Japanese tsunami disaster discussion

  • Thread starter Thread starter Tsotne
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That's the thing I'm worried about - if things go really bad, the government will try to control the reporting on it to avoid a panic. No point in telling people to take jodium tablets and drive away if the tablets are sold out and the highways are full.
 
That actually happened. Averting panic requires information hiding but that is also to be expected so unless they provide deliberately false impression that danger is not in place then it is hard anyway to control some kind of panics whether it is crowded runways or empty shops or chemical shelves. To maintain a situation under control they not only have to hide information but furthermore, resist the truth. Donno how beneficial for the people it will be though.
 
Well, thus far, the "official" information has been reportedly centered on the reduction of the liability of the power plant operator, which has historically done a particularly poor job with that particular power plant, and such information has supposedly to date been quickly countered with other various documents.

So is there a disinformation/information withholding campaign? Yes. But then again, this is quite commonplace. Did Guliani tell New Yorkers what they were breathing for like a week after 9/11? Nope. And that stuff has led to some nasty health complications in higher doses (i.e. first responders, etc.).

Also Chernobyl is in Ukraine... and in the USSR news got to the people slowly (Chernobyl took 36 hours... the Cuban missile crisis took two weeks), I would assume to sanitise/spin it.

To the point about Iodine tablets no longer being required - there are probably simply none left. I remember seeing news about a massive shortage, and that the government handed out iodine tablets to everyone evacuated from around the power plant already.
 
People have been evacuated from the 20km radius. That was 6km initially. After the explosion of the third power plant they are increasing the radius. The whole eastern coast if loaded with atomic stations. If earthquake doesn't occur again, then they won't probably share the same result. I listened to physicians who said that Japanese engineers had designed and built those plants in such a way that earthquake possibilities were taken into account and reactor hasn't been damaged. Chernobyl in contrast was built on quick order with lots of mistakes. After the Chernobyl tragedy, the whole roof of the reactor was destroyed whereas Japanese reactors withstood well.
 
The comparison to Chernobyl is understandable, but not all that illuminating. The RBMK reactor has terrible design flaws and was being operated well outside its intended range. The reactor had no primary containment at all and experienced an excursion that led to a steam explosion powerful enough to break open the core, throwing the 2,000-ton lid of the reactor into the air. And then there was an even worse explosion--what may have been a prompt criticality incident (you know--the kind they have in atomic weapons?); nobody is 100% sure what caused the second explosion. And, oh yeah, the graphite moderator of which basically the entire core was made burns when it gets too hot. Just a disaster waiting to happen.

By contrast, these are boiling-water reactors--a common and much safer design--that were either in cold shutdown or had their reactions successfully stopped. What we're seeing here is basically a very bad storage accident. Now, this is not a minor thing: The second-worst nuclear incident to date, Kyshtym, was an incident of this type and resulted in many premature deaths and environmental contamination of a very large area that is still uninhabitable 50 years later.

The thing that concerns me is that the folks in charge seem to have no real understanding of the situation on the ground and no set of contingencies to work their way through. It appears they have just been trying to restore "normal" operation--i.e., get power to the site and operate the equipment that would have been operating all along without an interruption. At this point, I'm not sure anything like that would even work, and it sure doesn't seem that they are considering any other form of response.
 
Just got this group email from my friend who is in Asia. Can only imagine the level of paranoid over there.
BBC FLASHNEWS: Japan govt confirms radiation leak at Fukushima nuclear plants. Asian countries should take necessary precautions. If rain comes, remain indoors first 24hrs. Close doors & windows. Swab neck skin with betadine where thyroid area is, radiation hits thyroid first. Take extra precautions. Radiation may hit Phillipine at starting 4pm today. If it rains today or in the next few dvays in HK, DO NOT GO UNDER THE RAIN. If you get caughtout, use an umbrella or raincoat, even if it's only a drizzle. Radioactive particles, which may cause burns, alopecia or even cancer, may be in the rain.
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Information hiding (or at least its doubt) gets people in paranoia and the panic can lead to widespread rumors spreading at an exponential rate.
 
Tsotne said:
What's at the root of the problem?
What's the current situation at the plant?
How much of the surrounding area is likely to be affected by the radiation?
What other ideas are being considered?
What are the best- and worst-case scenarios?
How does the crisis rank, in terms of nuclear plant accidents?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelo...kout/japans-nuclear-crisis-where-things-stand
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The worst is a full-scale meltdown of the reactors caused by overheating, which would release much larger amounts of radiation into the air than has yet occurred. In that case, the damage could potentially approach the level of the Soviet Union's 1986 Chernobyl disaster, for which estimates of deaths vary from 4000 to close to one million.

...let's all hope that doesn't happen
 
euroazn said:
The worst is a full-scale meltdown of the reactors caused by overheating, which would release much larger amounts of radiation into the air than has yet occurred. In that case, the damage could potentially approach the level of the Soviet Union's 1986 Chernobyl disaster, for which estimates of deaths vary from 4000 to close to one million.

...let's all hope that doesn't happen
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Low probability of that happening with the information disclosed up until now. They are cooling the reactor with sea waters. Contamination of the radioactive elements is not that dangerous for this moment, it is lost in air in the ocean. Needs several days to get the answer whether it got cooled and the situation calmed down or exploded :(:eek:
 
It's more interesting now to talk about the future of Japan. How it is gonna rebuild itself?! What will be the economic position after the sharp downturn?! Review the history and make comparisons.
 
It'll rebuild itself just fine, it has in the past. Nothing critical was lost, except of course for the lives of those affected.
 
Alexei Smirnov said:
It'll rebuild itself just fine, it has in the past. Nothing critical was lost, except of course for the lives of those affected.
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Do you really think so, nothing critical lost??? Of course the most regrettable issue is victims but how about the economy? Some cities just vanished. Energy sources are destroyed. Stock markets cannot promise good future. :oops:
 
This is slightly off topic, but I see no rogue traders breaking British banks this time around... yet.
 
Yike Lu said:
This is slightly off topic, but I see no rogue traders breaking British banks this time around... yet.
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Lesson was completely another situation. There was an uncontrolled fraud and that's why Barrings collapsed. Here it is not expected.
 
Great Book from 2007, Richard Bookstabber "A Demon of Our Own Design" (see ch 8 especially) - great discussion on reasons for failures in Chernobyl (all started with simple safety test) to Three Mile Island to how those relate the meltdowns in the market. Unlike Roubini and Taleb that make a living as "doom sayers", author's predictions were right on the nose a year ahead of the crash with no media profile to show for it - financial innovations caused an innocent event, which led to market meltdown, because the system was more connected and complex than realized.

Also, the risk assessment and guidelines are much more secure/stringent in Nuclear facilities, than for financial institutions, even after new regulations struggle to get implanted. So my personal takeaway message is how humble and careful we should be with our calculations, because the results are grave from a market meltdown and economic standstill to the Fukushima 50 who will probably control the risk, but die horrible deaths because of radiation exposure - essentially scarifying themselves...can't help but ask if it would have gone down the same in America...
 
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