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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / The Final Indignity of the Tsunami

The Final Indignity of the Tsunami

by $8 blue check mistermix|  April 2, 20119:45 am| 29 Comments

This post is in: Foreign Affairs

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Tragedy is tragedy, but you know that human life has truly been affected when there’s a beer shortage.

In other quake new, I watched a bit of this week’s NOVA on the Japanese quake, and I hadn’t realized that the quake lasted 5 minutes (most last less than a minute), or that the coastline dropped 1-2 meters. Though the tsunami defenses at the nuclear plants and cities would probably have been overtopped anyway, the coastline drop made it even worse.

Meanwhile, back at Fukushima, one of the sources of the leak into the ocean has been found near reactor #2 and will be patched. The more water they pour in, the more contamination they have, but they must continue to feed and bleed to keep the cores covered, which our experts think has finally been accomplished.

TEPCO has released video of the #4 reactor, where the hottest spent fuel rods are stored, that showed that the refueling crane did not topple into the spent fuel pond. To help in refilling these ponds without splashing so much water and causing more runoff, four more giant concrete trucks are being flown to Japan, which seems like a good news/bad news situation. The good news is that the pools will get filled. The bad news is the tacit acknowledgement that the cooling systems won’t be restored soon.

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Reader Interactions

29Comments

  1. 1.

    Gin & Tonic

    April 2, 2011 at 9:55 am

    Great story about the concrete trucks here. Of the largest, there are three in existence in the world. They cost $1.5 mil each. Japan is buying two of the three (used, refurbished), and after they use them they will have to scrap them due to radiation exposure. So think of disposable trucks, basically.

    And I love the name, Putzmeister.

  2. 2.

    lawguy

    April 2, 2011 at 10:13 am

    I’m not sure that I believe anything that is being put out there at this point. When (if?) this whole thing is finally over we may hear how bad it is in about 10 to 20 years. Hell, they are still trying (and mostly succeeding) in covering up Chernobyl.

  3. 3.

    Superluminar

    April 2, 2011 at 10:14 am

    A Beer shortage? Say it ain’t so! This truly is a tragedy beyond comprehension. Those Japanese must be quaking in their boots.

    I’m not surprised about the cooling systems being FUBAR though, pretty certain I called that one about a week back. Interesting Op-Ed in the Guardian today (if a bit emo for my tastes), I’ll post a link in a second.

  4. 4.

    mistermix

    April 2, 2011 at 10:32 am

    @lawguy:

    Hell, they are still trying (and mostly succeeding) in covering up Chernobyl.

    Yeah, that place is being “covered up” in every sense of the phrase.

  5. 5.

    Roger Moore

    April 2, 2011 at 10:34 am

    @Gin & Tonic:
    Putzmeister is a common brand; that’s what all the concrete pouring cranes I’ve seen at my work have been. Maybe before being scrapped, they can also be put to use building the sarcophagus for the disabled reactors.

  6. 6.

    Cat Lady

    April 2, 2011 at 10:49 am

    I doubt very much that anything about this tsunami is final.

  7. 7.

    Superluminar

    April 2, 2011 at 11:01 am

    here you go. As others have mentioned that unpleasentness in the former Soviet Union, I’ll note the piece is mostly about that. I didn’t realise the spread on estimated deaths was so wide (could be up to 950,000!).

  8. 8.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    April 2, 2011 at 11:01 am

    The Fukushima Daichi nuclear disaster is isomorphic with the BP oil spill.
    Kost Kutting Kapitalism in action.
    Free market solutions DO NOT WORK.

    Do you know wat social media really means, mistermix?
    The fuckers can’t disguise it anymore.
    No War But The Class War

  9. 9.

    kdaug

    April 2, 2011 at 11:13 am

    @Hermione Granger-Weasley: Hm. Suspect M_C is back.

  10. 10.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    April 2, 2011 at 11:15 am

    @kdaug: wow, you ARE stupid. Everyone else has known it for a week at least.

  11. 11.

    Linda Featheringill

    April 2, 2011 at 11:41 am

    The folks over at The Oil Drum, yesterday or the day before, were talking about rather extensive no-go zones in Japan, taking up maybe 25% of the total land [my rough estimate].

    Also, there is a village close to Fukushima that the govt does not want to evacuate but nuclear scientists on multiple continents [and Japan] want to evacuate. Dunno how that is going to play out.

    Since the contaminated area is a major farming district, I wonder about Japan’s food supply for some time.

  12. 12.

    Superluminar

    April 2, 2011 at 11:41 am

    @Hermione Granger-Weasley
    I’m sure I’m going to regret this, but what made you change your name? And really, I’m a big fan of GitS, but HP is pretty shit. Why?

  13. 13.

    Capri

    April 2, 2011 at 11:50 am

    On a brighter note, on Yahoo news there’s a report of a dog that was rescued from some floating wreckage. Three weeks at sea and he seems to be OK.

  14. 14.

    Roger Moore

    April 2, 2011 at 11:51 am

    @Superluminar:
    Matoko Chan (note misspelling relative to GitS) was banned, requiring a change in nickname (and hopefully behavior) to return. And don’t go trashing Potter too badly. Rowling is not targeting the same audience as Shirow, so their output shouldn’t be compared directly.

  15. 15.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    April 2, 2011 at 12:03 pm

    @Superluminar: I just thought conservatives as Death Eaters and liberals as Defense Against the Dark Arts wizards and wizardettes was persuasive.
    Major Kusanagi was a cyborg in the War Against the Oligarchs, like quellcrist falconer/nadia makita/sylvie oshima is a human revolutionary in the same war.
    Since my recent grievous disappointment/heartbreak in President Obama’s foreign policy, I will prolly make a new nic…either Darwi Odrade or Reverend Mother Taraza.
    Possibly Murbella. I always wanted to be a sexual imprinter. ;)
    Do you see who Obama gets to be?
    I haven’t decided.
    They are all aspects of me.
    Like Sarah, Plain and Tall is an aspect of morzer.
    :(

  16. 16.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    April 2, 2011 at 12:12 pm

    @Superluminar: that wasn’t clear. Of course Obama is the Tyrant Worm.

  17. 17.

    eemom

    April 2, 2011 at 12:22 pm

    Speaking of, where IS Morzer? He hasn’t been here in weeks (unless he’s Sarah). I haz a sad. : (

    Also too, we had a commenter who lives in Japan who I haven’t seen in a while. Hope he’s ok.

  18. 18.

    eemom

    April 2, 2011 at 12:23 pm

    @Hermione Granger-Weasley:

    as for you, you need to work harder on that COHERENCE thing.

  19. 19.

    Superluminar

    April 2, 2011 at 12:28 pm

    @eemom
    I’m sure he’s radiating good feelings right now.

    @HGW
    I wish any of that was in English, or any other language I might have some passing familiarity with, but I’m afraid I don’t get it.

  20. 20.

    Cermet

    April 2, 2011 at 1:15 pm

    Looks like the Japanese are really F’ed – the top Scientist and head of the DOE (Cho) said today in the NYT that reactor 1 has a 70% core melt down and reactor 2 has up to a 30% core melt down – he said nothing on reactor 3.

    Those puppies will be hard to cool well if they melted (I assume he means partly melted and was referring to the number of elements.)

    Maybe someone here can explain but I’m totally lost trying to figure out why anyone thinks the plant’s local spilling of waste can get into Tokyo’s ground water? The plant is at sea level and any waste getting into its local ground water will stay in that area – air borne is, so far, pretty trivial level to affect ground water many tens of miles away.

  21. 21.

    Cermet

    April 2, 2011 at 1:57 pm

    Looks like the Japanese are really going to have a really hard time – the top Scientist and head of the DOE (Cho) said today in the N$YT that reactor 1 has a 70% core melt down and reactor 2 has up to a 30% core melt down – he said nothing on reactor 3.

    Those puppies will be hard to cool well if they melted (I assume he means partly melted and was referring to the number of elements.)

    Maybe someone here can explain but I’m totally lost trying to figure out why anyone thinks the plant’s local spilling of waste can get into Tokyo’s ground water? The plant is at sea level and any waste getting into its local ground water will stay in that area – air borne is, so far, pretty trivial level to affect ground water many tens of miles away.

  22. 22.

    Cermet

    April 2, 2011 at 1:59 pm

    The top Scientist and head of the DOE (Cho) said today in the NYT that reactor 1 has a 70% core melt down and reactor 2 has up to a 30% core melt down – he said nothing on reactor 3.

    Those puppies will be hard to cool well if they melted (I assume he means partly melted and was referring to the number of elements.)

  23. 23.

    Cermet

    April 2, 2011 at 1:59 pm

    Does anything post?

  24. 24.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    April 2, 2011 at 2:05 pm

    @Superluminar: you have to read the book (s).

  25. 25.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    April 2, 2011 at 2:06 pm

    @eemom: you know he is Sarah. quit ducking.

  26. 26.

    Robert Sneddon

    April 2, 2011 at 3:50 pm

    @Cermet: If I remember correctly Tokyo, like most if not all other places in Japan gets drinking water from mountain rivers and reservoirs, not underground wells. The country typically gets 50-60 inches of rain a year on average, that’s twice as much as Seattle does in comparison. The mountain areas where the reservoirs are can get 100-120 inches a year — there’s a reason Japan grows rice and not wheat.

    http://www.jaif.or.jp/english/news_images/pdf/ENGNEWS01_1301652988P.pdf

    That’s a (PDF) chart of radiation measurements around the Fukushima plant for the past two weeks since just after the earthquake. The trend is generally down in all areas, not suprising as the fast hot stuff such as I-131 is decaying to Xenon. I presume the spike on the 20th of March in the towns south of the plant (Kitaibaraki and Takahagi in Ibaraki Prefecture) was due to a wind shift or some release from the plant. The worst-off town listed in this chart is Iitate where high levels of Cs-137 were reportedly located in spots; its general exposure reading is now down to about 8uSv/h and the trend is downward.

  27. 27.

    erinsiobhan

    April 2, 2011 at 6:45 pm

    @Hermione Granger-Weasley:

    I would add the financial crisis to that list. All three crises involved a cascade of failures in very complex systems. Experts, who thought they understood the risks, utterly failed to predict the catstrophic failures that actually happened.

    I’m becoming more and more convinced that we are creating (and becoming reliant on) systems that defy our ability to quantify risk. And that all of the statistical analysis and modelling that we do to preduct risk is fatally flawed.

  28. 28.

    Hermione Granger-Weasley

    April 2, 2011 at 9:46 pm

    @erinsiobhan: do tell. we can’t quantify risks when the free market boggarts are cutting corners.

  29. 29.

    Paul in KY

    April 4, 2011 at 9:23 am

    @Hermione Granger-Weasley: I can be Duncan Idaho, the pre-Teilaxu model.

    You seem more like an Alia ;-)

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