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The news about the earthquake in Japan is everywhere here. Was anyone here directly affected by it? Indirectly? Anyone need help?

Susan

Thankfully, I wasn't on the mainland. Felt some minor shockwaves and went into a tsunami warning, but otherwise I'm fine. You'd be amazed at the strength of Japanese architecture. Hell, we had a 7.0 and I only found out about it when someone at work told me the next day.

I'll keep you guys in my prayers-- the death toll is slowly rising up and it's nerve wrecking. Please, everyone do your best!

I just moved out from japan few months before so I'm okay, but my brother that was in travel in okinawa is trapped in tsunami warning and brought into the shelter. Now he backed in the hotel lobby but too scared to go back to the room. My cousins are also trapped at school and can't go home because of the stopped train. I still have many relatives there but can't contact them yet. They live near Yokohama and I'm afraid because it is near the ocean.

I'm still watching real time show in ustream now.

*just now another big 6 high scale magnitude in Nagano ><

Yeah, I heard the news yesterday night. I was worried about MaskedIdentity- she lives in Japan and I haven't heard from her for around two months ever since her uncle's business went bankrupt. I had been including her in my prayers ever since.

As of our country, there's some chance that an earthquake and a tsunami will hit Philippines too, due to the fact that we are dangerously close to Japan. Coastal areas here are set on yellow alert and the people living on those areas are set on forced evacuation. The weather stations have been observing the seas near those areas and if in 24 hours, nothing happens, that means we are safe, because aftershocks can still happen in Japan.

I hope I can donate something to Japan, but I'm also short on money. If only I can find a way to sell some of my old books and clothes to help... >___>

Lumen_Astrum wrote:Yeah, I heard the news yesterday night. I was worried about MaskedIdentity- she lives in Japan and I haven't heard from her for around two months ever since her uncle's business went bankrupt. I had been including her in my prayers ever since.

Don't worry she's okay. >w<
Due to the mess with her family she is actually currently staying over at my place for a couple of months.
Which is in Australia so we're pretty safe. :3
*She also wants me to say hello to you for her.

Yeah, I'm praying for all the people in Japan to be okay.
Everywhere has been getting natural disasters.
Australia had the floods, cyclone and locust problems.
New Zealand got that earthquake.

And now Japan. D':

I am equally worried as you all are - I have two host families, one in Saitama, one in Ibaraki (and that one is closer to the center of earthquake than Tokyo is and Toyko already had a lot fo damage) from last summer's exchange program, and I only can contact teh one in Saitama (the older couple I stayed with and their adult children with their own families who took care of me don't use the internet and thus haven't given me any form of online contact T_T).

There is one nuclear power reactor to worry about...Fukushima I think. Let's hope the best! And I am glad for those who are safe.

I heard that nuclear plant was shut down before it caused any more damage :O

And plus we are so DANGEROUSLY close in Japan... hope we don't have the earthquake too... we have enough of the typhoon Ondoy last last year~ D:

Lumen_Astrum wrote:I heard that nuclear plant was shut down before it caused any more damage :O

Yes, it was shut down, but it was damaged as well, so I am sure you have heard of Fukishima noclear power station problem as of now. Goddamnit I am worried. Germany is far, far away but that is not what I am worriyng about (so I sure hope our politic would shut up about it and focus on helping), it's Japan I am worrying about...

Luckily my one host family is safe and sound. If the nucler power station problem doesn't go downhill, that is.

I wonder how it is now in Japan. All power stations are shut down, they don't have much electricity left, do they?

Last I heard, they detected radiation leaks in Fukushima's first reactor and they've evacuated people within a 20 km radius. They've started using seawater to cool the plant's reactor. Some power plants are still operational, but a lot of them are offline or not fully operational.

One of my local PBS stations is carrying a live feed from NHK World. I caught a segment where an official noted that there was an explosion at the plant, but said that the explosion was from the walls falling down.

I assume something was lost in translation, because this...doesn't exactly look like walls spontaneously falling down.

As far as our news report it, the explosion occurred between the reactors inner and outer walls. It's not clear if the inner wall got leaks and there are conflicting reports about a possible meltdown.
I really hope they can avoid that, the damage is already bad enough.

Disclaimer: I am, at best, an interested amateur, who's been following various news reports.

The plant that exploded is a BWR-I. You can see a picture of what that looks like on page 4 of this PDF:
http://www.ansn-jp.org/jneslibrary/npp2.pdf

From what I understand, there's basically a concrete building containing the nuclear reactor proper, and then a steel building protecting the concrete building and various other equipment from the elements. To relieve pressure inside the concrete building, they vented some hydrogen from the reactor to the steel building. Normally, there are spark plugs to light the hydrogen off a little at a time - but those didn't work in this case. There was an explosion that blew off the sides of the steel building.

It isn't very clear how damaged the concrete building (and the reactor proper) is.

It's like watching the movie 2012 or the anime Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, except you see that it's all real, and this sinking feeling creeps up on you.

My father warns me that I live near a fault line.

If things get worst just before the meltdown, they could always use the last resort (the emergency cooling system) that shutdown the plant permanently (using some kind of chemical to poison the core, from what I hear).

Perhaps the news they tell about the explosion is a lie (that it's really the reactor that exploding), but it's just to make people not panicking... Well, at least they have evacuated the people away from around the plant.