Nuclear Reactors react to 9.0 earthquake: Japan declares nuclear emergency - fire broke out..11 nuclear reactors shut down

Fury of Nature, of Ocean unleashed: earthquake and tsunami swallow entire cities and towns in Japan, decimating entire infrastructures at astonishing speed.

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Japan Declares Nuclear Emergency, As Cooling System Fails At Power Plant
Original post: Ominous flash from Kyodo Wire:

The operator of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant reported an abnormality Friday following a powerful earthquake which hit a wide area in northeastern Japan including Fukushima Prefecture, the industry ministry said. The system to cool reactor cores in case of emergency stopped at the No. 1 and No. 2 reactors of the plant operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co., it said.

Japan has declared a nuclear emergency. 2000 residents near the Fukushima Nuclear Plant have been urged to evacuate.

According to reports, Japanese jets have been ordered to fly over the Fukushima Nuclear plant. According to Reuters, a Dam has broken in the same region as the at-risk nuclear power plant. The owner of the plant, TEPCO, says the reactor pressure is rising, and there are risks of a radiation leak, according to Reuters. Now the trade minister says a leak is possible. Word is, Japanese authorities will release a small amount of radioactive vapor into the air to ease pressure.

Japan in Nuclear Emergency
Breaking News from Japan brings many problems along the way. Other worries include the many nuclear power stations across the country being at risk of nuclear emergency.

Japan has today been declared in a state of Nuclear Emergency. Due to the powerful tsunami currently happening in Japan, the nuclear power stations have been put on hold and shut down until it is safe to open them up again.

11 reactors around the country have been successfully switched off, but there is one power station with reactors struggling to enter the cool down period. By Japanese law, if a power station doesn't reach the cool down period, a state of Nuclear Emergency should be declared.

All power stations across the country are being pulled down, and the news of this one reactor not being able to reach its cool down period has come as a shock to the Japanese. Everybody in a 10km radius of the failing nuclear power station are being prepared to be evacuated so we don't see a remake of the Soviet Union's 'Chernobyl' disaster.

In other news, the death toll in Japan has risen to 137. More news to come on the topic.

Japan Earthquake fifth largest earthquake since 1900
The earthquake that hit the northeast coast of Japan early Friday morning was the fifth largest recorded earthquake since 1900. The United States Geographical Survey has recorded earthquake magnitudes since 1900. It has not yet updated its list of the world's worst earthquakes to reflect the latest one in Japan. As the quake has a magnitude of 8.9, it would make it the fifth largest on the list.

Japan Earthquake Makes Waves Across the U.S.

"It's clearly one of the great earthquakes," says seismologist Robert Woodward of the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS) in Washington, D.C. "The data have already propagated around the world and people will be continuing to analyze it for months, even years." It takes 3 hours for surface seismic waves to circle the earth: coming from Japan, the high intensity waves hit USArray from the west an hour after the quake. Coming from the opposite direction, a second set of waves from the east hit the array 2 hours after the quake.

Woodward said the quake may soon be upgraded to 9.0 as the multiple agencies tracking it coordinate their data. The energy from the quake, said Woodward, "caused the planet to ring like a bell." It will continue to ring for months as the full impact of the tragedy becomes clear.

Earthquakes Put Japan's Nuclear Reactors on Red Alert
The 8.9-magnitude earthquake that shook Japan early March 11 blew out the cooling systems of two nuclear reactors there. An inability to cool the reactors could cause radiation leaks, and both power plants are "bracing for the worst,” according to government officials.

Mark Hibbs, a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Reuters that there is serious concern in Japan whether the cooling of the core and removal of residual heat could be assured. "If that does not happen, if heat is not removed, there is a definite danger of a core melt ... fuel will overheat, become damaged and melt down."

The power plants are trying to restore power to its emergency power system in order to be able to pump water inside the reactors, a Tokyo Electric Power Co. spokesman said.

Japan: 11 nuclear reactors shut down
Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) said Friday that a fire broke out at the Onagawa nuclear power plant but was later extinguished.

The plant is about 45 miles north of the city of Sengai, which was badly damaged by the deadly earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan Friday afternoon. Sendai is the population center nearest the epicenter of the quake, and Japan's Kyodo News agency said that more than 200 bodies had been found so far near the city.

The three reactors at the Onagawa site remained closed. Eleven of the country's nuclear reactors have been shut down.

The key buildings in the Onagawa plant are about 15 meters above sea level, according to the Web site of Tohoku Electric Power, owner of the plant. The company said that was about twice the height of the previous highest tsunami. The non-working backup generators at the plant were damaged by water from the tsunami, according to Glenn L. McCullough Jr., former head of the Tennessee Valley Authority who has been in touch with government experts in Japan.

Just hours after the quake, NISA also declared a heightened state of alert at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. NISA later told the energy agency that the plant has been shut down and that no release of radiation has been detected. People living within 1.2 miles of the plant were told to evacuate the area.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday morning that U.S. Air Force planes in Japan had delivered coolant to a nuclear power plant affected by the quake. "They have very high engineering standards, but one of their plants came under a lot of stress with the earthquake and didn't have enough coolant," she said, "and so Air Force planes were able to deliver that." It was not immediately clear which plant received the coolant.

A group called Beyond Nuclear, devoted to highlighting the perils of nuclear power, said it received an e-mail from Philip White of the Citizens Nuclear Information Center in Tokyo saying that the Fukushima nuclear power plants lost power and that all the backup diesel generators were also "out of action." The group said that in order to provide power to cool the reactors, emergency generators were being trucked there by the plant's owner, Tokyo Electric Power Co.

"The multi-reactor Fukushima atomic power plant is now relying on battery power, which will only last around eight hours," said Kevin Kamps, a specialist in nuclear waste at Beyond Nuclear. "The danger is the very thermally hot reactor cores at the plant must be continuously cooled for 24 to 48 hours. Without any electricity, the pumps won't be able to pump water through the hot reactor cores to cool them."

Japanese authorities told the IAEA that that the Onagawa, Fukushima-Daini and Tokai nuclear power plants shut down automatically, and no radiation release has been detected. The plants have multiple nuclear reactors.

The IAEA said it is seeking details on Fukushima Daiichi and other nuclear power plants and research reactors, including information on off-site and on-site electrical power supplies, cooling systems and the condition of the reactor buildings. Nuclear fuel requires continued cooling even after a plant is shut down, the IAEA noted.

Japan tsunami: Was 'supermoon' to blame?

If you’ve seen photographs and video footage of the devastation in Japan today, you might be asking yourself, “What is the world coming to?”

While geologists, climatologists, disaster managers and a host of other experts scramble to determine the scope of the damage, those from less orthodox schools of thought are weighing in on the cause. According to ABC News, believers of the “supermoon” phenomenon theorize the 8.9-magnitude earthquake and resulting tsunami may have been caused by the moon’s position in its orbit. The supermoon, expected on March 19, refers to the point in the moon’s elliptical path when it is closest to the earth.

Those who believe in astrology claim supermoons result in strong earthquakes and extreme weather patterns, and point out that the catastrophic Indonesian tsunami occurred two weeks before the last supermoon in 2005. This year’s supermoon has been called an “extreme” supermoon because not only will the moon be full, it will make its closest approach to the earth in 18 years.

The "SuperMoon" and the Japan earthquake

On March 19, the moon's orbit will make its closest approach to Earth in 18 years while at the same time be in full phase. Such a coincidence has been named a "SuperMoon" by astrologer Richard Nolle. As entertainingly chronicled by John Metcalfe over at TBD, Nolle predicts all kinds of weather and natural hazard mayhem, including strong earthquakes, around the time of the Supermoon.

So the questions that emerge are: 1) Is there any legitimate science linking the Supermoon and extreme natural hazards? and, 2) Did the upcoming Supermoon play a role in this morning's horrific earthquake in Japan, the fifth most powerful on record?

AccuWeather's Astronomy blogger Mark Paquette, in a post on March 1, stopped short of rejecting the idea Supermoons and natural hazards are linked, writing:
There were SuperMoons in 1955, 1974, 1992 and 2005. These years had their share of extreme weather and other natural events. Is the Super Moon and these natural occurences a coincidence? Some would say yes; some would say no. I'm not here to pick sides and say I'm a believer or non-believer in subjects like this...

He noted that one of his readers pointed out that the last extreme supermoon occurred on January 10, 2005, right around the time of the 9.0 Indonesia earthquake.

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Photos courtesy of Nexco East Japan via Kyodo News/AP, HFFM Forum, and Washington Post