8.9 earth quake + tsunami in Japan

[Seth]

Nitrogen-16 isotopes apparently have short half-life radioactivity so that is good. People are being admitted with radiation poisoning symptoms around Fukushima .
It seems as if the Japanese government wasn't being entirely open about the situation. Which is understandable in a crisis situation but still...
I'd be maxing my potassium iodine intake if living there. Holy shit. natural, not radiated iodine is sooo important to prevent the thyroid from using 'extra' iodine in the system that has been contaminated.
Its good to have a stockpile of kelp or other natural potassium iodine handy in case of radiation emergencies like this. Common sense in a nuclear world.

The concern that another nuclear plant is having trouble is freaky. Near Miyagi prefecture radiation is 400 times higher than normal.

My friend from highschool and his wife have been living there for the past year, working at a mountain snow resort north west of Tokyo. I'm praying they're going to be ok.
I wonder what the situation is for air travel leaving the country.
My gut tells me the Japanese are innovative and resilient enough to prevent a Chernobyl level disaster at this point but anything's possible. 7+ aftershocks are fucking scary. Another tsunami can easily result from an earthquake of that magnitude. Depends on sea floor shift doesnt it?

[Seth]

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23676

That article is not pleasant to read, but it's relevant and I recommend.

It's written by a disaster relief earthquake fellow.
It touches on the same situation that had the government reassuring Ukranians about the safety, while at the same time evacuating administors' families and whatnot.

side thought on a part of the article:
I want to learn more about wind power viability because there's a fine line between the perception of lobbyist' trumping over logical shifts in industry and the actual impractibility of implimenting alternatives in the energy production field.

There's gotta be a way to deter birds from flying at the prop levels. Like how they use sonar tech stuff to keep sharks at a distance. There's has to be something.

[Professor S]

I thought this article was a good one, and free of sensationalism. It shows how the media can make a serious situation an apocalyptic one.

http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/1...e-explanation/

Below I reproduce a summary on the situation prepared by Dr Josef Oehmen, a research scientist at MIT, in Boston...

...There was and will *not* be any significant release of radioactivity. By “significant” I mean a level of radiation of more than what you would receive on – say – a long distance flight, or drinking a glass of beer that comes from certain areas with high levels of natural background radiation...

...I have been reading every news release on the incident since the earthquake. There has not been one single (!) report that was accurate and free of errors (and part of that problem is also a weakness in the Japanese crisis communication). By “not free of errors” I do not refer to tendentious anti-nuclear journalism – that is quite normal these days. By “not free of errors” I mean blatant errors regarding physics and natural law, as well as gross misinterpretation of facts, due to an obvious lack of fundamental and basic understanding of the way nuclear reactors are built and operated...

...The plant came close to a core meltdown. Here is the worst-case scenario that was avoided: If the seawater could not have been used for treatment, the operators would have continued to vent the water steam to avoid pressure buildup. The third containment would then have been completely sealed to allow the core meltdown to happen without releasing radioactive material. After the meltdown, there would have been a waiting period for the intermediate radioactive materials to decay inside the reactor, and all radioactive particles to settle on a surface inside the containment. The cooling system would have been restored eventually, and the molten core cooled to a manageable temperature. The containment would have been cleaned up on the inside. Then a messy job of removing the molten core from the containment would have begun, packing the (now solid again) fuel bit by bit into transportation containers to be shipped to processing plants. Depending on the damage, the block of the plant would then either be repaired or dismantled...