The best way to get the economy going is to get the economy moving."


read his lips -he is really smashed on alcohol every hour of the day.

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: Charley Noble
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 08:40 PM

"it is good to bear in mind Japanese nuclear power plants are built with earthquakes of this magnitude in mind."

No, unfortunately no nuclear plants in Japan have been built to withstand an 8.9 level earthquake. They have been built to survive very strong earthquakes at the 7.0 level, but not for extreme cases, and certainly not for an 8.9 earthquake.

My understanding of what has happened is that the nuclear plant automatically shut down when the earthquake occurred, as designed. Then the electricity that powered the regular cooling pumps was cut off by the quake. However, the back-up generators, powered on site by oil or natural gas, didn't kick in as expected; I'm not sure why but they may have been flooded by the tsunami. The only other back-up power available has been batteries, and there's not enough of that power to run the pumps.

I believe that additional pumps have now been brought in by helicopter and may soon be working. They'll certainly be needed soon to avoid a melt-down and catastrophic release of radiation. A release of the radioactive gas that is building up in the containment will provide some more time to deal with the problem, but will also endanger the surrounding population with low-level radiation. Evacuation has now been ordered for a 10 km radius of the nuclear plant. It should be at least twice that radius, and more depending on weather conditions (the downwind zone is of course the most vulnerable).

It's amazing how sanguine most nuclear consultants are who are resident in London or the States when consulted by the media. They should be transported to what's left of the control room in the plant to gain some much needed perspective.

By the way it looks to me as if there are at least four reactors on this site. And, yes, as has been pointed out above they are over 40 years old and their containment vessels are more brittle than when they were new and subsequently are more susceptible to cracking under duress.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: Charley Noble
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 09:01 PM

Damn!

20 minutes ago this update was posted:

"The Kyodo news agency says the cooling system has failed at three reactors at a nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture in northeastern Japan and that the coolant water's temperature has reached boiling level."

The radiation levels within the containment are also described as a thousand times higher than normal.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: Charley Noble
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 09:13 PM

Here's the best overview of what is happening now that I've found: click here for update!

Part of what is in this report includes this statement:

"Operators at the Fukushima Daiichi plant's Unit 1 scrambled ferociously to tamp down heat and pressure inside the reactor after the 8.9 magnitude quake and the tsunami that followed cut off electricity to the site and disabled emergency generators, knocking out the main cooling system.

Some 3,000 people within two miles of the plant were urged to leave their homes, but the evacuation zone was more than tripled to 6.2 miles after authorities detected eight times the normal radiation levels outside the facility and 1,000 times normal inside Unit 1's control room."

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 09:27 PM

Another Japanese N plant at a different site has brought its fires under control.

Charley knows that once all ther water boils away, the plant is on a diasater downhill course that could cascade to several terrible conclusions.

If we are bringing (a 'coolant') boron to blanket the site, then we are rushing a band aid to the site to hopefully disuade the fuel from going critical.

IF the pumps are restored in the next 8 hours they could contain the plant to a 3 mile Island level of destruction.


Yes the media nuke spokespeople are already sayung that a few bad apples should not condemn the whole industry...

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 09:35 PM

If you have friends or family in Japan they should be OK at 150 miles from a nuclear plant that could conceivably fail by meltdown and or explosion.

Radiation levels at 20 miles could be dangerously high.

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 10:17 PM

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 10:18 PM

Here I Come To Save the Day

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: GUEST,ChanteyLass on cell
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 10:51 PM

My grandson and the CA portion of his family are all okay. There was an advisory in San Diego County to evacuate marinas, but I'm not sure they did that.

The problems at nuclear power plants in Japan is science fiction becoming fact. Those of us who oppose nuclear power will get no satisfaction saying "I told you so."

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Mar 11 - 02:09 AM

I can;t get no   Satisfaction
either.

but the pro nuclear voices are already critisizing the anti nuclear voices for any shadow that will be cast on the industry because of this "incident" for decades to come.

BTWQ this is the first time Japan has declared a full nuclear emergency. The PM helicoptered in.

Do something, even if it is organizing bucket brigades or ask everyone to run there with batteries or thier house generators or hook up a million jumper cables to a fleet of Hondas...

Just Get those pumps working PLEASE.

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Mar 11 - 02:29 AM

Lets get a thousand fire trucks to pump some water...

Checking many other talk sites I have found a prepondurence of people angry ahead of time for evil liberals or ignorant Michael Moores who are certain to exploit this Japanese Nuke plant issue to watonly besmirch the image of clean atomic power.

I wonder what Bill Mahre has to say

"What!? Now its going to be safer to move to Pakistan than stay on the west coast when the fallout hits LA!"

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 12 Mar 11 - 03:24 AM

Clean atomic power?

What kind of species invents a power so dreadful, so dangerous, that it has the capacity to not only wipe out its own species, but every other species on the planet, as well as the planet itself?

Years back, my daughter's school organised a school trip to Hinkley Point Power Station, backed by..yes, you guessed it, the nuclear power industry, to prove how wonderful and how clean and how SAFE nuclear power was...and is...

She was the only child who didn't go. I was the only parent who went "What the HELL are you doing taking children to a nuclear power plant for a school TRIP out!!??"

The headmistress never really got over that one...she muttered and stuttered and splattered out words which even she didn't believe....whilst I just stood and stared at her in disbelief...

"Take them to the Zoo, anywhere else but a nuclear power station!"

That was the first inkling I began to get that the world had lost the plot bigtime...and since then I've watched in disbelief at how stupid, how crazy and how mad my species has become...

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 12 Mar 11 - 04:24 AM

At this stage an explosion has been reported at Fukushima 1 with no clarity as to what this means. External panelling of one of the reactor building has been blown away but there's uncertainty about what has actually exploded. All deeply disturbing.

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 12 Mar 11 - 04:33 AM

BBC showing footage of massive explosion at Fukushima 1

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 12 Mar 11 - 06:24 AM

We heard from two of the girls in Fukushima this morning - at that point they were safe and well (no power, no water - email on mobile phones is a wonderful thing). The explosion at the nuclear plant may have changed the picture somewhat. Don't know how well the radiation is contained, or whether the evacuation zone has been substantially extended.

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: Naemanson
Date: 12 Mar 11 - 06:46 AM

My wife spoke with her parents today. They are fine and Aunt Sachiko has joined them in their house.

Here is a part of my post from my Guam thread.

Charlie, you were right. Japan is one of the safest nuclear power generators in the world and now they have lost control of one plant and may lose the other. All of their redundant safety systems failed. The Fukushima plant has one reactor that has blown its containment building apart and they are worried about the other five reactors on site. They've evacuated people for 20 kilometers around the northern plant and 10 kilometers around the southern plant in Fukushima.

Damn! I wish you and the Clamshell Alliance could have been wrong on this one. I keep thinking about that reactor in New Hampshire and wondering how people would be able to get from Maine to Massachusetts if there was a 20 kilometer no-go area around that plant.

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 12 Mar 11 - 08:01 AM

Japan Quake: Tsunami Intensity from NOAA

US man killed by tsunami waves Tsunami waves from Japan's huge earthquake have killed at least one person in the United States, officials said.

A 25-year-old man was confirmed dead in California's Del Norte County after being swept into the Pacific Ocean near the mouth of the Klamath River on Friday (local time), according to local emergency officials.

The man and two friends were taking photographs of the incoming tsunami waves.

Joey Young, a spokesman for the Del Norte County emergency operations centre, said it had not been determined whether the victim was a local resident, but he had been in the area about two weeks.

He said no other people had been reported missing or injured in the area.

The giant wall of water lost much of its energy as it roared thousands of kilometres across the Pacific Ocean before hitting the US west coast on Saturday morning.

Surges of 2.4 meters high crashed ashore on the coasts of California and Oregon up to 12 hours after the 8.9-magnitude quake triggered tsunami alerts in dozens of countries across the Pacific.

Thousands fled their homes along the California coast, but only two towns in northern California suffered any significant damage to boats and harbour areas.

A series of four tsunami waves hit the Hawaiian island of Oahu, but no injuries or property damage were reported.

Many residents in Tonga fled to higher ground ahead of the expected 5.00am arrival of the wave, however Radio Tonga journalists say the waters have remained calm.

In Papua New Guinea, authorities say there has been no sign of a tsunami, nor has Marshall Islands been affected.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre reports waves of between 20 to 70 centimetres were expected on islands such as Nauru, Kiribati's Tarawa, Fiji and Vanuatu.

The alert has since been lifted in most parts, including the Philippines, Australia and China.

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 12 Mar 11 - 08:33 AM

6.0 aftershock has just hit Fukushima.

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: gnu
Date: 12 Mar 11 - 09:53 AM

Japan's government spokesman says the metal container sheltering a nuclear reactor was not affected by an explosion that destroyed the building it's in.

Yukio Edano says the radiation around the plant did not rise after the blast but instead is decreasing. He added that pressure in the reactor was also decreasing.

Pressure and heat have been building at the nuclear reactor since an earthquake and tsunami Friday caused its cooling system to fail.

An explosion Saturday blew out the walls of the building housing the reactor. The government has ordered people within a 12-mile (20-kilometer) radius of the plant in Fukushima to evacuate the area.

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Mar 11 - 10:04 AM

That explosion is clearly carrying concrete following the hydrogen gas and steam release.

The core is possibly exposed for that particular reactor at this time. Perhaps the steel containment vessel is intact but is obviously very hot, very brittle and contains melted U238 fuel and other isotopes.

4 more reactos could go at a total of well over 100 tons of bomb grade metal

A fission explosion would not have been captured by camera 2 miles away because the camera would have melted.

A picture would need to be taken many more miles away to record any unlikely chain reaction explosion.

Which is worse, fission or meltdown?

They are nearly equally bad but a meltdown would allow decades to try to cap the mess in a mountain of concrete. But being right at the sea's edgem a concrete masuoleum offers little containment.

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: Charley Noble
Date: 12 Mar 11 - 10:19 AM

Time to shift over to the Nuclear Power Plant Disaster thread, unfortunately.

"Japan's government spokesman says the metal container sheltering a nuclear reactor was not affected by an explosion that destroyed the building it's in."

I'm unsure what this statement means beyond an attempt to reassure the public. The fuel rods are within a containment vessel and here in the States our nuclear plants have what's called a containment dome, a final barrier of defense if there were a meltdown (and no one really knows if it would work or not in that event). It's unclear to me if there is a secondary containment dome for this reactor in Japan or whether that was supposed to be the building whose walls have just been blown out.

But in either event no cooling system (pipes, pumps, valves) would have survived that explosion and it's just a matter of hours before there is a complete meltdown.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: gnu
Date: 12 Mar 11 - 10:49 AM

Sorry about that.

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: Charley Noble
Date: 12 Mar 11 - 11:16 AM

Gnu-

So am I.

And now I'm trying to find out more about the design specifications of this Fukushima plant. It doesn't seem to have a secondary containment system from what I've been able to find so far, which makes it as vulnerable to a catastrophic explosion as the Chernobyl plant in the Ukraine.

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: Bettynh
Date: 12 Mar 11 - 11:31 AM

Aside from the admittedly frightening prospects of the nuclear watch, it seems a city of 70,000 people has not only been hit by the tsunami, but has dropped into the ocean permanently. Minamasoma is shown in a flyover by Japanese tv yesterday. I really don't understand why the official Japanese statements estimate a few hundred or maybe a thousand lives lost. The numbers will be much larger.

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: gnu
Date: 12 Mar 11 - 11:37 AM

CNN won't let me see the vid.

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: gnu
Date: 12 Mar 11 - 11:40 AM

Beer sent me this...

Quake moved Japan coast 8 feet; shifted Earth's axis
By Kevin Voigt, CNN

March 12, 2011 1:58 a.m. EST

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Friday's powerful earthquake appears moved the main island of Japan by 8 feet (2.4 meters)
Report: The 8.9-magnitude earthquake shifted the Earth on its axis by 4 inches
The quake triggered more than 160 aftershocks in the first 24 hours
Similar strength to the 2004 qiake and tsunami that killed over 200,000 people
(CNN) -- The powerful earthquake that unleashed a devastating tsunami Friday appears to have moved the main island of Japan by 8 feet (2.4 meters) and shifted the Earth on its axis.

"At this point, we know that one GPS station moved (8 feet), and we have seen a map from GSI (Geospatial Information Authority) in Japan showing the pattern of shift over a large area is consistent with about that much shift of the land mass," said Kenneth Hudnut, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

Reports from the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Italy estimated the 8.9-magnitude quake shifted the planet on its axis by nearly 4 inches (10 centimeters).

The temblor, which struck Friday afternoon near the east coast of Japan, killed hundreds of people, caused the formation of 30-foot walls of water that swept across rice fields, engulfed entire towns, dragged houses onto highways, and tossed cars and boats like toys. Some waves reached six miles (10 kilometers) inland in Miyagi Prefecture on Japan 's east coast.

The quake was the most powerful to hit the island nation in recorded history and the tsunami it unleashed traveled across the Pacific Ocean, triggering tsunami warnings and alerts for 50 countries and territories as far away as the western coasts of Canada, the U.S. and Chile. The quake triggered more than 160 aftershocks in the first 24 hours -- 141 measuring 5.0-magnitude or more.

The quake occurred as the Earth's crust ruptured along an area about 250 miles (400 kilometers) long by 100 miles (160 kilometers) wide, as tectonic plates slipped more than 18 meters, said Shengzao Chen, a USGS geophysicist.

Japan is located along the Pacific "ring of fire," an area of high seismic and volcanic activity stretching from New Zealand in the South Pacific up through Japan, across to Alaska and down the west coasts of North and South America. The quake was "hundreds of times larger" than the 2010 quake that ravaged Haiti, said Jim Gaherty of the LaMont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University.

The Japanese quake was of similar strength to the 2004 earthquake in Indonesia that triggered a tsunami that killed over 200,000 people in more than a dozen countries around the Indian Ocean . "The tsunami that it sent out was roughly comparable in terms of size," Gaherty said. "[The 2004 tsunami] happened to hit some regions that were not very prepared for tsunamis ... we didn't really have a very sophisticated tsunami warning system in the Indian Ocean basin at the time so the damage was significantly worse."

The Japanese quake comes just weeks after a 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck Christchurch on February 22, toppling historic buildings and killing more than 150 people. The timeframe of the two quakes have raised questions whether the two incidents are related, but experts say the distance between the two incidents makes that unlikely.

"I would think the connection is very slim," said Prof. Stephan Grilli, ocean engineering professor at the University of Rhode Island .

CNN's Ivan Cabrera contributed to this report

Story and Video at :

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/12/japan.earthquake.tsunami.earth/index.html?hpt=T1

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: bobad
Date: 12 Mar 11 - 11:44 AM

"CNN won't let me see the vid."

Some vids don't play in Firefox but will in IE or in Firefox if you use an IE emulator such as IE Tab.

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: gnu
Date: 12 Mar 11 - 11:46 AM

bobad... "not in Canada".

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: bobad
Date: 12 Mar 11 - 11:48 AM

Sorry gnu, I didn't see that -- I had just viewed a vid on the CNN site and had to switch to IE to do so.

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: gnu
Date: 12 Mar 11 - 12:11 PM

Yes bobad. You can get CNN on CNN but not on YT. The advertisers won't pay for their ads to be viewd in certain countries... depends on the advertiser of course.

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: Gurney
Date: 12 Mar 11 - 03:25 PM

The Japanese rescue team that was helping with our NZ earthquake should have arrived back there about now. One third of our total NZ rescue staff are following them, it is reckoned that we will have enough left here to cope in ChCh.
No doubt other Pacific-Rim countries are also sending help.

The pictures of the tsunami are heartrending, and people trapped in it would have had little chance of survival. Frightening. Dreadful. All those buildings which resisted the 'quake just washed away like dead leaves.

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 12 Mar 11 - 03:54 PM

USAID sends Los Angeles and Virginia search and rescue teams to Japan
Submitted by Anissa Ford on 2011-03-12

The United States Agency for International Development is sending two rescue mission teams to Japan. The two search and rescue teams are leaving Los Angeles and Fairfax, Virginia to answer Japan's earthquake and tsunami events disaster response call.

74 members of Los Angeles County's Urban Search and Rescue team are going to Japan to help with rescue and recovery efforts. 72 are going from the Fairfax team.

The LA team told a local Los Angeles ABC station that they are waiting to find out if they'll arrive in Japan via commercial or military flight out of LAX. LA County's Urban Search and Rescue team conducted rescue efforts in Haiti last year. They were on standby for assisting with rescue efforts in Chile and also helped earthquake victims in New Zealand.

The LA team in Haiti team had doctors, engineers, fire fighters, communication specialists and rescue dogs. The team headed to Japan is taking 45,000 pounds of equipment with them including pneumatic lifts, boats to deal with flooding and search and retrieval canines.

The team also has infrared and listening equipment to find persons within a building. The USAR team is large enough that the crew who recently returned from New Zealand can stay behind on this mission so as not to respond to a second international disaster relief trip so soon.

There is one other team from the US that makes international rescue trips from Fairfax, Virginia. The United States Agency for International Development activated their Fairfax County search and rescue team to aid in rescue efforts in Japan.

The Fairfax team was called Friday afternoon and 72 of the teams 200+ members will travel to Japan with six search and rescue dogs. Fairfax's team is brining cameras, breaking tools, listening devices and swift water boats to search for residents who may be alive underneath the debris.

The Fairfax department's rescue team was established in 1986 as a domestic and international disaster response unit under the realm of the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department. Fairfax also utilizes emergency managers, planners, physicians and paramedics and structural engineering, heavy rigging, collapse rescue, logistics, hazardous materials, communications, canine and technical search specialists.

Both the Los Angeles and Fairfax Search Teams are trained to respond to international natural disaster rescue missions. They can excavate people trapped under rubble and in the water or from wherever they may need rescuing.

USAID pays 100 percent reimbursement for any deployment by both US teams.

The Los Angeles Dep. Chief Dave Stone from Los Angeles County Fire said they will start taking a building apart with the least chance of hurting the person trapped in there. But he added that there is concern about aftershocks.

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: Naemanson
Date: 12 Mar 11 - 11:00 PM

According to the Japanese Meteorological Agency the area around Miyagi Prefecture and Fukushima Prefecture moved 4 meters to the east and dropped 50 centimeters. That means some flooded areas will not drain right away.

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 13 Mar 11 - 12:23 AM

They say the earth dropped and some places will stay underwater..interesting that Atlantis is now emerging.

Anyway, here is a message from Haitian children..tried sending before..hope it is not a duplicate.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bryn-mooser/haiti-stands-with-japan_b_835000.html

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 13 Mar 11 - 03:46 AM

I couldn't see that video either - all I got was an apologetic message saying it wasn't available in my country!

Japan Earthquake: before and after Aerial photos taken over Japan have revealed the scale of devastation across dozens of suburbs and tens of thousands of homes and businesses.

Hover over each satellite photo to view the devastation caused by the earthquake and tsunami.

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: Bobert
Date: 13 Mar 11 - 08:07 AM

Looks as if one of Japan's oldest nuclear reactors at Fukushima Diichi is in the process of melting down... This is going to have far reaching medical consequences that could overshadow the estimated 10,000 lives that have already been lost...

My heart goes out to the Japanese people...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 13 Mar 11 - 08:28 AM

I've been listening to BBC radio cover most of the evening

One of my Japanese friends said earlier today none of their families or friends are affected, except the mother of one was still in a refuge.

He also said - Please pray for Japan continually as many people are hurting who I don't know.

sandra

Japan: Tsunami engulfs Sendai Airport

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: Jack Campin
Date: 13 Mar 11 - 08:35 AM

Is Masato anywhere near the disaster area?

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 13 Mar 11 - 08:47 AM

he last posted 24th Feb

I think Naemanson met him when he was in Japan, I'll ask him

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: gnu
Date: 13 Mar 11 - 08:48 AM

Bobert... lot's of info on this thread... BS: Nuclear plant disaster looming

It's not melting down yet according to the latest reports.

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: GUEST,Jim Martin
Date: 13 Mar 11 - 09:24 AM

My understanding of the problem with the nuclear power stations seems to be that they need to urgently get in coolant to the reactors but probably need a power system to do it. The stand-by systems (generator then batteries)which should have kicked in failed because of the extreme circumstances (flooding). How easy would it be to get powerful enough generators to the site/s bearing in mind the present chaos?

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: bobad
Date: 13 Mar 11 - 10:51 AM

It is being reported that the entire main island of Japan was shifted by eight feet and the earth shifted on its axis by an estimated ten centimeters throwing GPS readings off.

Subject: RE: BS: 8.9 earthquake off Japan, tsunami
From: GUEST,DonMeixner
Date: 13 Mar 11 - 10:58 AM

The interview I saw this morning stated that fresh water was better for the reactor, salt water would cool the reactor as well as fresh. But fresh was need for the population and they were using sea water because they were not concerned about the reactor. Just stopping the core from melting.

Don