Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

And the aftershocks go on: 275 new tremors hit quake-torn Japan as fears grow for missing 10,000 in flattened port town


The Daily Mail, UK
Tue, 15 Mar 2011 00:38 UTC
  • 42 survivors have been pulled out of the rubble
  • Official death toll hits 1,597, but many hundreds believed to be buried under rubble or washed away by waves
  • Toll will soar after around 2,000 bodies were found on the shores of Miyagi prefecture
  • Second explosion at nuclear power plant
  • Number of people contaminated with radiation could reach 160
  • Region hit by hundreds of aftershocks, some up to 6.8-magnitude
  • Rescue operation begins but some areas still cut off by road damage and flood waters
  • 70,000 people evacuated to shelters in Sendai
    •
Forty-two survivors have been pulled from the rubble in the flattened town of Minami Sanrik, where up to 10,000 people are feared to have perished.

Around half the town's 18,000 residents are missing but search and rescue teams are still working desperately through the rubble to try and find more people.

Police are also trying to stop people returning to their homes.

Despite the first tsunami warning being issued to the town that lies two miles from the coastline, some residents decided to stay in their homes instead of fleeing - leading to the high number of missing people, CNN reported today..

Most of the houses in Minami Sanriku have been completely flattened and waterlogged and one house was found even with seaweed inside.

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© EPAVillagers carry relief goods in Minami Sanriku, the worst-hit area where almost 10,000 people have gone missing
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© EPAJapanese home guard help survivors to safety in the flooded town of Minami Sanriku
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Bizarro Earth

Geophysicists Worry Quake is Not The Last


Bangkok Post
Mon, 14 Mar 2011 14:51 UTC
The unusually high number of aftershocks following Japan's strongest ever earthquake last Friday has caused concern among geophysicists that it may actually be a chain of separate quakes.

Ring of Fire
© POSTgraphics
Michio Hashizume, a Japanese geology expert working with Chulalongkorn University's Faculty of Science, said his contemporaries in Japan are wondering if the string of tremors felt around the county since Friday's 9.0-magnitude are actually aftershocks.

"We are questioning if they are really aftershocks, because in theory they should happen close to the epicentre, but this time, [some of] the [following] earthquakes have happened far from the epicentre," Mr Hashizume said.

"We are thinking the 9.0 earthquake may have triggered a chain of earthquakes. If so, we expect more earthquakes, possibly as strong as magnitude 7, within the next three days."

The geologists are concerned about the possibility of another big earthquake soon, which could create another tsunami, he said.
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Bizarro Earth

Volcano in southern Japan resumes eruptions


Newswatch
Mon, 14 Mar 2011 15:56 UTC
Tokyo -- The weather agency says a volcano in southern Japan is spewing ash and rock again as the country struggles with the aftermath of a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami in the north.

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Bizarro Earth

Scientists warn Japan faces second monster quake and tsunami


Daily Mail
Mon, 14 Mar 2011 14:59 UTC
  • Second 'monster' quake could measure almost 8 on the Richter scale
  • Terrible tide of at least 2,000 bodies wash up on the coastline
  • Crews fight to bring reactor at nuclear power plant under control
  • Millions left without food and power and hospitals have no medicine
Devastated Japan today faced the prospect of a second massive earthquake and tsunami even as millions of citizen struggled to come to terms with its biggest-ever natural disaster.

On Friday, a quake measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale caused widespread fatalities and damage, also triggering a huge wave, which prompted the death toll to spiral into many thousands.

At least 2,000 bodies have now washed up on the country's decimated coastline, crematoriums were overflowing with the dead and rescue workers ran out of body bags as the nation faced the reality of its mounting crisis.

japan,earthquake
Devastating: A woman sobs on a road as she surveys the destroyed city of Natori in the region of Miyagi in northern Japan
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Video

Japan earthquake: Footage of moment tsunami hit


BBC News Asia Pacific
Sun, 13 Mar 2011 14:06 UTC
Newly emerged footage shows the force at which the tsunami struck Japan's coast.

In the fishing port of Miyako, in Iwate prefecture, boats were overturned, while video from Kamaishi city shows cars being dragged down city streets by the water.

The tsunami that followed the 8.9-magnitude earthquake wreaked havoc along a huge stretch of Japan's north-east coast, sweeping far inland and devastating a number of towns and villages. Powerful aftershocks are continuing to hit the region.

Footage courtesy of TV Asahi and TBS

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Evil Rays

Full Core Meltdown In Japan Will Send Radiation Over United States

DrRonPaul2012
YouTube
Sun, 13 Mar 2011 13:53 UTC
Jet Stream Analysis

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Evil Rays

Japanese Officials: Nuclear Fuel Rods Appear to be Melting in 3 Reactors

Katy O'Donnell
National Journal
Mon, 14 Mar 2011 13:01 UTC
japan,reactors
© JiJi Press/AFP/Getty ImagesThis aerial view shows the quake-damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant in the Japanese town of Futaba, Fukushima prefecture on March 12, 2011.

Japanese officials confirmed Monday that nuclear fuel rods appear to be melting inside three reactors compromised by Friday's earthquake, though nuclear experts differ on whether the outer chamber of a reactor melting in fact constitutes a partial "meltdown."

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said Monday that "although we cannot directly check it, it's highly likely happening."

Unit 3 of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in northeastern Japan exploded earlier Monday, wounding 11 workers; it had been under emergency watch for an explosion after a hydrogen blast at Unit 1 of the plant on Saturday. Edano said the Unit 3 reactor's inner containment vessel was intact.
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Bizarro Earth

Japan reels as second blast rocks nuclear plant


Raw Story
Mon, 14 Mar 2011 12:49 UTC
Image

Sendai, Japan - A new explosion at a stricken nuclear power plant hit Japan Monday as it raced to avert a meltdown after a quake-tsunami disaster that is feared to have killed more than 10,000 people.

Searchers found 2,000 bodies in northeastern Miyagi region alone, while millions of Japanese were left without water, electricity, fuel or enough food. Hundreds of thousands more were homeless after the tsunami drowned whole towns.

Panic selling saw stocks close more than six percent lower on the Tokyo bourse on fears for the world's third-biggest economy, as power shortages prompted rolling blackouts and factory shutdowns in quake-hit areas.
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Alarm Clock

How the Japan Earthquake Shortened Days on Earth


Space.com
Mon, 14 Mar 2011 12:41 UTC
The massive earthquake that struck northeast Japan Friday (March 11) has shortened the length Earth's day by a fraction and shifted how the planet's mass is distributed.

japan,map
© USGSThis map shows the location of the March 11, 2011 earthquake in Japan, as well as the foreshocks (dotted lines), including a 7.2-magnitude event on March 9, and aftershocks (solid lines). The size of each circle represents the magnitude of the associated quake or shock.

A new analysis of the 8.9-magnitude earthquake in Japan has found that the intense temblor has accelerated Earth's spin, shortening the length of the 24-hour day by 1.8 microseconds, according to geophysicist Richard Gross at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

Gross refined his estimates of the Japan quake's impact - which previously suggested a 1.6-microsecond shortening of the day - based on new data on how much the fault that triggered the earthquake slipped to redistribute the planet's mass. A microsecond is a millionth of a second. [Photos: Japan Earthquake and Tsunami in Pictures]
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Hourglass

Japan earthquake, tsunami death toll likely above 10,000; survivors worry about supplies

Chico Harlan
The Washington Post
Mon, 14 Mar 2011 06:15 UTC
Image
© Unknown
Tokyo - Overwhelmed by a still-growing catastrophe, Japanese authorities struggled Monday to reach buried survivors and the missing, faced roadblocks in delivering aid and raced to contain an expanding nuclear emergency.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan called the crisis the country's toughest challenge since World War II and said that decimated towns along the northeastern coastline were not yet getting the food and supplies they needed.

A series of unstable nuclear plants across the country threatened to compound the nation's difficulties, which started with Friday's double-barreled disasters: first an 8.9-magnitude earthquake, then a tsunami. At the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, one containment building housing an overheated reactor had already exploded. A second explosion, about noon local time Monday, destroyed an outer building at another of the plant's reactors.

Officials said a third reactor at the six-reactor facility had lost its cooling capacity, and the U.S. Seventh Fleet, stationed 100 miles offshore, repositioned its ships and aircraft after some if its personnel came into contact with radioactive contamination.

With a government spokesman saying that the reactor units could be in partial meltdown, an alarmed public struggled to understand the safety implications of trace radiation leakage, even as the government said that public safety was not in danger.
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