The Great Sendai Quake and Tsunami – 2011. (Updates as available)
Minimisanriku Photo AP
2100 CET: Dawn is breaking on Sunday in Japan and while the number of known fatalities including unidentified bodies is still at the 1700 level, the number unaccounted for is in excess of 10,000 with almost 9,000 of these just from the town of Minamisanriku. It seems that efforts to control pressure and to cool the reactor at Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant are succeeding though the extent of the damage is still not known.
1800 CET: 3 of 90 people patients at a hospital 3 patients randomly tested from a group of 90 were were found to have radiation poisoning and would need de-contamination though the radiation exposures were said not to be life-threatening. The Japan Nuclear agency has rated the Fukushima nuclear plant incident at 4 on the 0 to 10 International Nuclear Event Scale developed by the IAEA. Three Mile Island was rated at 5 and Tjernobyl was rated at 7.
1530 CET: The Japanese Gov’t has said that reactors at Fukushima No.1 are “safe”. One tsunami related death is reported from northern California’s Del Norte County and one from Papua New Guinea.
1430 CET: Fukushima prefecture was hit half an hour ago by an aftershock of magnitude 6 on the Richter scale. The blast at Fukushima No.1 nuclear plant is now said to have been caused by accumulated hydrogen combined with oxygen in the space between container and outer structure. There was no damage to the reactor containment. While known deaths including unidentified bodies is put at over 1700, the estimate of number of people unaccounted for has been increased to 10,000.
1400 CET: PM Naota Kan said that SDF forces to be used in the rescue operations would be increased to over 50,000.The deathtoll is expected to exceed 1,700. Toyota Motor Corp., Nissan Motor Co. and Honda Motor Co. are planning to suspend production at all their domestic plants on Monday due to difficulties in procuring auto parts. Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo Disney Sea will be closed for about 10 days for safety checks. Sea water is being used for cooling at Fukushima No. 1.
1330CET: The nuclear reactor was not damaged by the explosion at Fukushima Dai-ichi Reactor No.1 according to reports. While radiation levels have dropped, the leakage continues.
1300 CET: The explosion at Reactor No. 1 of Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant was not caused by the nuclear reaction but by “steam that was part of the cooling process,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said Saturday. He said no radiative gases had been emitted by the explosion. Pressure levels and radiation levels have dropped. The evacuation zone around Fukushima Dai-ni (no. 2) plant is maintained at 10km.
MELTDOWN at Reactor No. 1 of Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant now acknowledged to have occurred.
1200 CET: More than 1.2million people are without water and over 4 million households are without electricity. Trains in the Tokyo region are beginning to run again. The earth’s axis has shifted by about 10cm.
Evacuation radius has been increased to 20 km around Fukushima No.1. Clearly a very serious incident has taken place. No further details but it is acknowledged by TEPCO that a meltdown must have occurred. What could have caused the entire building walls to collapse leaving only the framework is also not clear. But whatever explosive force caused the walls to fall down must have originated from within the primary or the secondary reactor containment. Some escape of radiative materials is therefore inevitable. The measured radiation level of 1051μSievert is at least 10,000 times greater than normal and at about the limit of what is considered safe.
1000CET: Further Tsunami warnings with expected 3m waves.
0940 CET: Radiation levels of 1050 μSieverts measured at Fukishima No. 1. No mention of whether it is increasing. This is going to be a lot worse than Three Mile Island but a Tjernobyl type accident is hopefully still unlikely.
0925 CET: LIVE PICTURES FROM NHK SEEM TO SHOW THAT THE ENTIRE OUTER WALL OF REACTOR NO. 1 BUILDING HAS DISAPPEARED WITH ONLY THE SKELETON OF CONSTRUCTION STEEL BEING VISIBLE.
0900 CET: BREAKING: TEPCO REPORTS EXPLOSION AT FUKUSHIMA NO.1 Plant. Some workers injured.
0830 CET: High pressure in Fukushima No.1 plant, Reactor No.1 has been relieved by careful venting. The evacuation zone is a 10km radius around the plant but a BBC correspondent reports that police are stopping people from moving closer than some 60 km from the plant.
Fires are raging at over 650 locations. GPS indicates that some ground stations have shifted by between 1m and 2.4 m 4.o m. Medical teams are on their way to Fukushima No.1 nuclear plant to handle any consequences of any radiation leaks.
0800 CET: 1000 reported dead with 600+ known to be missing
0730 CET: Deathtoll now 900 and rising –
NHK is reporting that Caesium and Iodine has been detected around Fukushima Dai-ichi (No.1) nuclear power plant which may indicate that some fuel rods (or maybe just the metal containment around the rods) have melted. 1.7 m of the rods were exposed. Mobile generators have been brought to the plant and cooling water is being pumped in but levels are still dropping indicating a leak somewhere. All 13 back up diesel generators for the emergency cooling system failed. Evacuation area has been increased to 10km around the plant. Fukushima No.1 has 6 reactors with a total capacity of 10,964 MW.
At Fukushima No. 2 about 10km south of Fukushima No1. pressure is rising in the 4 reactors making up the plant. Some venting of radioactive gases has taken place and more may be required. Residents within a 10km radius have been told to stay indoors. Prevailing winds are currently out to sea. Fukushima Dai-ni has a capacity of 4,400 MW.
Both Fukushima plants are owned and operated by TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Co.).
Some of TEPCO’s thermal, hydro and nuclear plants have been shutdown and blackouts may be required in parts of Tokyo.
Diesel generators installed to provide backup power for the cooling systems for units 1–3 were damaged by the tsunami; they started up correctly but then stopped abruptly about 1 hour later. Because cooling is needed to remove residual reactor heat, in Japan a nuclear emergency is declared upon cooling problems and therefore a nuclear emergency was declared—for the first time—when the diesel engines failed. Batteries, which last about eight hours, were being used to power the reactor controls and valves during the electrical outage.Japanese ground forces were said to be trucking generators and batteries to the site.
An evacuation order was issued to people living within 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) of the plant, affecting approximately 5800 residents living near the power plant. People living less than 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) from the power plant were advised to stay indoors. Later the evacuation was expanded to a 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) radius.
Past midnight local time, it was reported that The Tokyo Electric Power Company was considering venting hot gas from the reactor vessel number 1 into the atmosphere, which could result in the release of radiation. The Tokyo Electric Company reported that radiation levels were rising in the turbine building for reactor 1. At 2:00 JST, the pressure inside the reactor was reported to be 600kPa (6 bar or 87 psi), 200 kPa (2 bar or 29 psi) higher than under normal conditions. At 5:30 JST the pressure inside Reactor 1 was reported to be 2.1 times the “design capacity.” At 6:10 JST, the IAEA reported that unit 2 was also experiencing cooling problems.
To reduce mounting pressure potentially radioactive steam has been released from the primary circuit, into the secondary containment. On March 12, 2011 at 6:40 JST, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano stated that the amount of potential radiation would be small and that the prevailing winds are blowing out to sea. Measured radiation levels inside the plant control room were reported to be 1000 times greater than normal. Radiation levels measured at a monitoring post near the plant’s main gate were reported to be more than eight times above normal. In a press release at 7 AM (local) March 12, TEPCO stated “Measurement of radioactive material (Iodine, etc.) by monitoring car indicates increasing value compared to normal level. One of the monitoring posts is also indicating higher than normal level.”
The Prime Minister of Japan, Naoto Kan, visited the plant for a briefing 12 March 2011.
After the March 11, 2011, earthquake, Nuclear Engineering International reported that all four units were automatically shut down. Tokyo Electric on March 12 reported that the cooling system for three reactors (nrs 1, 2 and 4) at the plant had topped 100 degrees between 5:30 and 6:10 JST, less than one hour after the start of additional cooling with condensate water,and that the “pressure suppression function was lost”. According to a Reuters report, officials are “prepar[ing] for release of pressure” from the plant. An evacuation order was issued to people living within 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) of the plant, which might be expanded to 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) from the power plant.
The k2p blog 