Registered Member #1675 Joined: Tue Nov 25 2008, 09:29AM : Posts: 3277
More Trouble for the Striken Fukushima Power Plant
Experts have warned of a potentially dangerous radiation leak if Japan proceeds with plans to flood a damaged reactor containment vessel at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. The facility's operator has admitted uranium fuel rods in the No 1 reactor partially melted after being fully exposed because of the 11 March tsunami. Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) said water levels had fallen to at least one metre below four-metre-long fuel rods inside the reactor core and melted fuel had slumped to the bottom of the reactor's containment vessel.
Registered Member #1675 Joined: Tue Nov 25 2008, 09:29AM : Posts: 3277
still about 9,500 people missing
More than two months after a devastating earthquake and tsunami ravaged the Tohoku region, about 9,500 people remain unaccounted for. Police and Self-Defense Forces personnel continue to search the wrecked areas, but as time passes fewer bodies are being found. Identifying bodies is also proving difficult, as the extreme force of the tsunami stripped victims of clothes, IDs and jewelry. At a temporary burial site on a hill in Higashimatsushima, Miyagi Prefecture, the graves of unidentified victims are marked only with numerals written in kanji. (Japan Times)
Registered Member #1675 Joined: Tue Nov 25 2008, 09:29AM : Posts: 3277
Japan widens Evacuation Zone
Japan on Sunday started the first evacuations of homes outside a government exclusion zone after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami crippled one of the country's nuclear power plants. Some 4,000 residents of Iidate-mura village as well as 1,100 people in Kawamata-cho town, in the quake-hit northeast, began the phased relocations to public housing, hotels and other facilities in nearby cities. Their communities are outside the 20-kilometre radius from the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, officially designated as an area of forced evacuation due to health risks from the radiation seeping from the ageing and damaged plant. (AFP )
Registered Member #1675 Joined: Tue Nov 25 2008, 09:29AM : Posts: 3277
more Nuclear Shutdows
Electricity supply from nuclear plants, already down by almost 20 percent following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, will drop further during peak summer demand as operators shut reactors for maintenance. Six reactors are scheduled to be offline for checks and maintenance by the end of August. Chubu Electric Power Co. last week shut two reactors out of fear of a natural disaster causing a crisis similar to the one at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. The planned shutdowns mean 75 percent of Japan's nuclear power capacity will be idled or damaged by August when air conditioning demand surges as temperatures can rise to as high as 40 degrees. (Japan Times)
Registered Member #1675 Joined: Tue Nov 25 2008, 09:29AM : Posts: 3277
super typhoon is heading towards Japan,
[Click Here] right now its near the phillipines at a catagory 5, with sustain winds at 161 and wind gusts at 195 but is expected to weaken as it gets near Japan..
Registered Member #1675 Joined: Tue Nov 25 2008, 09:29AM : Posts: 3277
Typhoon Chedeng (international name Songda) has veered away from the Philippines and is now going towards Japan. The impending typhoon, which some forecasters were comparing to 2009's Tropical Storm Ondoy, had whipped up signal number 1 and 2 winds and rains in several parts of the country, resulting in the cancellation of flights and stranding of oceanbound passengers. By Saturday morning, it is expected to be 190 km northeast of Basco, Batanes, and by Sunday morning, it is expected to be 610 km north-northeast of Basco, Batanes or 170 km southwest of Okinawa, Japan.
Registered Member #1675 Joined: Tue Nov 25 2008, 09:29AM : Posts: 3277
A powerful typhoon passed the Sakishima Islands in Okinawa Prefecture Saturday, threatening to bring further heavy rains to Japan's southwestern main island of Kyushu Sunday afternoon, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. The weather agency issued warnings about landslides and river floods as the typhoon could activate the rain front and cause heavy rain in wide areas of Japan, including Shinmoe Peak, a volcano that recently erupted in Kyushu, and northeastern Japan hit by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. As of 9 p.m. Saturday, Typhoon Songda, the second typhoon this year, was located about 30 kilometers west-northwest of Kumejima Island, around 100 km west of Okinawa Island. It was traveling northeast at a speed of 40 km per hour.
Rain, can we put Japan on a back burner and worry about what is happening here closer to home. thanks I don’t need your attitude thanks, I have one of my own!
Jerry B is having trouble logging in. He asked me to tell everyone: "A little heads up for the people out in the Shay Meadows area, a mountain lion was in a backyard of a house in the 1300 block on East Big Bear Blvd. close to Shay Rd fork on 5/17 Friday morning. The cat is 4 and ½ feet tall."