Tokyo Magnitude 8.9 Update: Fukushima Nuclear Power meltdown
Reports off BBC had recently said that the Nuclear Power Plant had just had explosions
"A massive explosion has struck a Japanese nuclear power plant after Friday's devastating earthquake.
A huge pall of smoke was seen coming from the plant at Fukushima and several workers were injured.
Japanese officials fear a meltdown at one of the plant's reactors after radioactive material was detected outside it.
A huge relief operation is under way after the 8.9-magnitude earthquake and tsunami, which killed more than 600.
Hundreds more people are missing and it is feared about 1,300 may have died.
The offshore earthquake triggered a tsunami which wreaked havoc on Japan's north-east coast, sweeping far inland and devastating a number of towns and villages.
Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan declared a state of emergency at the Fukushima 1 and 2 power plants as engineers try to confirm whether a reactor at one of the stations has gone into meltdown.
It is an automatic procedure after nuclear reactors shut down in the event of an earthquake, allowing officials to take rapid action.
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Japan's NHK TV showed before and after pictures of the Fukushima plant. They appeared to show that the outer structure of one of four buildings at the plant had collapsed.
Cooling systems inside several reactors at the plants stopped working after Friday's earthquake cut the power supply.
Japan's nuclear agency said on Saturday that radioactive caesium and iodine had been detected near the number one reactor of the Fukushima 1 plant.
The agency said this may indicate that containers of uranium fuel inside the reactor may have begun melting.
Air has been released from several of the reactors at both plants in an effort to relieve the huge amount of pressure building up inside.
Mr Kan said the amount of radiation released was "tiny".
Thousands of people have been ordered to evacuate the area near the plants.
Analysts say a meltdown would not necessarily lead to a major disaster because light-water reactors would not explode even if they overheated.
The 8.9-magnitude tremor struck in the afternoon local time on Friday off the coast of Honshu island at a depth of about 24km, 400km (250 miles) north-east of Tokyo.
It was nearly 8,000 times stronger than last month's quake in New Zealand that devastated the city of Christchurch, scientists said.
Some of the same search and rescue teams from around the world that helped in that disaster are now on their way to Japan."
Quoted from BBC : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12720219















i hope it wouldnt be like the one in russia. effect 60,000 km^2
I do certainly hope not but apparently these reactors are way more advance in terms of containment compared to the one that went wrong in Russia :S
OMG
I read than caesium and iodine leaks - thse 2 isotopes have relatively short half lives. Let's hope they bring it under control.
is the earthquake and the tsunami not enough?! ._.
it's really sad what happened. many people died and so many are still missing. terrible...
apart from that major damages.
everytime I see the pictures in tv I wish I could help
nuclear fallout map... Canada...America
http://i860.photobucket.com/albums/ab162/xiaojiu1994/b76f3728af1266b88b139987.jpg?t=1299927371
I'm pretty sure that map is a hoax... it's been floating around all day.
Thanks for the updates, my friend. I really hope that they can stop the reactors from melting.
And it's good to hear that the same research and rescue teams that went to New Zealand are coming to assist.
My friend got out of the nuclear plant a couple of hours before the explosion and is leaving Fukushima Prefecture for Tokyo.
Good for him, I actually wanted to ask you how your friend was doing when I saw this >.< but good for him ne? ^^
Some good news I'm hearing from the prime minister. The radiation levels have dropped a bit.
Live streaming with translation here - http://www.ustwrap.info/multi/yokosonews::nhk-gtv::tbstv
Hopefully it's nothing but good news from this point on.
I Hope so ^^
Aaaaaand...it's now only bad news...
God damn it, a second one, and the first reactor is about to go >.< this is shit, what can we do?
I'd say "pray" but I gave up on being ignored years ago. So I say "hope".
There has been rumors saying Yui Hatano Japanese AV died in her car from the tsunami after the quake >.< i hope this is not true
What could be worse than a meltdown... What's next, volcanic eruption?
It's best not to jinx it...
Yellowstone! (I know, it has nothing to do with Japan but after all what happened it's not so unthinkable)
Oo""
Wow that's bad..
I also heard in the news, that the Earth’s axis has shifted 10 cm following Japan earthquake. O_O
That's actually pretty normal. When they had the Hati earthquake, the Earth's axis shifted almost 20 cm. It's the planet error-correcting its balance. Kind of freaky, until you think about the fact that the Earths axis processes every 22 or so years.
Yeah just noticed the same thing =D
I hear that the worst of the damage was done to the exterior walls and the metal housing around the reactor and the reactor itself are supposedly still in decent condition, despite the loss of cooling ability.
The hardest hardship they experience ever. I hope japan could recover. I fear that the nuclear power meltdown would spread. I hope it wont.