Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Starver]

If the boundary itself is still experiencing a lot of pressure, then what's the possibility of another big quake?

From various sources of my own[1], I'm informed that The Big One that Japan has been expecting should have been located elsewhere (if I have it right, the fault area just to the south of Tokyo).

Doubting that the relief of stress at the present epicentre point is going to help relieve any at all at the predicted point[2], it may well be cuing it up for an even more likely and imminent slippage than before.  So I'd definitely say that another big quake (or two, or three) may well unzip itself (/themselves) within a very short time.  Almost instantaneously, as these most rapid of geological time-scales go, which could mean anything from less than a month to a number of very tense decades.


[1] i.e. through channels other than this esteemed forum where parallel discussions on this very subject are also occurring.  Bet that surprises you all, eh?

[2] Insofar as earthquakes are predictable by us mere mortals, although I'm guessing there'll be a "swarm" of quakes, not even counting aftershocks and foreshocks.

[Flaede]

Maybe the whole plate will just break and peel off the mantle like wallpaper.  That'd be crazy.

Man, I know you're just joking, but as someone with dear friends on that piece of wallpaper, your joke actually bothers me a lot.

We all deal with tragedy in different ways. Sometimes it is better to laugh a bit than it is to cry. I know I tend to joke around at "inappropriate" times on occasion.

Yeah, I think it's a pretty tasteless joke, too.
But since we seem to be totally departing from basic nonsensical passing of new information...
 Ok, I'll give - I really want to know what William Gibson makes of this. When 9/11 happened he was writing the first book of his next series, the fist set in 'this world'. He reworked it around the event, and the result was like preserving the feeling of "just after 9/11" in amber.

Considering what he's done before with a fictional "post quake Japan"^*, I want to see what he does with the reality.

*I consider this the "worst case scenario".

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Forshortened perspective up the side of this obelisk, this pyramid so-called, and midway the dark bulge of that Japanese material, placed to counter old quake damage. This is new, replacing earlier splines of polycarbon, and the subject of architectural and aesthetic scandal. Briefly fascinated, he watches as reflections of the lights of surrounding buildings shudder slightly, the thing's glossy surface tensing in responce to winds he cannot feel. The truss is alive.

- All Tomorrow's Parties, William Gibson

[Starver]

When 9/11 happened [William Gibson] was writing [All Tomorrow's Parties], the fist set in 'this world'. He reworked it around the event, and the result was like preserving the feeling of "just after 9/11" in amber.

IIRC, he was also at least part way into Pattern Recognition, as well.  Not that this is anything to do (more than in a "it's all a Global Village" kind of way) with Japan, and certainly less about the kind of incident this thread is for.  But it's a spark of knowledge that goes with the above.  (Not yet got around to reading ATP, but another spark of probably incorrect knowledge makes me think that one's not contemporary, as your description puts it, but still set in his 'usual' dystopian cyberpunk future universe.)

Erm, yes...  Nothing to do with Japan.  Perhaps I should be bringing in Neal Stephenson's work, instead.  Perhaps either The Diamond Age (although that's more to do with a fractured Chinese element), or The Cryptonomicon (with the longevity of superior Japanese engineering, amongst other things).

[olemars]

At the moment there are 8672 people staring at this. It's a bit sad.

[Bouchart]

At the moment there are 8672 people staring at this. It's a bit sad.

I'm not really familiar with geiger counters so how bad is it?

[Zangi]

At the moment there are 8672 people staring at this. It's a bit sad.

Its less then 9000...  I somehow expect more people with nothing useful to do on the interwebs....  spread the word.

[olemars]

At the moment there are 8672 people staring at this. It's a bit sad.

I'm not really familiar with geiger counters so how bad is it?

About 1/100 of a banana.

EDIT: Explosion at reactor 2 now, so that's 3 for 3...

EDIT: OK, it's a bit more serious than the other two it seems, they believe the explosion was from the containment vessel and not just the outer structure. That will likely cause some radiation leakage.

[Greiger]

Anyone seen this yet?

Clearly that cat built the wall from the wrong side.  People think it's only dwarven stupidity, but really it's any fortress controllable race.   Somebody up there is running a cat fortress mod and is currently cussing the thing out.

[Max White]

At the moment there are 8672 people staring at this. It's a bit sad.

We got more then that from an emitter in a high school physics classroom.
The lack of power supply is more deadly then the radiation. Temperatures have been getting below zero (Celsius) and without housing, food or power, anybody exposed to the elements is at risk. Further more, flooding often allows for mosquitoes to breed, as well as pathogens found in water supplies, so it wouldn't surprise me if there were some outbreaks over there of something.

[Phmcw]

Ok now we can officially worry about radiation : they have evacuated the technicians, and we could be dealing with a full containment breach.

[Tellemurius]

Ok now we can officially worry about radiation : they have evacuated the technicians, and we could be dealing with a full containment breach.

please give me sources damnit.

[Phmcw]

Guardian live blog, as usual.

[olemars]

Or watch japanese tv here (simultaneous translation). The translation girl sounds a bit scared now

EDIT: all techs except for 50 volunteers evacuated.

EDIT2: Pressure in containment chamber dropped from 3 atm to 1, indicating that it is opened to air.

[Starver]

We got more [radiation] then that from an emitter in a high school physics classroom.

To be fair, that's a point source that you generally wouldn't hold in your bare hand for long, let alone rub all over your body for hours and hours on end, whereas (I'm assuming) that web-cammed counter (which was getting around 9000 hits[1] when I viewed it earlier) would be measuring the pervading levels in all around, whether from particles in the air[2] or that gentle gamma glow that really enhances the Hulk's complexion and "slows the seven signs of raging"[3].

OTOH, I suspect you might be able to get more than it was indicating by placing it on a granite worktop (doing some quick conversion between units in my head, but probably wrongly, because it's been a while since I looked at granite).

[1] web-type, not ionising particle type.

[2] Must go and look for a current wind-chart for Japan, as all the scary pictures of fall-out I've seen so far seem to suggest a general tendency towards airflow and nucleotides going east from that area (even at short distance, therefore not purely jet-stream height) and not towards any of the significant otherwise unharmed population centres of the country.  But they are scary-type pictures made to scare the merkins off of the 'Merkins, so could be less than accurate.

[3] (C) Reed Richards'n'Merrell Inc.

[Bouchart]

That geiger counter feed is down.

Another reactor caught fire.  Huge radiation leak detected.  People within 20 miles or so are told to stay indoors.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/ap_on_bi_ge/as_japan_earthquake_nuclear_crisis

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/world/asia/15nuclear.html?_r=1&hp