Japan Earthquake and Tsunami (March 11, 2011)

[Ithekro]

Seawalls are effective when you don't have 10 meter waves.

[Random32]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

Seawalls are effective when you don't have 10 meter waves.

I'm fairly sure of that. Maybe I didn't phrase myself right, I wish to know about what humans feel about their effectiveness, rather than what they think.

its like nuclear power. its generally safe, its one of the best choices for alternative energy sources today, but a lot of people, at least in America, treat nuclear power like medieval people treat witches, because of accidents like Fukushima, Three Mile Island, or Chernobyl.

I am wondering whether people's thoughts seawalls as a layer of defense between them and a tsunami will be affected in a similar way.

[Ithekro]

I'm hoping for a more high tech solution to the seawall problem....but high tech means more things that can go wrong. A seawall just sits there. There aren't moving parts, it just has to stand up to time and the Ocean.

The high tech way would be energy shield that can be projected an any hieght to stop any sized wave. But if the power goes out, or the projectors fail...the whole wave is getting in. So sometimes low tech works better because it has less chance of failure.

[bayoab]

Originally Posted by Random32

Will Japan keep relying on seawalls? I assume they are rather effective except in really really bad situations like this one. To everyone who lives in Japan, have seawalls ever provided a sense of security and has that sense of security been affected by the recent events?

They probably will keep them and improve the technology involved in them. They just have to pay for themselves once. Also, not all of them failed. There was the video, with I believe thai writing on it, where the seawall almost successfully repelled a tsunami from the quake (believe it was ~7m). There was minor flooding but no deadly wave.

Originally Posted by Ithekro

I'm hoping for a more high tech solution to the seawall problem....but high tech means more things that can go wrong. A seawall just sits there. There aren't moving parts, it just has to stand up to time and the Ocean.

The high tech way would be energy shield that can be projected an any hieght to stop any sized wave. But if the power goes out, or the projectors fail...the whole wave is getting in. So sometimes low tech works better because it has less chance of failure.

Nothing says you can't have both or use high technology to create a low technology wall. Like if someone could design a wall that could reflect the energy of the initial waves back and use that energy to counter the other waves as they came.

[Vexx]

What was "unexpected" is that the elevation of the land UNDER the seawall and the towns behind them dropped almost 3 meters during the quake. Seawallls that WOULD have worked were now 3 meters lower when the waves arrived.

[Tri-ring]

Originally Posted by Highman

If anyone can update already to the 50 people who are sacrificing themselves into Fukushima Power Plant. Really am hoping they're will get the best treatment every day.

Here are some articles concerning the people working within the plant.

Nuclear plant workers have option to quit but not many doing so


Workers at stricken nuclear plant endure tough conditions

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Tri-ring

Workers at stricken nuclear plant endure tough conditions

Here is something :

The radiation level within the building is 2-3 microsievert per hour. They sleep in conference rooms and hallways in the building. To shield them from radiation from the floor, they cover themselves with lead-containing sheets before they put on blankets.

The max yearly dose for US radiation workers is 50 millisv, which is 50000 microsv. Doing the averaging of math, the total number of hours they can work is 16666 hours, which is equivalent to 1515 days of 11h per day (6am - 5pm), approximately 4 years. This is assuming that the radiation passes through their protective gear and accumulates inside the body which the lymphatic system is unable to pass out.

3 litres of water isn't enough. Give them more. And also, the last I checked, shipboard E-4 engineers earn US$7000 per month and they sail around the world for 6-10 months before their next stint of shore leave, so it makes Y400,000 look quite a small amount.

It would be an outrage if the managers in Tokyo for the crisis are paid more.

[Jinto]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

Here is something :

The max yearly dose for US radiation workers is 50 millisv, which is 50000 microsv. Doing the averaging of math, the total number of hours they can work is 16666 hours, which is equivalent to 1515 days of 11h per day (6am - 5pm), approximately 4 years.

See, and this is how not to read this data. The safest place in the plant is exposed to this radiation. This is where workers sleep and live (not work). Many workers are exposed to radiation of levels of magnitudes higher in their actual working environment.

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

This is assuming that the radiation passes through their protective gear and accumulates inside the body which the lymphatic system is unable to pass out.

Radiation doesn't accumulate directly. Radioactive isotopes can accumulate and cause radioactive hot spots (indirect).

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

3 litres of water isn't enough. Give them more. And also, the last I checked, shipboard E-4 engineers earn US$7000 per month and they sail around the world for 6-10 months before their next stint of shore leave, so it makes Y400,000 look quite a small amount.

It would be an outrage if the managers in Tokyo for the crisis are paid more.

Yet I'ld bet on it.

Originally Posted by Ithekro

...
The high tech way would be energy shield that can be projected an any hieght to stop any sized wave. But if the power goes out, or the projectors fail...the whole wave is getting in. So sometimes low tech works better because it has less chance of failure.

I have to keep that in mind just to relativize your future statements with regards to technical and scientific fundamentals.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Jinto

See, and this is how not to read this data. The safest place in the plant is exposed to this radiation. This is where workers sleep and live (not work). Many workers are exposed to radiation of levels of magnitudes higher in their actual working environment.

Radiation doesn't accumulate directly. Radioactive isotopes can accumulate and cause radioactive hot spots (indirect).

I am not just solely talking about "ionising radiation" in the form of gamma rays which is supposed to pass through even thin lead (what I was taught in school is 2mm, but our Physics teacher taught us that "Murphy's Law" applies due to the erratic and highly mysterious nature of atomic and quantum physics), I also included radioactive dust and particles that are small enough to circumvent even nanocarbon-lined filters.

Also, similar in a way to chemo/radio-therapy where radiation is used to kill cancer cells, the radiation can either mutate or kill human cells, and some of the mutated cells might be rejected by the body and just die by itself, and probably flushed out of the body's systems.

Supposedly too, the lowest 1-year dose is around 100 milliSv, which equates to around 100,000 microSv. Even if the radiation they work in is about 1000 times greater than the regular 2-3 microSv, the workers can still last around 2-3 months before they have to be quarantined long-term.

Unless the decon facilities and MOGG-4 provided are the low-quality ones, I think that out of so many workers, only 9-10% will get cancer in the long term at most.

Yet I'ld bet on it.

If that is so, that just pretty much proved Gandhi's nonviolence attitude wrong - apparently some people REALLY need and deserve to die.

[Jinto]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

I am not just solely talking about "ionising radiation" in the form of gamma rays which is supposed to pass through even thin lead (what I was taught in school is 2mm, but our Physics teacher taught us that "Murphy's Law" applies due to the erratic and highly mysterious nature of atomic and quantum physics), I also included radioactive dust and particles that are small enough to circumvent even nanocarbon-lined filters.

Radiation can either be particle ray based (alpha, neutron/proton radiation) or an energy ray based (beta, gamma/x-ray).

Alpha radiation can be blocked by a sheet of paper or your skin (it can however cause indirect damage, similar to Bremsstrahlung coming from beta radiation).
Neutron/proton radiation is more dangerous, because it can create radioactive isotopes that were stable before they were hit (thermal and fast neutron react differently with isotopes, so tehnically one would have differentiate between the two even further). None of these types of radiation directly accumulate inside the body. At best they create radioactive isotopes that accumulate in the body.

Beta, gamma/x-ray radiation requires "heavier" protection (lead). But there are exceptions for high energy beta-radiation because the resulting Bremstrahlung of high energy beta radiation can be very hard in "heavy" absorbers like lead while it is rather soft in materials like wood. In general these types of radiation do not accumulate either, at best they generate radioactive isotopes from stable isotopes.

Radioactive dust (radioactive isotopes bound to carrier particles) is not considered to be a from of radiation itself, it merely emits radiation.

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

Also, similar in a way to chemo/radio-therapy where radiation is used to kill cancer cells, the radiation can either mutate or kill human cells, and some of the mutated cells might be rejected by the body and just die by itself, and probably flushed out of the body's systems.

Cells are seldom directly fulshed from the body. The typical process is to degrade them. However parts of the degration products maybe reused by the body and are therefore not flushed out. If tere are radioactive isotopes in the reused parts of the degraded cell, they will affect other cells and the destructive cycle goes on, until some cell's kill switch mechanism fails and it becomes a cancer cell (the seed of a tumor).

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

Supposedly too, the lowest 1-year dose is around 100 milliSv, which equates to around 100,000 microSv. Even if the radiation they work in is about 1000 times greater than the regular 2-3 microSv, the workers can still last around 2-3 months before they have to be quarantined long-term.

Actually these numbers are completely useless unless you know exactly which tissue was exposed to the radiation, and if their bodies were contaminated with radioactive isotopes or not. The problem is, that not only radiation can breed radioactive isotopes inside an organism but the organism can simply inhale or otherwise get the radioactive isotopes inside the body (though I think the workers there are very well protected against that direct way of radioactive isotope contamination - in contrast to the normal people who are living outside the plant).

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

Unless the decon facilities and MOGG-4 provided are the low-quality ones, I think that out of so many workers, only 9-10% will get cancer in the long term at most.

If that is so, that just pretty much proved Gandhi's nonviolence attitude wrong - apparently some people REALLY need and deserve to die.

You do not need to get cancer to have your life shortend.

Do you know why you are getting older (the decay aspect is meant)? Its because the cells cannot divide endlessly without loosing DNA information. Its like making a copy of a copy in copier, its quality degrades with each copy step. When the quality of the DNA is generaly bad in your body, it will increase the cancer risk AND makes many cells use their kill switch. That means, the older you become, the more cells with good DNA have to replace cells with bad DNA and this makes them divide more often, which also makes them bad DNA cells in the process. Now when you are exposed to radiation, you artificially accelerate this cell ageing mechanism, because you trigger the kill switch of many cells, that were good ones. This can shorten your overall life expectancy, but there is no study that goes so far to take such effects into account - this field of science is utterly understudied and very debated.

[Vexx]

Boat captain able to ride out tsunami, providing transport now.

Smashed boats adorn the coastline of this once-idyllic tourist spot, but Sugawara's pride and joy, "Sunflower" is intact and working overtime transporting people and aid to and from the island. It can hold around 20 people at a time.

[Highman]

Originally Posted by Vexx

Boat captain able to ride out tsunami, providing transport now.

Smashed boats adorn the coastline of this once-idyllic tourist spot, but Sugawara's pride and joy, "Sunflower" is intact and working overtime transporting people and aid to and from the island. It can hold around 20 people at a time.

Saw the video on youtube over the weekend when Tsunami/Earthquake hit happened, needs a background song added from Dio-Holy Diver. This person will be hailed as island hero in his life time.

[Green²]

"Illegal levels of radioactive substances found in Fukushima mushrooms"

Likely that the people that were doing the testing, haven't been eating the mushrooms this time.

[RRW]

Diaper-Like Material Unable to Stop Fukushima’s Radioactive Water from Leaking Into the Sea

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Green²

"Illegal levels of radioactive substances found in Fukushima mushrooms"

Likely that the people that were doing the testing, haven't been eating the mushrooms this time.

Nonono, they are eating a different kind of mushroom......

[Decagon]

To contribute to Jinto's points on cancer,

Spoiler for text:

Using the supposed safe level of radiation for a year to make working in that radioactive environment seem less deadly does not quite work. Being exposed to a constant high radiation environment means many more cells are being bombarded by much more radiation, leading to a much higher incident of mutation in cells that may otherwise have died before acquiring as many defects. It's like if every day you dropped a ball bearing from a platform onto a palette of thousands of eggs you switch every day, there is only so much damage you can do before the carton is switched versus if you dropped a cup or bucket of ball bearings.

This point is especially important concerning mutations affecting stem cells which (under normal conditions) replicate slowly and progenate many of the body's replacement cells, and are not subject to the limited life span of other cells.

As this pertains to the genetic information the cell holds, there are many mechanics that determine cell function and systems. Under nominal conditions, there are redundancies built in either in the cell itself or in the immune system that will destroy cancer cells, but these functions decrease naturally in the course of a person's life due to degradation from aging and environmental factors.

I kind of wanted to lead in to how sources of radiation (or other promoters of oncogenes) could increase things like transcriptional noise (among other things), but I think that's getting too technical. Immunology was one of my majors btw.

If you think of the cell as a city and radiation as bombs, then you can equate cancer to anarchy that arises when sufficient infrastructure and control have been destroyed (whether it's because public buildings and roads have been destroyed or because the people in power have been assassinated).

Unless the decon facilities and MOGG-4 provided are the low-quality ones, I think that out of so many workers, only 9-10% will get cancer in the long term at most.

People get cancer all the time, but the body can usually take care of the offending cells under most conditions such that the person does not notice. People who live without cancer just have a combination of more robust systems in place to curb it, whether it is killing the cancerous cells or processing carcinogenic factors and their effects. As it relates to the people doing the repair and cleanup, the older members of the team will probably be more susceptible to developing cancer from their work there. If TEPCO's got any more of those illegal teenage workers, they may be at greater risk than regular adults.

[yezhanquan]

Anyone knows if the areas hit by the big waves are undergoing clean-up and reconstruction, or is everyone's attention on the nuclear crisis?

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

It is better fixed that way : the recent local politics over here made me think that, actually some of those with crude oratory speak more sense than the nice sounding politicians.

As a rule of thumb, I distrust orators. The more passion the speeches whip up, the more worried I am. Hitler in RL and Mark Antony in fiction are enough warnings.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by yezhanquan

As a rule of thumb, I distrust orators. The more passion the speeches whip up, the more worried I am. Hitler in RL and Mark Antony in fiction are enough warnings.

I don't listen to most debates. I wait for manuscripts or minutes to be released so I read them.

Apparently being partially deaf isn't so bad after all.

[Lord of Fire]

Originally Posted by yezhanquan

Anyone knows if the areas hit by the big waves are undergoing clean-up and reconstruction, or is everyone's attention on the nuclear crisis?

From what I read in today's newspaper, chances are high that they'll abandon those sites altogether and rebuild the towns on higher ground, mostly because not many people want to live that close to the sea again, in fear of another tsunami.

[Jinto]

Originally Posted by Lord of Fire

From what I read in today's newspaper, chances are high that they'll abandon those sites altogether and rebuild the towns on higher ground, mostly because not many people want to live that close to the sea again, in fear of another tsunami.

Given the mobilty you can have with cars and public transport, this doesn't sound like a bad idea.