This Japanese town was obliterated within minutes of the tsunami:
Via VideoSift
This video was taken from the Aceh province of Indonesia, which is located on the island of Sumatra:
Via YouTube
Since the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, the people of Aceh have rebuilt their homes:
Via YouTube
On the Net:
Japan is having trouble cooling down five nuclear reactors at two power plants after a massive 8.9 earthquake struck near the east coast of Honshu, Japan yesterday. After the quake struck, “the plants immediately shut down, but the cooling systems failed, leading to a dangerous build-up of radioactive steam.” The Japanese government responded by evacuating people living around both the Fukushima Daiichi and the Fukushima Daini nuclear power plants. Most recently, an explosion was reported from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. As a result of the situation at both plants, Japan may hand out potassium iodine near nuclear plants to limit the intake of radioactive material by the thyroid. Updates on the situation at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plants can be found with Kate Sheppard at Mother Jones. More on the explosion at the Fukushima Daiichi plant via NPR:
NPR’s Jon Hamilton tells us it was NOT a nuclear explosion. Images from the scene show one building was destroyed. The Associated Press reports that the blast “tore down the walls of a building Saturday.”
Reuters says that:
“A nuclear industry body official said on Saturday he believed a blast at a Japanese atomic power plant was due to hydrogen igniting, adding it may not necessarily have caused radiation leakage. ‘It is obviously an hydrogen explosion … due to hydrogen igniting,’ Ian Hore-Lacy, communications director at the World Nuclear Association, a London-based industry body, told Reuters after reports of the explosion in Japan.”
And the AP adds that: ” ‘meltdown’ is not a technical term. Rather, it is an informal way of referring to a very serious collapse of a power plant’s systems and its ability to manage temperatures. It is not immediately clear if a meltdown would cause serious radiation risk, and if it did how far the risk would extend. Yaroslov Shtrombakh, a Russian nuclear expert, said a Chernobyl-style meltdown was unlikely. ‘It’s not a fast reaction like at Chernobyl,’ he said. ‘I think that everything will be contained within the grounds, and there will be no big catastrophe.’ “
More on what happens during a meltdown at a nuclear power plant via the BBC:
You can think of the core of a Boiling Water Reactor (BWR), such as the ones at Fukushima Daiichi, as a massive version of the electrical element you may have in your kettle.
It sits there, immersed in water, getting very hot.
The water cools it, and also carries the heat away – usually as steam – so it can be used to turn turbines and generate electricity.
If the water stops flowing, there is a problem. The core overheats and more of the water turns to steam.
The steam generates huge pressures inside the reactor vessel – a big, sealed container – and if the largely metal core gets too hot, it will just melt, with some components perhaps catching fire.
In the worst-case scenario, the core melts through the bottom of the reactor vessel and falls onto the floor of the containment vessel – an outer sealed unit.
This is designed to prevent the molten reactor from penetrating any further. Local damage in this case will be serious, but in principle there should be no leakage of radioactive material into the outside world.
More on the importance of potassium iodine via ABC News:
“Any attempt to make it seem that this is not the worst case imaginable is foolhardy,” said Edwin Lyman, a senior scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Both the U.S. and France have plans in place to distribute doses of stable potassium iodine to children who live in the vicinity of a nuclear power plant in the event of a catastrophic radiation release. Lyman said he did not know whether Japan had similar plans in place.
If the reactor core melts through the steel vessel that is housing it, Lyman said, the risk Japan faces is a radioactive plume that could disperse tens or even hundreds of miles. “You could have large swaths of areas that will need severe remediation. And a lot of people exposed to radioactivity who will have an increased chance of cancer.”
After the nuclear accident at Chernobyl, Lyman said there were over 6,000 cases of childhood thyroid cancers, and it was later determined if the children had taken stable iodine a few hours before being exposed to the radiation it would block the intake of the radioactive material in the thyroid. “That has been shown to reduce exposure significantly,” he said.
UPDATE 1 (14 March 11): There’s been another explosion at the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. This time, the explosion “ripped through Unit 3 of the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Station.” The first explosion occurred at the plant’s Unit 1 reactor.
UPDATE 2 (15 March 11): According to the BBC, after a third blast at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant that may have damaged a reactor’s containment systems, “radiation from Japan’s quake-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has reached harmful levels.”
Image via Jennifer Aitken
BP used at least “1.9 million gallons of widely banned toxic dispersants” to treat the 4.9 million barrels of oil that leaked into the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon drilling-rig disaster, and the consequences of treating the oil with dispersants has the potential to make both people and wildlife sick. Via Dahr Jamail at Aljazeera.net:
Naman, who works at the Analytical Chemical Testing Lab in Mobile, Alabama, has been carrying out studies to search for the chemical markers of the dispersants BP used to both sink and break up its oil.
According to Naman, poly-aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from this toxic mix are making people sick. PAHs contain compounds that have been identified as carcinogenic, mutagenic, and teratogenic.
Fisherman across the four states most heavily affected by the oil disaster - Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida - have reported seeing BP spray dispersants from aircraft and boats offshore.
“The dispersants are being added to the water and are causing chemical compounds to become water soluble, which is then given off into the air, so it is coming down as rain, in addition to being in the water and beaches of these areas of the Gulf,” Naman added.
“I’m scared of what I’m finding. These cyclic compounds intermingle with the Corexit [dispersants] and generate other cyclic compounds that aren’t good. Many have double bonds, and many are on the EPA’s danger list. This is an unprecedented environmental catastrophe.”
. . .
Gruesome symptoms
“I started to vomit brown, and my pee was brown also,” Matsler, a Vietnam veteran who lives in Dauphin Island, said. “I kept that up all day. Then I had a night of sweating and non-stop diarrhea unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.”
He was also suffering from skin rashes, nausea, and a sore throat.
At roughly the same time Matsler was exposed, local television station WKRG News 5 took a water sample from his area to test for dispersants. The sample literally exploded when it was mixed with an organic solvent separating the oil from the water.
Naman, the chemist who analyzed the sample, said: “We think that it most likely happened due to the presence of either methanol or methane gas or the presence of the dispersant Corexit.”
“I’m still feeling terrible,” Matsler told Al Jazeera recently. “I’m about to go to the doctor again right now. I’m short of breathe, the diarrhea has been real bad, I still have discoloration in my urine, and the day before yesterday, I was coughing up white foam with brown spots in it.”
As for Matsler’s physical reaction to his exposure, Hugh Kaufman, an EPA whistleblower and analyst, has reported this of the effects of the toxic dispersants:
“We have dolphins that are hemorrhaging. People who work near it are hemorrhaging internally. And that’s what dispersants are supposed to do…”
By the middle of last summer, the Alabama Department of Public Health said that 56 people in Mobile and Baldwin counties had sought treatment for what they believed were oil disaster-related illnesses.
“The dispersants used in BP’s draconian experiment contain solvents such as petroleum distillates and 2-butoxyethanol,” Dr. Riki Ott, a toxicologist, marine biologist, and Exxon Valdez survivor, told Al Jazeera.
“Solvents dissolve oil, grease, and rubber,” she continued, “Spill responders have told me that the hard rubber impellors in their engines and the soft rubber bushings on their outboard motor pumps are falling apart and need frequent replacement.”
“Given this evidence, it should be no surprise that solvents are also notoriously toxic to people, something the medical community has long known,” Dr. Ott added.
“In ‘Generations at Risk’, medical doctor Ted Schettler and others warn that solvents can rapidly enter the human body. They evaporate in air and are easily inhaled, they penetrate skin easily, and they cross the placenta into fetuses. For example, 2- butoxyethanol (in Corexit) is a human health hazard substance; it is a fetal toxin and it breaks down blood cells, causing blood and kidney disorders.”
Pathways of exposure to the dispersants are inhalation, ingestion, skin, and eye contact. Health impacts include headaches, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pains, chest pains, respiratory system damage, skin sensitization, hypertension, central nervous system depression, neurotoxic effects, genetic mutations, cardiac arrhythmia, and cardiovascular damage.
Even the federal government has taken precautions for its employees. US military officials decided to reroute training flights in the Gulf region in order to avoid oil and dispersant tainted-areas.
Corexit 9527 is some nasty stuff. Via Wikipedia:
Corexit 9527, considered by the EPA to be an acute health hazard, is stated by its manufacturer to be potentially harmful to red blood cells, the kidneys and the liver, and may irritate eyes and skin.[14][24] The chemical 2-butoxyethanol, found in Corexit 9527, was identified as having caused lasting health problems in workers involved in the cleanup of the Exxon Valdez oil spill.[25] According to the Alaska Community Action on Toxics, the use of Corexit during the Exxon Valdez oil spill caused people “respiratory, nervous system, liver, kidney and blood disorders”.[16] Like 9527, 9500 can cause hemolysis (rupture of blood cells) and may also cause internal bleeding.[4]
According to the EPA, Corexit is more toxic than dispersants made by several competitors and less effective in handling southern Louisiana crude.[26] On May 20, 2010, the EPA ordered BP to look for less toxic alternatives to Corexit, and later ordered BP to stop spraying dispersants, but BP responded that it thought that Corexit was the best alternative and continued to spray it.[3]
Reportedly Corexit may be toxic to marine life and helps keep spilled oil submerged. There is concern that the quantities used in the Gulf will create ‘unprecedented underwater damage to organisms.’[27] Nalco spokesman Charlie Pajor said that oil mixed with Corexit is “more toxic to marine life, but less toxic to life along the shore and animals at the surface” because the dispersant allows the oil to stay submerged below the surface of the water.[28] Corexit 9500 causes oil to form into small droplets in the water; fish may be harmed when they eat these droplets.[4] According to its Material safety data sheet, Corexit may also bioaccumulate, remaining in the flesh and building up over time.[29] Thus predators who eat smaller fish with the toxin in their systems may end up with much higher levels in their flesh.[4]
A “presidential commission tasked with investigating the causes of the Deepwater Horizon accident” has determined that there wasn’t enough scientific evidence to guide governmental agencies in making their decisions to use dispersants. Via Science Now:
According to the working paper, a lack of studies on dispersant toxicity meant that the Coast Guard’s Thad Allen, EPA’s Lisa Jackson, and NOAA’s Jane Lubchenco were “seriously handicapped” when deciding whether the chemicals should be used. “Because federal agencies had failed to plan adequately, they did not possess the scientific information that officials most certainly would have wanted to guide their choices.” But the paper concludes that their decision to use dispersants was reasonable under the circumstances, noting that the trio quickly consulted with a group of 50 experts. So far, the use of dispersants appears to have had greater benefit than cost.
The appeal of dispersants is that they break up oil into small droplets, which are less harmful to birds and other wildlife. The droplets are also thought to break down faster. And releasing dispersants at the gushing wellhead was intended to help protect workers on the surface by reducing the amount of oil and associated volatile organic compounds. The problem was the lack of adequate toxicity data on the dispersants themselves. Officials didn’t know the possible impacts on marine life, given the hundreds of thousands of gallons being used over several months (more than 2.5 million in all). They also didn’t know the relative toxicity of the various dispersants.
The commission staff members also concluded that the lack of planning led to delays in response; according to interviews with Coast Guard responders, EPA field staff hadn’t been delegated the authority to grant permission for dispersants to be used and were inexperienced with dispersants, thus delaying the response. The Coast Guard sources also felt that “EPA scientists with such experience were not being adequately consulted in EPA’s decision-making process.”
Severe weather, resulting from a tropical storm in Guatemala, has caused a massive sinkhole to form in Guatemala City. The sinkhole seems bottomless. Sinkholes can be caused by anthropogenic activities such as coal mining and poor urban planning and development. More via CNN.com:
In the northern part of Guatemala City, the downpour created a giant sinkhole that swallowed up a space larger than the area of a street intersection. Residents told CNN that a three-story building and a house fell into the hole.
A local newspaper reported that a private security guard was killed when the sinkhole opened up, but authorities had not confirmed the fatality. Residents said that a poor sewage drainage system underground was to blame for the sinkhole. A similar hole opened up nearby last year, they said.
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Chile’s 8.8-magnitude earthquake—which resulted in scores of aftershocks stronger than a magnitude of 5—is among the strongest earthquakes ever recorded.
The strongest earthquake ever recorded occurred in Chile on May 22, 1960, which measured 9.5 on the Richter scale. According to a scientist from the USGS’s National Earthquake Information Center, “The [most recent] Chile quake released 500 times more energy than the quake that hit Haiti.”
Earthquakes are measured on the Richter Scale, which illustrates the amount of energy released during an earthquake:
Most people have heard of the Richter Scale for measuring the ‘size’ or ‘strength’ of an earthquake. This scale is quantitative and based on the amount of energy released by an earthquake.
The inferred energy of a quake is a function of both the amplitude and the duration of a single wave. The seismogram below shows waves with a wide range of amplitude (up to +/- 350) and duration (the first big wave cycle – up, down, back to zero – started just after 8 minutes on the chart and ended nearly 40 seconds later; other waves lasted only seconds).
So when you do all the math, here is what you get.
One unit on the Richter Magnitude Scale corresponds to a tenfold increase or decrease in the amplitude of the wave on the seismogram – 350 in this example would become either 3500 or 35! This change, when summed over all the wavelengths and wave types, translates to a 30 times increase in energy.
So a seismograph (the instrument) that recorded a 1 cm deflection on a seismogram (the tracing) for a magnitude 5 earthquake would show a 100 cm deflection for a magnitude 7 quake that released 30×30 = 900 times as much energy. You do the math for a magnitude 8 quake!
However, the strongest earthquakes aren’t necessarily the deadliest. From Voice of America:
Throughout history, the most powerful earthquakes have not necessarily been the deadliest. The deadliest earthquake of modern times was recorded in 1556 in central China. More than 830,000 people were reported killed in that quake, which had an estimated magnitude of 8.
More information on the massive Chile earthquake is available from the National Earthquake Information Center, and tsunami warnings are available via NOAA’s National Weather Service. To learn about supporting disaster relief in Chile go here. Images from the Chile earthquake can be found at a real-time image search via Twitcaps. The U.S. Department of State has a Chile Task Force, which may be contacted via email at ChileEarthquake@state.gov or by calling 1-888-407-4747. Google has a set up a person finder for the Chile Earthquake at http://chilepersonfinder.appspot.com/.
Image via The New York Times
Image via The Daily Titan
Image via ‘RIA Novosti’ newswire
USGS: Chile Earthquake ‘Alarming’
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