Terror Fears Made East Coast Earthquake Especially Unsettling

Steve Jackson (Myotissodalis) wrote:

While NPR and its experts continue to scratch themselves and wonder why this quake occurs, lets consider a comment from the former Sec. of Defense William Cohen from 28 April 1997.

One can go to the Dept. of Defense itself via this URL. http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=674

Here is part of a comment in regards to weapons of mass destruction.

There are some reports, for example, that some countries have been trying to construct something like an Ebola Virus, and that would be a very dangerous phenomenon, to say the least. Alvin Toeffler has written about this in terms of some scientists in their laboratories trying to devise certain types of pathogens that would be ethnic specific so that they could just eliminate certain ethnic groups and races; and others are designing some sort of engineering, some sort of insects that can destroy specific crops. Others are engaging even in an eco- type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011 9:48:38 AM

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M5.6 earthquake rattles central Philippines | Kyodo News

M5.6 earthquake rattles central Philippines

MANILA, March 21, Kyodo

An earthquake with a magnitude of 5.6 rattled the central Philippines on Monday evening after a series of modest tremors hit the nation earlier in the day.
Renato Solidum, head of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology, said the latest quake was recorded at 6:37 p.m. A magnitude 6.1 quake rattled the northern Philippines on Sunday.
The focus of the magnitude 5.6 quake Monday was estimated at 74 kilometers underground with the epicenter located about 12 km northeast of Lubang Island in Occidental Mindoro province.
The quake was also felt in Manila, causing high-rise buildings to sway.
There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties.
At least three mild quakes, the most powerful with a magnitude of 3.8, rocked Romblon and Mindoro Occidental provinces in the central Philippines, and Surigao del Sur, a province on Mindanao Island in the south, early Monday.
The institute said the quakes were tectonic and were not expected to cause damage.
The first quake with a magnitude of 1.9 was recorded at 12:29 a.m., with the epicenter at 4 km southeast of Romblon city.
A second quake with a magnitude of 2.9 was recorded at 6:13 a.m., with the epicenter 10 km northeast of Tandag town, Surigao del Sur.
The third quake had a magnitude of 3.8 and was recorded at 7:34 a.m., with the epicenter 81 km southwest of Mamburao, Mindoro Occidental.
==Kyodo

via english.kyodonews.jp

Japan earthquake: Fukushima nuclear alert level raised

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Japan holds minute silence one week on from quake

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Japan Earthquake

• Japan quake Live
• Q&A: Fukushima alert
• Foreign evacuations mount
• 'Fukushima 50' admired

Japan has raised the alert level at a stricken nuclear plant from four to five on a seven-point international scale for atomic incidents.
The crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi site is now two levels below Ukraine's 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
The head of the UN's nuclear watchdog warned in Tokyo the battle to stabilise the plant was a race against time.
The crisis was prompted by last week's huge quake and tsunami, which has left at least 16,000 people dead or missing.

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“Start Quote

People of the entire world should co-operate with Japan”

End Quote Yukiya Amano UN nuclear watchdog

• Cult of the heroic Fukushima 50
• Survivor in the danger zone
• In pictures: Japan remembers

The Japanese nuclear agency's decision to raise the alert level to five grades Fukushima's as an "accident with wider consequences".
It also places the situation there on a par with 1979's Three Mile Island nuclear accident in the US.
Meanwhile, further heavy snowfall overnight all but ended hopes of rescuing anyone else from the rubble after the 9.0-magnitude quake and tsunami.
Millions of survivors have been left without water, electricity, fuel or enough food; hundreds of thousands more are homeless.
According to the latest figures, 6,405 people are dead and about 10,200 are missing.
On Friday, people across Japan observed a minute's silence at 1446 (0546 GMT), exactly one week after the disaster.
Panic-buying
As the country paused to remember, relief workers toiling in the ruins bowed their heads, while elderly survivors in evacuation centres wept.

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Analysis

Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News

Japan's upgrading of the Fukushima incident from severity four to five stems from concerns about the reactors in buildings 1, 2 and 3, rather than the cooling ponds storing spent fuel.
Level five is defined as an "accident with wider consequences". This was the level given to the 1957 reactor fire at Windscale in the UK and the partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island plant in the US in 1979.
Both met the level five definition of "limited release" of radioactive materials to the wider environment.
Windscale is believed to have caused about 200 cases of cancer, whereas reports into the Three Mile Island incident suggest there were no health impacts outside the site.
French and US officials had previously said the Fukushima situation was more serious than Japanese evaluations suggested.
Higher radiation levels than normal have been recorded in a few places 30km from the site, but in Tokyo, they were reported to be normal.

Despite official assurances that the radiation risk is virtually nil outside the 20-km (12-mile) exclusion zone around the plant, unease has spread overseas.
Britain and the US are among countries which have organised aircraft to evacuate from Japan those of their citizens who are concerned.
Store shelves in parts of the US have been stripped of iodine pills, which can protect against radiation, while Asian airports have been scanning passengers from Japan for possible contamination.
Shoppers in China have been panic-buying salt in the mistaken belief that it can guard against radiation exposure.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Naoto Kan told a national television address: "We will rebuild Japan from scratch. We must all share this resolve."
He said the natural disaster and nuclear crisis were a "great test for the Japanese people", but exhorted them all to persevere.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Yukiya Amano, arrived earlier in Tokyo and warned the Fukushima crisis was a "race against the clock".
"This is not something that just Japan should deal with, and people of the entire world should co-operate with Japan and the people in the disaster areas," said Mr Amano, a Japanese citizen.
He said he would not visit the Fukushima Daiichi site, which has been rocked by a series of explosions, on his current trip to the country.
His four-member team of nuclear experts would start by monitoring radiation in the capital, he said, before moving to the vicinity of the quake-hit facility.
Military fire trucks have been spraying the plant's overheating reactor units for a second day.
Water in at least one fuel pool - reactor 3 - is believed to be dangerously low, exposing the stored fuel rods.
If the ponds run dry, a nuclear chain reaction could release more radiation into the atmosphere.
An electricity line has been bulldozed through to the site and engineers are racing to connect it, but they are being hampered by radiation.
The plant's operators need the power cable to restart water pumps that pour cold water on the reactor units.
Military helicopters which dropped water from above on Thursday have been kept on standby.
Televised footage of the airdrops had shown much of the water blowing away in the wind.

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The Latest News from Japan

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Max Read — Japan's ongoing nuclear crisis escalated on Wednesday, as authorities acknowledged that a second reactor at the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant may have been compromised. All but 50 workers have been evacuated from the complex as radiation levels surged and emergency workers struggle to deal with a fire at yet another reactor.

• Conflicting reports of full evacuation emerged after a briefing by Chief Cabinet Minister Yukio Edano; it's unclear exactly what's been happening but at this point, most outlets are reporting that only 50 emergency workers remain, though they may have been briefly evacuated in the face of a surge in radiation levels, possibly brought on by a fire are the No. 4 reactor. Here's an interactive graphic keeping track of problems at each specific reactor. [NPR; WaPo; WSJ]
• Reactor No. 3 is now thought to be leaking radioactive steam, making it the second of the plant's six reactors to have its protective steel encasing ruptured. (In the photo above, Reactor No. 3 is on the left and Reactor No. 4, which was on fire for much of Tuesday and Wednesday, is in the right.) [NYT]
• While information is scarce in part because the plant is so volatile workers are having trouble examining the damage, it's also because the plant's owner—The Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCo—is doing a terrible job keeping the public informed. [FT]
• The Times has a good piece on the anonymous 50 workers (who may actually be more than 50 working in shifts) staying behind at the plant.

Previous news from Japan

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8.9 Japan Earthquake, Tsunami Video Footage

Sendai City devastated by 13 ft tsunami

Over at the USGS ‘Current Earthquakes in the Past Seven Days’ website, a record of the astounding number of strong earthquakes that continue to strike off the coast of Honshu, Japan beginning with the 7.2 quake on Wednesday, March 9, at 11:45 am. The 8.9 earthquake that unleashed a devastating tsunami on Japan’s northeastern coast struck on Friday at 2:46 PM. For the latest news report on the historical 8.9 earthquake and tsunami, FOX New’s Hundreds of Bodies Found in Japan After Massive Tsunami Spawned by Earthquake.


Two Japan Nuclear Power Plants Damaged by Quake: Potential Catastrophic Nuclear Meltdown
March’s Super Moon: More Earthquakes, Weird Weather, Volcanic Eruptions?
8.9 Japan Earthquake, Tsunami Hits Japanese Coast
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Japan Earthquake: Tsunami Warnings Downgraded After 7.0 Quake Off Japan Coast

A 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Japan, according to the USGS, prompting immediate tsunami warnings.
According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, all tsunami warnings -- including for the Okinawa, Anami, and Tokara islands of Japan -- had been lifted approximately an hour later.
The Japan earthquake was felt in the Ryukyu Islands and took place 50 miles east of Naha, Okinawa, Japan.
In 1995, 6,400 people were killed in a 7.2 quake in the port city of Kobe, BBC reports.

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Watch raw footage of the Japan earthquake and tsunami

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Japan braces for N-reactor meltdown after tsunami - Yahoo! News

SENDAI, Japan – Japan launched a massive military rescue operation Saturday after a giant, quake-fed tsunami killed hundreds of people and turned the northeastern coast into a swampy wasteland, while authorities braced for a possible meltdown at a nuclear reactor.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan said 50,000 troops would join rescue and recovery efforts following Friday's 8.9-magnitude quake that unleashed one of the greatest disasters Japan has witnessed — a 23-foot (7-meter) tsunami that washed far inland over fields, smashing towns, airports and highways in its way.
The official death toll stood at 413, while 784 people were missing and 1,128 injured. In addition, police said between 200 and 300 bodies were found along the coast in Sendai, the biggest city in the area near the quake's epicenter. An untold number of bodies were also believed to be buried in the rubble and debris. Rescue workers had yet to reach the hardest-hit areas.
Adding to the worries was the damage at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, where two reactors had lost cooling ability. Because of the overheating, a meltdown was possible at one of the reactors, said Ryohei Shiomi, an official with Japan's nuclear safety commission.
But even if there was a meltdown, it wouldn't affect people outside a six-mile (10-kilometer) radius, he said. Most of the 51,000 residents living within the danger area had been evacuated, he said.
More than 215,000 people were living in 1,350 temporary shelters in five prefectures, or states, the national police agency said. Since the quake, more than 1 million households have not had water, mostly concentrated in northeast.
"Most of houses along the coastline were washed away, and fire broke out there," he said after inspecting the quake area in a helicopter. "I realized the extremely serious damage the tsunami caused."
The region continued to be jolted by tremors, even 24 hours later.
More than 125 aftershocks have occurred, many of them above magnitude 6.0, which even alone would be considered strong.
Technologically advanced Japan is well prepared for quakes and its buildings can withstand strong jolts, even a temblor like Friday's, which was the strongest the country has experienced since official records started in the late 1800s. What was beyond human control was the killer tsunami that followed.
It swept inland about six miles (10 kilometers) in some areas, swallowing boats, homes, cars, trees and even small airplanes.
"The tsunami was unbelievably fast," said Koichi Takairin, a 34-year-old truck driver who was inside his sturdy four-ton rig when the wave hit the port town of Sendai.
"Smaller cars were being swept around me," he said. All I could do was sit in my truck."
His rig ruined, he joined the steady flow of survivors who walked along the road away from the sea and back into the city on Saturday. Smoke from at least one large fire could be seen in the distance.
Smashed cars and small airplanes were jumbled up against buildings near the local airport, several miles (kilometers) from the shore. Felled trees and wooden debris lay everywhere as rescue workers coasted on boats through murky waters around flooded structures, nosing their way through a sea of debris.
Basic commodities were at a premium. Hundreds lined up outside of supermarkets, and gas stations were swamped with cars. The situation was similar in scores of other towns and cities along the 1,300-mile-long (2,100-kilometer-long) eastern coastline hit by the tsunami.
Also Saturday, operators at the Fukushima Daiichi plant's Unit 1 tried had to tamp down heat and pressure inside one of the reactors after the quake cut off electricity to the site and disabled emergency generators, knocking out the main cooling system. Authorities detected eight times the normal radiation levels outside the facility and 1,000 times normal inside Unit 1's control room.
The Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the six-reactor Daiichi site in northeastern Japan, said it had also lost cooling ability at a second reactor there and three units at its nearby Fukushima Daini site.
The government declared state of emergency at all those units.
Japan's nuclear safety agency said the situation was most dire at Fukushima Daiichi's Unit 1, where pressure had risen to twice what is consider the normal level. The International Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement that diesel generators that normally would have kept cooling systems running at Fukushima Daiichi had been disabled by tsunami flooding.
Japan gets about 30 percent of its electricity from nuclear power plants. Authorities warned citizens to be prepared for severe power cuts. More than 1 million households across Japan, mostly in the northeast, still didn't have access to water.
In Sendai, as in many areas of the northeast, cell phone service was down, making it difficult for people to communicate with loved ones.
"I'm waiting for my son to come here. But I cannot tell him he should come over here because mobile phones aren't working," a woman in her 70s told Japanese TV at a shelter in the town of Rikuzentakada, which appeared to be largely destroyed by the tsunami.
"My husband is missing," she said. "Tsunami water was rising to my knees, and I told him I would go first. He is not here yet."
On Friday, the entire Pacific was put on alert — including coastal areas of South America, Canada and Alaska — but waves were not as bad as expected.
President Barack Obama pledged U.S. assistance following what he called a potentially "catastrophic" disaster. He said one U.S. aircraft carrier was already in Japan and a second was on its way. A U.S. ship was also heading to the Marianas Islands to assist as needed, he said.
Most trains in Tokyo started running again Saturday after the city had been brought to a near standstill the day before. Tens of thousands of people had been stranded with the rail network down, jamming the streets with cars, buses and trucks trying to get out of the city.
The city set up 33 shelters in city hall, on university campuses and in government offices, but many spent Friday night at 24-hour cafes, hotels and offices.
Japan's worst previous quake was a magnitude 8.3 temblor in Kanto that killed 143,000 people in 1923, according to the USGS. A magnitude 7.2 quake in Kobe killed 6,400 people in 1995.
Japan lies on the "Ring of Fire" — an arc of earthquake and volcanic zones stretching around the Pacific where about 90 percent of the world's quakes occur, including the one that triggered the Dec. 26, 2004, Indian Ocean tsunami that killed an estimated 230,000 people in 12 countries. A magnitude-8.8 quake that shook central Chile in February 2010 also generated a tsunami and killed 524 people.
___
Associated Press writers Malcolm J. Foster, Mari Yamaguchi, Tomoko A. Hosaka, Shino Yuasa and Yuri Kageyama in Tokyo contributed to this report.

via news.yahoo.com

Japan earthquake: Over 1,000 feared dead, possible radiation leaks

Japan earthquake: Over 1,000 feared dead, possible radiation leaks
TOKYO (March 12, 2011): More than 1,000 people were feared dead after Japan's strongest earthquake on record triggered a destructive tsunami, the government said Saturday as it expressed concerns over possible radiation leaks from damaged nuclear reactors.    
Japan was assessing the damage from Friday's 8.9-magnitude quake and devastating tsunami that rocked the north-eastern part of the country, even as aftershocks continued to hit.    
The death toll would probably be well over 1,000, said Yukio Edano, chief cabinet secretary.    
Authorities had recovered 420 bodies, with about 1,000 still missing and many injured, Kyodo News agency reported.     
The government feared more large-scale aftershocks could add to the destruction, as the Meteorological Agency issued further tsunami warnings for many coastal regions in the country.    
The agency said there were more aftershocks than usual, including several over 7 in magnitude.

Local residents look at debris brought by the huge tsunami in Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture on March 12, 2011. More than 1,000 people were feared dead and authorities warned a meltdown may be under way at a nuclear plant Saturday after a monster tsunami devastated a swathe of northeastJapan.-- AfpPix

The Nikkei business daily said some 210,000 people had been evacuated in north-eastern Japan, while thousands were stranded in Miyagi, waiting for assistance, public broadcaster NHK said.    
Rescuers have been searching for survivors amid collapsed buildings in many flooded cities.    
Japan's Self Defense Force (SDF) troops and other rescue teams were being rushed to north-eastern parts of the country, officials said.    
International assistance was on its way, as the United States dispatched more than 140 personnel on Friday, and New Zealand said Saturday it would send a 48-member search-and-rescue team.     
The Japanese government has mobilised 50,000 search and rescue workers, and sent 190 aircraft and 25 vessels to areas affected by the quake and tsunami.    
The SDF has been working with the US military stationed in Japan to transport about 900 Japanese troops and some 250 vehicles by US ships, Japanese government officials said.    
Thousands of houses were devastated, several bridges collapsed, bus and train services were shut down and many roads were closed.
Mobile phone networks and landline phone services were affected by the quake.    
Television footage showed flattened fishing villages and shattered cities with piles of rubble on the streets as the tsunami surged 5 kilometres inland in some areas, forcing many to spend the night on the roofs of their houses as temperature dropped to freezing point.    
In the city of Rikuzen Takata, one of the worst-hit areas, of the 8,000 houses, some 5,000 were destroyed, news reports said.    
The devastating scenes in north-eastern Japan were "similar to what I saw off Sumatra," Minoru Watanabe, a Tokyo-based town planning expert told a TBS television programme, referring to a powerful earthquake that hit Indonesia in December 2004.    
Around 1,800 houses in Minami Soma, Fukushima Prefecture were destroyed, with relief efforts limited to helicopters, as further tsunamis were feared. 
More evacuations were ordered early Saturday after the cooling system at a second nuclear power plant broke down in the wake of the massive earthquake.    
Residents within 3 kilometres of the Fukushima Daini power plant, also known as Fukushima II, were ordered to leave their homes.
Earlier in the day, authorities extended evacuations to residents living within 10 kilometres of another nearby nuclear plant, Fukushima Daiichi, also known as Fukushima I, where the cooling system experienced troubles Friday.    
Radiation measurements inside the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant were 1,000 times higher than normal, the Kyodo news agency reported early Saturday, citing Japan's nuclear safety agency.    
The government was holding an emergency meeting after the premier visited the area, but said no radiation leaks had been detected. --dpa

via thesundaily.com

List of earthquakes in Japan

This is a list of earthquakes in Japan with a magnitude of 6.5 or higher on the Richter magnitude scale

via en.wikipedia.org

Quake moved Japan coast 8 feet; shifted Earth's axis

via cnn.com

Months to identify New Zealand quake victims

New Zealand police warned Sunday it could take months to identify all the victims of the devastating Christchurch earthquake as the death toll continued to rise.

There are now 166 confirmed dead and the toll could reach more than 200 police said, as tentative first steps were taken to reopen the severely damaged central business district while strong aftershocks continued to rock the city.

The estimated death toll was revised down a day after searchers reported there were no bodies in the city's centrepiece cathedral where it was believed up to 22 people were crushed in the 6.3 magnitude quake.

via abs-cbnnews.com