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[ToonyMan]

Man my step Dad must have never learned how to pronounce tsunami.  He heard about the Japan this morning and he completely butchered the word.

[Cthulhu]

Baka gaijin....................................................................................

[userpay]

Hmm now that I think about it one of my cousins may have been deployed to help in Japan, he's in the navy and I know he was stationed in the Pacific at the very least. Haven't heard much about where exactly as of late though.

[Nikov]

Holy fuck, one of the reactor exploded, or at least it's roof collapsed. But it's seems that it's a reactor meltdown. So much for impossibility.

Radiation in the area confirmed to be 20 times above normal. We might as well have another Haiti by the time it's all done.

Spoiler: Historical Context, Not for the Faint-Hearted (click to show/hide)

The real start of LeMay's campaign to destroy Japan occurred on March 9, 1945, when LeMay sent 334 of the B-29s against Tokyo. Pathfinding bombers marked the center of Tokyo with napalm (jellied gasoline) bombs that were dropped to make the shape of a huge X of fire across the center of the city. When the bomber stream arrived, it passed over the fiery X in flights of 3 planes each flying at altitudes ranging between 5,000 and 10,000 feet. These flights were spaced to put each one over the X with about 1 minute between flights, which means the bomber stream passed over Tokyo for about 2 hours with each of its planes dropping about 40 incendiary bombs that were 500 pounds each (the B-29 could carry 20,000 pounds of bombs). All the planes had to do was drop their bombs into or near the visible fires.

The wind was blowing at nearly 30 mph that night, and the converging fires set by the incendiary bombs quickly developed into a fire storm capable of sucking the air out of bomb shelters and setting asphalt streets on fire. The fire storm reached temperatures of 1,800 degrees, and it was so fierce that it scorched the bottoms of many of the planes as they passed over at 5,000 feet. The fire storm simply incinerated everything it passed over, and the stench of burning human flesh was so strong that the ground crews in the Marianas Islands could clearly smell it in the airplanes and on the clothing of the flight crews when they returned to their bases.

The fire storm raged for 4 days, and no one has ever determined how many civilians died. The official count of the known dead ran up to 83,793--on a par with the number killed outright by the Hiroshima bomb, twice the number killed outright by the Nagasaki bomb. There were over 40,000 civilians seriously injured. The fire destroyed nearly 16 square miles of the city (an area 4 miles wide by 4 miles deep), and it left very few buildings standing. 20% of Tokyo's industrial district was burnt out; 2/3 of the city's commercial center was gone; more than 1 million people lost their homes. Tokyo had had a population of 6.9 million in 1942; this raid started the killing of civilians and the destruction of housing that left it a city of 2.7 million in September, 1945. Effectively, LeMay's raids on Tokyo, of which the March 9 raid was just the first, destroyed the city as completely as the atomic bombs destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

March raid on Tokyo, the 20th Air Force set up a systematic process for bombing Japanese cities that saw aircrews flying 120 hrs each month (they had flown 30 per month in Europe). The planners set up the target lists, and the bombers checked them off one by one. The limiting factor proved to be how many bombs they could get shipped from the U.S. By the time the war ended the 20th Air Force had fire bombed 175 square miles of urban real estate in 66 Japanese cities. The estimates of Japanese civilians killed vary dramatically, some put the number as high as 1 million, others say it was more like 600,000. Whatever the number, it was large. Over 10 million Japanese saw their homes destroyed, and Japanese industry had virtually ceased to exist.

Your lack of faith in the Japanese people's ability to recover from mere earthquakes disturbs me. They are a tremendously resiliant people and will surprise us in their recovery. I honestly think they will emerge stronger for it, just as they did in the past.

[alway]

Earthquake, tsunami, and explosion?!? At this rate, we will be seeing Godzilla attacking the nuclear power plant by this afternoon...

[userpay]

Heh, I for one can't wait to see Japan bounce back from this. One of the reasons they became such a powerhouse after WW2 is because when their industrial centers were being rebuilt more often than not it was with some of the more cutting edge technology of the time. Other counties were still mostly toiling away on comparatively outdated tech. The steel mills are a prime example of this.

Also I've found out one of my friends in Japan are okay.

[Kogut]

Yeah, I don't recall me melting away when Chernobyl went off, and Bosnia is pretty close to Ukraine. Close enough that the government scrapped the entire year's harvest, IIRC.

It sounds like next hoax.

[Duke 2.0]

I'm not worried about nuclear disaster.

My estimations may be a bit off, but if I'm right we're looking at standing near around 30 bananas.

[Haspen]

I'm not worried about nuclear disaster.

My estimations may be a bit off, but if I'm right we're looking at standing near around 30 bananas.

Eat 30 bananas and tell me it's not lethal dose of bananas

[ToonyMan]

I'm not worried about nuclear disaster.

My estimations may be a bit off, but if I'm right we're looking at standing near around 30 bananas.

Eat 30 bananas and tell me it's not lethal dose of bananas

This babbans.

[Duke 2.0]

I'm not worried about nuclear disaster.

My estimations may be a bit off, but if I'm right we're looking at standing near around 30 bananas.

Eat 30 bananas and tell me it's not lethal dose of bananas

The potassium will kill be long before radiation will increase my chances of death by the same amount as a few smokes.

[Chaoswizkid]

This vid is pretty insane.

Edit: Shit. 0:22, bottom right corner...

I really hope that shot cut out the part where they ran towards the building and got inside.

[olemars]

Cooling systems have failed on another reactor at Fukushima, nr 3 this time. I guess it's safe to say now that nuclear power plant construction plans will be facing an uphill battle for a while.

[Aqizzar]

That these plants failed, and failed in a relatively contained manner, only after suffering one of the most powerful earthquakes in recorded history on their doorstep, will of course go completely unheeded.

The unfortunate part is, I'm not being facetious in the slightest.

[Sheb]

Well, it's depend. If this shit end up without killing anyone, the argument "That plant took in a 9.0 earthquake AND a 10-meters tsunami and still didn't cause any death" could me made.