EARTHQUAKES
MATTHEW 24:7-8
7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.
MARK 13:8
8 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom:(ETHNIC GROUP AGAINST ETHNIC GROUP) and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows.
LUKE 21:11
11 And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.
ITS 2:32PM SUN MAR 13,11 AND THERES MUTIPLE NUKE MELTDOWNS AND THE DEATH TOLL IS PAST 10,000 AND CLIMBING.
ITS 4:06PM SUN MAR 13,11 AND THE FRIDAY QUAKE SET OFF VOLCANOES IN INDONESIA,RUSSIA AND NOW ONE IN JAPAN TODAY.ITS NOW REPORTED THAT 8 REACTORS ARE MELTING DOWN FROM 2 SEPARATE NUCLEAR SITES.200,000 HAVE BEEN EVACUATED FROM AROUND THE ONE 13 MILE RADIAS AROUND THE ONE SITE.22 TOTAL REACTORS HAVE CONFIRMED RADIATION CONTAMINATION.3 PLANT WORKERS HAVE FULL-OUT RADIATION SICKNESS.AND 200 CITIZENS HAVE BEEN DETECTED WITH RADIATION IN THEIR SYSTEMS SO FAR.JAPAN IS THE WORLD'S 3RD LARGEST NUCLEAR ENERGY PRODUCER.THIS WILL WEAKEN JAPAN BIGTIME.AND NOW WE KNOW WHEN THE BIBLE SAYS CHINA WILL LEAD THE KINGS OR COUNTRIES OF THE EAST IN THE WW3 INVASION TO THE MIDEAST.IF THERES MORE GIGANTIC QUAKES,THEN TSUNAMIS IN ASIA LIKE THIS ONE.THEY(CHINA)WILL BE THE ONLY MAJOR POWER IN ASIA WITH NUKES AND A GIGANTIC ARMY.THE BIBLE SAYS A 200 MILLION MAN ARMY CHINA LEADS WITH WHEN THE INVASION OF THE MIDEAST OCCURS.JAPAN IS CLASSIFIED AS A LEVEL 4 OR 5 ON THE NUCLEAR SCALE OF 7 AN ANALAYST SAID ON TV TODAY.
ITS NOW CONFIRMED THERES BEEN A 2ND HYDROGEN EXPLOSION AT PLANT 3.THE EXPLOSION FROM THE 2ND EXPLOSION WAS FELT 30 MILES AWAY AND THEY CLAIM THE CONTAINER IS STILL INTACT. 3 DIFFERENT REACTORS ARE ACTING UP IN JAPAN NOW THE 2ND EXPLOSION WAS AT THE SITE WERE THE FIRST EXPLOSION OCCURED.AND A GIGANTIC MUDSLIDE HAS OCCURED IN JAPAN CAUSING A 6 FOOT TSUNAMI AS THE BELLS WERE GOING OFF WARNING OF A TSUNAMI COMING IN JUST MINUTES AGO AND ITS 10:45PM MAR 13,11.NOW THERE SAYING IT WAS NOT A LANDSLIDE THAT SET A 6 FOOT TSUNAMI OFF BUT IT WAS THE 2ND EXPLOSION FROM THE PLANT.IT CONFUSED THE TSUNAMI ALERT SYSTEM INTO THINKING IT WAS A BIG EARTHQUAKE.AND THE TSUNAMI WARNING WAS THEN CALLED OFF.
3 injured, 7 missing in blast at Japan nuke plant
-MAR 13,11 11:33PM
TOKYO – Tokyo Electric Power Co. says three workers have been injured and seven are missing after an explosion at the stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant.Japan's chief cabinet secretary says a hydrogen explosion occurred Monday at the facility's Unit 3. The blast was similar to an earlier one at a different unit at the facility.
Yukio Edano says people within a 12-mile (20-kilometer) radius were ordered inside following the blast. AP journalists felt the explosion 25 miles (40 kilometers) away.
Edano says the reactor's inner containment vessel holding nuclear rods is intact, allaying some fears of the risk to the environment and public.More than 180,000 people have evacuated the area in recent days.THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.TOKYO (AP) — Japan's chief cabinet secretary says a hydrogen explosion has occurred at Unit 3 of Japan's stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant. The blast was similar to an earlier one at a different unit of the facility.Yukio Edano says people within a 12-mile (20-kilometer) radius were ordered inside following Monday's. AP journalists felt the explosion 30 miles (50 kilometers) away.Edano says the reactor's inner containment vessel holding nuclear rods is intact, allaying some fears of the risk to the environment and public.The No. 3 Unit reactor had been under emergency watch for a possible explosion as pressure built up there following a hydrogen blast Saturday in the facility's Unit 1.More than 180,000 people have evacuated the area.
Soldiers warn of tsunami threat in NE Japan By Eric Talmadge, Associated Press – MAAR 13,11 11:15PM
SOMA, Japan – Soldiers and officials along a stretch of Japan's northeastern coast warned residents that the area could be hit by another tsunami Monday and ordered them to higher ground. But the Meteorological Agency said there was no risk of another deadly wave.The warning came as an explosion rocked the nearby Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant. The blast was felt 30 miles (50 kilometers) away by Associated Press journalists in the coastal town of Soma, where residents fled the town for safety after being herded quickly through muddy, debris-strewn streets.TV footage showed a massive column of smoke belching from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant's No. 3 unit, about 125 miles (190 kilometers) north of Tokyo. Japanese officials said they believe it was a hydrogen explosion similar to an earlier one at a different unit in the facility. The problems at the plant stem from failed cooling systems caused by damage from Friday's earthquake and tsunami.More than 180,000 people have evacuated the area, and up to 160 may have been exposed to radiation.Before the power plant blast, sirens around Soma, which was battered by Friday's tsunami, went off and public address systems ordered residents to safety.
Farther south along the coast, helicopters flew over coastal communities warning residents to head to higher ground. In Sendai, the biggest city in the area, police announced warnings on a public address system.In Tokyo and elsewhere, authorities began rolling blackouts to conserve power as they tried desperately to stabilize the nuclear reactors at risk of meltdown in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami. The disasters sent Tokyo's stock market plunging as it opened, raising fears of a steep economic toll on top of the already overwhelming human suffering.The planned blackouts of about three hours each in Tokyo and other cities are meant to help make up for the loss of power from key nuclear plants. Trade Minister Banri Kaieda said Sunday that the power utility expects a 25 percent shortfall.Some 1.9 million households were without electricity, but many people were without even more basic necessities. At least 1.4 million households had gone without water since the quake struck, and food aid was slow in reaching many areas.Friday's quake and tsunami, which swallowed towns and tossed large ships like game-board pieces, caused tens of billions of dollars in losses, according to preliminary estimates. And the first day of stock trading since the disasters opening underlined the challenges Japan's already fragile economy will have in bouncing back.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 stock average shed 494 points, or 4.8 percent, to 9,760.45 just after the market opened Monday. Japan's central bank quickly responded by injecting 7 trillion yen (US$85.5 billion) into money markets.The most urgent crisis remained at a nuclear plant along the ravaged northeastern coast, where operators worked frantically to try to lower temperatures of crippled reactors. Four nuclear plants had at least some damage, but two reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex were at the greatest risk of meltdown.Operators dumped seawater into the two reactors in a last-ditch cooling effort. More than 180,000 people have evacuated the area, and up to 160 may have been exposed to radiation.Officials have confirmed about 1,800 deaths from the earthquake and tsunami — including 200 people whose bodies were found Sunday along the coast — and said more than 1,700 were missing and 1,900 injured.The death toll seemed certain to get much higher after a report from Miyagi, one of the three hardest hit states. The police chief estimated that more than 10,000 people were killed there, police spokesman Go Sugawara told The Associated Press. Only about 400 people in the state of 2.3 million have been confirmed dead so far.Todd Pitman reported from Sendai. Associated Press writers Eric Talmadge and Kelly Olsen in Koriyama and Malcolm J. Foster, Mari Yamaguchi, Tomoko A. Hosaka and Shino Yuasa in Tokyo contributed to this report.
How the Japan Earthquake Shortened Days on Earth
Space.com Space.com Staff,space.com – Sun Mar 13, 3:15 am ET
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.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]By changing the distribution of the Earth's mass, the Japanese earthquake should have caused the Earth to rotate a bit faster, shortening the length of the day by about 1.8 microseconds," Gross told SPACE.com in an e-mail. More refinements are possible as new information on the earthquake comes to light, he added.
The scenario is similar to that of a figure skater drawing her arms inward during a spin to turn faster on the ice. The closer the mass shift during an earthquake is to the equator, the more it will speed up the spinning Earth.One Earth day is about 24 hours, or 86,400 seconds, long. Over the course of a year, its length varies by about one millisecond, or 1,000 microseconds, due to seasonal variations in the planet's mass distribution such as the seasonal shift of the jet stream.The initial data suggests Friday's earthquake moved Japan's main island about 8 feet, according to Kenneth Hudnut of the U.S. Geological Survey. The earthquake also shifted Earth's figure axis by about 6 1/2 inches (17 centimeters), Gross added.The Earth's figure axis is not the same as its north-south axis in space, which it spins around once every day at a speed of about 1,000 mph (1,604 kph). The figure axis is the axis around which the Earth's mass is balanced and the north-south axis by about 33 feet (10 meters).This shift in the position of the figure axis will cause the Earth to wobble a bit differently as it rotates, but will not cause a shift of the Earth's axis in space – only external forces like the gravitational attraction of the sun, moon, and planets can do that, Gross said.This isn't the first time a massive earthquake has changed the length of Earth's day. Major temblors have shortened day length in the past.The 8.8-magnitude earthquake in Chile last year also sped up the planet's rotation and shortened the day by 1.26 microseconds. The 9.1 Sumatra earthquake in 2004 shortened the day by 6.8 microseconds.And the impact from Japan's 8.9-magnitude temblor may not be completely over.The weaker aftershocks may contribute tiny changes to day length as well.
The March 11 quake was the largest ever recorded in Japan and is the world's fifth largest earthquake to strike since 1900, according to the USGS. It struck offshore about 231 miles (373 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo and 80 miles (130 km) east of the city of Sendai, and created a massive tsunami that has devastated Japan's northeastern coastal areas. At least 20 aftershocks registering a 6.0 magnitude or higher have followed the main temblor.In theory, anything that redistributes the Earth's mass will change the Earth's rotation, Gross said. So in principle the smaller aftershocks will also have an effect on the Earth's rotation. But since the aftershocks are smaller their effect will also be smaller.
10K dead in Japan amid fears of nuclear meltdowns By JAY ALABASTER and TODD PITMAN, Associated Press - MAR 13,11
SENDAI, Japan – The estimated death toll from Japan's disasters climbed past 10,000 Sunday as authorities raced to combat the threat of multiple nuclear reactor meltdowns and hundreds of thousands of people struggled to find food and water. The prime minister said it was the nation's worst crisis since World War II.Nuclear plant operators worked frantically to try to keep temperatures down in several reactors crippled by the earthquake and tsunami, wrecking at least two by dumping sea water into them in last-ditch efforts to avoid meltdowns. Officials warned of a second explosion but said it would not pose a health threat.Near-freezing temperatures compounded the misery of survivors along hundreds of miles (kilometers) of the northeastern coast battered by the tsunami that smashed inland with breathtaking fury. Rescuers pulled bodies from mud-covered jumbles of wrecked houses, shattered tree trunks, twisted cars and tangled power lines while survivors examined the ruined remains.One rare bit of good news was the rescue of a 60-year-old man swept away by the tsunami who clung to the roof of his house for two days until a military vessel spotted him waving a red cloth about 10 miles (15 kilometers) offshore.The death toll surged because of a report from Miyagi, one of the three hardest hit states. The police chief told disaster relief officials more than 10,000 people were killed, police spokesman Go Sugawara told The Associated Press. That was an estimate — only 400 people have been confirmed dead in Miyagi, which has a population of 2.3 million.
According to officials, more than 1,400 people were confirmed dead — including 200 people whose bodies were found Sunday along the coast — and more than 1,000 were missing in Friday's disasters. Another 1,700 were injured.For Japan, one of the world's leading economies with ultramodern infrastructure, the disasters plunged ordinary life into nearly unimaginable deprivation.Hundreds of thousands of hungry survivors huddled in darkened emergency centers that were cut off from rescuers, aid and electricity. At least 1.4 million households had gone without water since the quake struck and some 1.9 million households were without electricity.While the government doubled the number of soldiers deployed in the aid effort to 100,000 and sent 120,000 blankets, 120,000 bottles of water and 29,000 gallons (110,000 liters) of gasoline plus food to the affected areas, Prime Minister Naoto Kan said electricity would take days to restore. In the meantime, he said, electricity would be rationed with rolling blackouts to several cities, including Tokyo.This is Japan's most severe crisis since the war ended 65 years ago, Kan told reporters, adding that Japan's future would be decided by its response.In Rikuzentakata, a port city of over 20,000 virtually wiped out by the tsunami, Etsuko Koyama escaped the water rushing through the third floor of her home but lost her grip on her daughter's hand and has not found her.I haven't given up hope yet, Koyama told public broadcaster NHK, wiping tears from her eyes. I saved myself, but I couldn't save my daughter.A young man described what ran through his mind before he escaped in a separate rescue. I thought to myself, ah, this is how I will die, Tatsuro Ishikawa, his face bruised and cut, told NHK as he sat in striped hospital pajamas.
Japanese officials raised their estimate Sunday of the quake's magnitude to 9.0, a notch above the U.S. Geological Survey's reading of 8.9. Either way, it was the strongest quake ever recorded in Japan, which lies on a seismically active arc. A volcano on the southern island of Kyushu — hundreds of miles (kilometers) from the quake' epicenter — also resumed spewing ash and rock Sunday after a couple of quiet weeks, Japan's weather agency said.Dozens of countries have offered assistance. Two U.S. aircraft carrier groups were off Japan's coast and ready to help. Helicopters were flying from one of the carriers, the USS Ronald Reagan, delivering food and water in Miyagi.Two other U.S. rescue teams of 72 personnel each and rescue dogs arrived Sunday, as did a five-dog team from Singapore.Still, large areas of the countryside remained surrounded by water and unreachable. Fuel stations were closed, though at some, cars waited in lines hundreds of vehicles long.The United States and a several countries in Europe urged their citizens to avoid travel to Japan. France took the added step of suggesting people leave Tokyo in case radiation reached the city.Community after community traced the vast extent of the devastation. In the town of Minamisanrikucho, 10,000 people — nearly two-thirds of the population — have not been heard from since the tsunami wiped it out, a government spokesman said. NHK showed only a couple concrete structures still standing, and the bottom three floors of those buildings gutted. One of the few standing was a hospital, and a worker told NHK that hospital staff rescued about a third of the patients.
In the hard-hit port city of Sendai, firefighters with wooden picks dug through a devastated neighborhood. One of them yelled: A corpse. Inside a house, he had found the body of a gray-haired woman under a blanket.A few minutes later, the firefighters spotted another — that of a man in black fleece jacket and pants, crumpled in a partial fetal position at the bottom of a wooden stairwell. From outside, while the top of the house seemed almost untouched, the first floor where the body was had been inundated. A minivan lay embedded in one outer wall, which had been ripped away, pulverized beside a mangled bicycle.The man's neighbor, 24-year-old Ayumi Osuga, dug through the remains of her own house, her white mittens covered by dark mud.Osuga said she had been practicing origami, the Japanese art of folding paper into figures, with her three children when the quake stuck. She recalled her husband's shouted warning from outside: GET OUT OF THERE NOW! She gathered her children — aged 2 to 6 — and fled in her car to higher ground with her husband. They spent the night in a hilltop home belonging to her husband's family about 12 miles (20 kilometers) away.My family, my children. We are lucky to be alive, she said.
I have come to realize what is important in life, Osuga said, nervously flicking ashes from a cigarette onto the rubble at her feet as a giant column of black smoke billowed in the distance.As night fell and temperatures dropped to freezing in Sendai, people who had slept in underpasses or offices the past two nights gathered for warmth in community centers, schools and City Hall.At a large refinery on the outskirts of the city, 100-foot (30-meter) -high bright orange flames rose in the air, spitting out dark plumes of smoke. The facility has been burning since Friday. The fire's roar could be heard from afar. Smoke burned the eyes and throat, and a gaseous stench hung in the air.In the small town of Tagajo, also near Sendai, dazed residents roamed streets cluttered with smashed cars, broken homes and twisted metal.Residents said the water surged in and quickly rose higher than the first floor of buildings. At Sengen General Hospital, the staff worked feverishly to haul bedridden patients up the stairs one at a time. With the halls now dark, those who can leave have gone to the local community center.There is still no water or power, and we've got some very sick people in here, said hospital official Ikuro Matsumoto.
Police cars drove slowly through the town and warned residents through loudspeakers to seek higher ground, but most simply stood by and watched them pass.In the town of Iwaki, there was no electricity, stores were closed and residents left as food and fuel supplies dwindled. Local police took in about 90 people and gave them blankets and rice balls, but there was no sign of government or military aid trucks. Todd Pitman reported from Sendai. Associated Press writers Eric Talmadge and Kelly Olsen in Koriyama and Malcolm J. Foster, Mari Yamaguchi, Tomoko A. Hosaka and Shino Yuasa in Tokyo contributed to this report.
Japan police find another 200 bodies By SHINO YUASA, Associated Press - MAR 13,11
TOKYO – Police say they have found another 200 bodies in quake-hit coastal areas in northern Japan.A police official in Miyagi said Sunday authorities were recovering the bodies. The official declined to be identified, citing department policy. He declined to give further details.Friday's 8.9 quake was the biggest to hit Japan since record-keeping began in the late 1800s and one of the biggest ever recorded in the world. It was followed by a massive tsunami.
Facts About Acute Radiation Syndrome
Margie Miklas – Sat Mar 12, 3:54 pm ET
The Fukushima nuclear plant suffered a leak after the devastating earthquake and tsunami struck Japan. Fears of radiation poisoning fueled the government to try to prevent exposure by the distribution of iodine.According the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, acute radiation syndrome (ARS), known also as radiation poisoning or radiation sickness, is a serious disease, which can occur any time the body is exposed to very high doses of ionizing radiation in a short time frame. The degree to which you may experience symptoms correlates directly to the amount of radiation absorbed by your body. Here are some facts on acute radiation syndrome.
-In order to develop acute radiation syndrome the radiation must penetrate the body to reach your internal organs. Radiation from X-rays and medical procedures such as CT scans are typically too low to cause this, although cancer treatment radiation may possibly be in high enough doses to create symptoms.
-To develop ARS, you must have been exposed to the radiation in a short amount of time, within minutes, and your whole body must have received the exposure.
-Symptoms begin within minutes to days after exposure and they include nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. These can last for several minutes or several days and may be intermittent.
-After the initial symptoms wear off, you may feel like you have recovered and then you will get, sick again, this time more seriously, with symptoms of fever, fatigue, loss of appetite, vomiting and diarrhea. You may even develop seizure and coma. This stage can last much longer, up to several months.
-Damage to your skin can appear within a few hours after exposure and may last a few weeks to a few years, depending on the severity of the dose of radiation exposure. Symptoms include swelling and itching and a burn similar to severe sunburn. Hair loss may accompany these symptoms.
-Death can occur and the probabilities depend upon the amount of radiation received. If death occurs as a result of ARS, in most cases, it is within a few months of exposure, due to bone marrow destruction, infection and bleeding.
-Survivors of ARS may continue to deal with symptoms up to two years after exposure.
-Treatment consists of preventing further contamination, reducing symptoms, treating organs that have been damaged and controlling pain.
-Decontamination is a process that removes external contamination by radioactive particles. Removal of clothing and shoes accomplishes this by removing approximately 90 percent of contamination. Washing your skin will also aid in further removal of any radioactive particles.Margie Miklas is a critical-care nurse with more than 30 years experience. She currently works in south Florida in a cardiovascular ICU with a specialty certification in cardiac surgery.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Parshah Tzav - Leviticus 6:1-8:36
SINCE WHAT ISRAEL READS WILL BE FULFILLED IN THAT WEEK I WILL BE PUTTING THE WEEKLY TORAH PORTION ON FOR ALL OF US TO KEEP TRACK OF ISRAEL HAPPENINGS.
TORAH PORTION FROM MAR 13 2011 6PM - MAR 19 6PM 2011
LEVITICUS 6:1 - 8:36
1 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
2 If a soul sin, and commit a trespass against the LORD, and lie unto his neighbour in that which was delivered him to keep, or in fellowship, or in a thing taken away by violence, or hath deceived his neighbour;
3 Or have found that which was lost, and lieth concerning it, and sweareth falsely; in any of all these that a man doeth, sinning therein:
4 Then it shall be, because he hath sinned, and is guilty, that he shall restore that which he took violently away, or the thing which he hath deceitfully gotten, or that which was delivered him to keep, or the lost thing which he found,
5 Or all that about which he hath sworn falsely; he shall even restore it in the principal, and shall add the fifth part more thereto, and give it unto him to whom it appertaineth, in the day of his trespass offering.
6 And he shall bring his trespass offering unto the LORD, a ram without blemish out of the flock, with thy estimation, for a trespass offering, unto the priest:
7 And the priest shall make an atonement for him before the LORD: and it shall be forgiven him for any thing of all that he hath done in trespassing therein.
8 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
9 Command Aaron and his sons, saying, This is the law of the burnt offering: It is the burnt offering, because of the burning upon the altar all night unto the morning, and the fire of the altar shall be burning in it.
10 And the priest shall put on his linen garment, and his linen breeches shall he put upon his flesh, and take up the ashes which the fire hath consumed with the burnt offering on the altar, and he shall put them beside the altar.
11 And he shall put off his garments, and put on other garments, and carry forth the ashes without the camp unto a clean place.
12 And the fire upon the altar shall be burning in it; it shall not be put out: and the priest shall burn wood on it every morning, and lay the burnt offering in order upon it; and he shall burn thereon the fat of the peace offerings.
13 The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out.
14 And this is the law of the meat offering: the sons of Aaron shall offer it before the LORD, before the altar.
15 And he shall take of it his handful, of the flour of the meat offering, and of the oil thereof, and all the frankincense which is upon the meat offering, and shall burn it upon the altar for a sweet savour, even the memorial of it, unto the LORD.
16 And the remainder thereof shall Aaron and his sons eat: with unleavened bread shall it be eaten in the holy place; in the court of the tabernacle of the congregation they shall eat it.
17 It shall not be baken with leaven. I have given it unto them for their portion of my offerings made by fire; it is most holy, as is the sin offering, and as the trespass offering.
18 All the males among the children of Aaron shall eat of it. It shall be a statute for ever in your generations concerning the offerings of the LORD made by fire: every one that toucheth them shall be holy.
19 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
20 This is the offering of Aaron and of his sons, which they shall offer unto the LORD in the day when he is anointed; the tenth part of an ephah of fine flour for a meat offering perpetual, half of it in the morning, and half thereof at night.
21 In a pan it shall be made with oil; and when it is baken, thou shalt bring it in: and the baken pieces of the meat offering shalt thou offer for a sweet savour unto the LORD.
22 And the priest of his sons that is anointed in his stead shall offer it: it is a statute for ever unto the LORD; it shall be wholly burnt.
23 For every meat offering for the priest shall be wholly burnt: it shall not be eaten.
24 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
25 Speak unto Aaron and to his sons, saying, This is the law of the sin offering: In the place where the burnt offering is killed shall the sin offering be killed before the LORD: it is most holy.
26 The priest that offereth it for sin shall eat it: in the holy place shall it be eaten, in the court of the tabernacle of the congregation.
27 Whatsoever shall touch the flesh thereof shall be holy: and when there is sprinkled of the blood thereof upon any garment, thou shalt wash that whereon it was sprinkled in the holy place.
28 But the earthen vessel wherein it is sodden shall be broken: and if it be sodden in a brasen pot, it shall be both scoured, and rinsed in water.
29 All the males among the priests shall eat thereof: it is most holy.
30 And no sin offering, whereof any of the blood is brought into the tabernacle of the congregation to reconcile withal in the holy place, shall be eaten: it shall be burnt in the fire.
LEVITICUS 7:1-38
1 Likewise this is the law of the trespass offering: it is most holy.
2 In the place where they kill the burnt offering shall they kill the trespass offering: and the blood thereof shall he sprinkle round about upon the altar.
3 And he shall offer of it all the fat thereof; the rump, and the fat that covereth the inwards,
4 And the two kidneys, and the fat that is on them, which is by the flanks, and the caul that is above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away:
5 And the priest shall burn them upon the altar for an offering made by fire unto the LORD: it is a trespass offering.
6 Every male among the priests shall eat thereof: it shall be eaten in the holy place: it is most holy.
7 As the sin offering is, so is the trespass offering: there is one law for them: the priest that maketh atonement therewith shall have it.
8 And the priest that offereth any man's burnt offering, even the priest shall have to himself the skin of the burnt offering which he hath offered.
9 And all the meat offering that is baken in the oven, and all that is dressed in the fryingpan, and in the pan, shall be the priest's that offereth it.
10 And every meat offering, mingled with oil, and dry, shall all the sons of Aaron have, one as much as another.
11 And this is the law of the sacrifice of peace offerings, which he shall offer unto the LORD.
12 If he offer it for a thanksgiving, then he shall offer with the sacrifice of thanksgiving unleavened cakes mingled with oil, and unleavened wafers anointed with oil, and cakes mingled with oil, of fine flour, fried.
13 Besides the cakes, he shall offer for his offering leavened bread with the sacrifice of thanksgiving of his peace offerings.
14 And of it he shall offer one out of the whole oblation for an heave offering unto the LORD, and it shall be the priest's that sprinkleth the blood of the peace offerings.
15 And the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offerings for thanksgiving shall be eaten the same day that it is offered; he shall not leave any of it until the morning.
16 But if the sacrifice of his offering be a vow, or a voluntary offering, it shall be eaten the same day that he offereth his sacrifice: and on the morrow also the remainder of it shall be eaten:
17 But the remainder of the flesh of the sacrifice on the third day shall be burnt with fire.
18 And if any of the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offerings be eaten at all on the third day, it shall not be accepted, neither shall it be imputed unto him that offereth it: it shall be an abomination, and the soul that eateth of it shall bear his iniquity.
19 And the flesh that toucheth any unclean thing shall not be eaten; it shall be burnt with fire: and as for the flesh, all that be clean shall eat thereof.
20 But the soul that eateth of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace offerings, that pertain unto the LORD, having his uncleanness upon him, even that soul shall be cut off from his people.
21 Moreover the soul that shall touch any unclean thing, as the uncleanness of man, or any unclean beast, or any abominable unclean thing, and eat of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace offerings, which pertain unto the LORD, even that soul shall be cut off from his people.
22 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
23 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, Ye shall eat no manner of fat, of ox, or of sheep, or of goat.
24 And the fat of the beast that dieth of itself, and the fat of that which is torn with beasts, may be used in any other use: but ye shall in no wise eat of it.
25 For whosoever eateth the fat of the beast, of which men offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD, even the soul that eateth it shall be cut off from his people.
26 Moreover ye shall eat no manner of blood, whether it be of fowl or of beast, in any of your dwellings.
27 Whatsoever soul it be that eateth any manner of blood, even that soul shall be cut off from his people.
28 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
29 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, He that offereth the sacrifice of his peace offerings unto the LORD shall bring his oblation unto the LORD of the sacrifice of his peace offerings.
30 His own hands shall bring the offerings of the LORD made by fire, the fat with the breast, it shall he bring, that the breast may be waved for a wave offering before the LORD.
31 And the priest shall burn the fat upon the altar: but the breast shall be Aaron's and his sons'.
32 And the right shoulder shall ye give unto the priest for an heave offering of the sacrifices of your peace offerings.
33 He among the sons of Aaron, that offereth the blood of the peace offerings, and the fat, shall have the right shoulder for his part.
34 For the wave breast and the heave shoulder have I taken of the children of Israel from off the sacrifices of their peace offerings, and have given them unto Aaron the priest and unto his sons by a statute for ever from among the children of Israel.
35 This is the portion of the anointing of Aaron, and of the anointing of his sons, out of the offerings of the LORD made by fire, in the day when he presented them to minister unto the LORD in the priest's office;
36 Which the LORD commanded to be given them of the children of Israel, in the day that he anointed them, by a statute for ever throughout their generations.
37 This is the law of the burnt offering, of the meat offering, and of the sin offering, and of the trespass offering, and of the consecrations, and of the sacrifice of the peace offerings;
38 Which the LORD commanded Moses in mount Sinai, in the day that he commanded the children of Israel to offer their oblations unto the LORD, in the wilderness of Sinai.
LEVITICUS 8:1-36
1 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
2 Take Aaron and his sons with him, and the garments, and the anointing oil, and a bullock for the sin offering, and two rams, and a basket of unleavened bread;
3 And gather thou all the congregation together unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
4 And Moses did as the LORD commanded him; and the assembly was gathered together unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
5 And Moses said unto the congregation, This is the thing which the LORD commanded to be done.
6 And Moses brought Aaron and his sons, and washed them with water.
7 And he put upon him the coat, and girded him with the girdle, and clothed him with the robe, and put the ephod upon him, and he girded him with the curious girdle of the ephod, and bound it unto him therewith.
8 And he put the breastplate upon him: also he put in the breastplate the Urim and the Thummim.
9 And he put the mitre upon his head; also upon the mitre, even upon his forefront, did he put the golden plate, the holy crown; as the LORD commanded Moses.
10 And Moses took the anointing oil, and anointed the tabernacle and all that was therein, and sanctified them.
11 And he sprinkled thereof upon the altar seven times, and anointed the altar and all his vessels, both the laver and his foot, to sanctify them.
12 And he poured of the anointing oil upon Aaron's head, and anointed him, to sanctify him.
13 And Moses brought Aaron's sons, and put coats upon them, and girded them with girdles, and put bonnets upon them; as the LORD commanded Moses.
14 And he brought the bullock for the sin offering: and Aaron and his sons laid their hands upon the head of the bullock for the sin offering.
15 And he slew it; and Moses took the blood, and put it upon the horns of the altar round about with his finger, and purified the altar, and poured the blood at the bottom of the altar, and sanctified it, to make reconciliation upon it.
16 And he took all the fat that was upon the inwards, and the caul above the liver, and the two kidneys, and their fat, and Moses burned it upon the altar.
17 But the bullock, and his hide, his flesh, and his dung, he burnt with fire without the camp; as the LORD commanded Moses.
18 And he brought the ram for the burnt offering: and Aaron and his sons laid their hands upon the head of the ram.
19 And he killed it; and Moses sprinkled the blood upon the altar round about.
20 And he cut the ram into pieces; and Moses burnt the head, and the pieces, and the fat.
21 And he washed the inwards and the legs in water; and Moses burnt the whole ram upon the altar: it was a burnt sacrifice for a sweet savour, and an offering made by fire unto the LORD; as the LORD commanded Moses.
22 And he brought the other ram, the ram of consecration: and Aaron and his sons laid their hands upon the head of the ram.
23 And he slew it; and Moses took of the blood of it, and put it upon the tip of Aaron's right ear, and upon the thumb of his right hand, and upon the great toe of his right foot.
24 And he brought Aaron's sons, and Moses put of the blood upon the tip of their right ear, and upon the thumbs of their right hands, and upon the great toes of their right feet: and Moses sprinkled the blood upon the altar round about.
25 And he took the fat, and the rump, and all the fat that was upon the inwards, and the caul above the liver, and the two kidneys, and their fat, and the right shoulder:
26 And out of the basket of unleavened bread, that was before the LORD, he took one unleavened cake, and a cake of oiled bread, and one wafer, and put them on the fat, and upon the right shoulder:
27 And he put all upon Aaron's hands, and upon his sons' hands, and waved them for a wave offering before the LORD.
28 And Moses took them from off their hands, and burnt them on the altar upon the burnt offering: they were consecrations for a sweet savour: it is an offering made by fire unto the LORD.
29 And Moses took the breast, and waved it for a wave offering before the LORD: for of the ram of consecration it was Moses' part; as the LORD commanded Moses.
30 And Moses took of the anointing oil, and of the blood which was upon the altar, and sprinkled it upon Aaron, and upon his garments, and upon his sons, and upon his sons' garments with him; and sanctified Aaron, and his garments, and his sons, and his sons' garments with him.
31 And Moses said unto Aaron and to his sons, Boil the flesh at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation: and there eat it with the bread that is in the basket of consecrations, as I commanded, saying, Aaron and his sons shall eat it.
32 And that which remaineth of the flesh and of the bread shall ye burn with fire.
33 And ye shall not go out of the door of the tabernacle of the congregation in seven days, until the days of your consecration be at an end: for seven days shall he consecrate you.
34 As he hath done this day, so the LORD hath commanded to do, to make an atonement for you.
35 Therefore shall ye abide at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation day and night seven days, and keep the charge of the LORD, that ye die not: for so I am commanded.
36 So Aaron and his sons did all things which the LORD commanded by the hand of Moses.
PROPHETS PORTION
JEREMIAH 7:21-8:3
21 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Put your burnt offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat flesh.
22 For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices:
23 But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you.
24 But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward.
25 Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt unto this day I have even sent unto you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them:
26 Yet they hearkened not unto me, nor inclined their ear, but hardened their neck: they did worse than their fathers.
27 Therefore thou shalt speak all these words unto them; but they will not hearken to thee: thou shalt also call unto them; but they will not answer thee.
28 But thou shalt say unto them, This is a nation that obeyeth not the voice of the LORD their God, nor receiveth correction: truth is perished, and is cut off from their mouth.
29 Cut off thine hair, O Jerusalem, and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on high places; for the LORD hath rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.
30 For the children of Judah have done evil in my sight, saith the LORD: they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to pollute it.
31 And they have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my heart.
32 Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that it shall no more be called Tophet, nor the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter: for they shall bury in Tophet, till there be no place.
33 And the carcases of this people shall be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth; and none shall fray them away.
34 Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride: for the land shall be desolate.
1 At that time, saith the LORD, they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves:
2 And they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all the host of heaven, whom they have loved, and whom they have served, and after whom they have walked, and whom they have sought, and whom they have worshipped: they shall not be gathered, nor be buried; they shall be for dung upon the face of the earth.
3 And death shall be chosen rather than life by all the residue of them that remain of this evil family, which remain in all the places whither I have driven them, saith the LORD of hosts.
JEREMIAH 9:22-24
22 Speak, Thus saith the LORD, Even the carcases of men shall fall as dung upon the open field, and as the handful after the harvestman, and none shall gather them.
23 Thus saith the LORD, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches:
24 But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the LORD.
NEW TESTAMENT PORTION
MARK 12:28-34
28 And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, Which is the first commandment of all?
29 And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:
30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.
31 And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.
32 And the scribe said unto him, Well, Master, thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but he:
33 And to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.
34 And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. And no man after that durst ask him any question.
ROMANS 12:1-2
1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
1 CORINTHIANS 10:14-23
14 Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry.
15 I speak as to wise men; judge ye what I say.
16 The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?
17 For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread.
18 Behold Israel after the flesh: are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?
19 What say I then? that the idol is any thing, or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is any thing?
20 But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils.
21 Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table, and of the table of devils.
22 Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? are we stronger than he?
23 All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not.
TORAH PORTION FROM MAR 13 2011 6PM - MAR 19 6PM 2011
LEVITICUS 6:1 - 8:36
1 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
2 If a soul sin, and commit a trespass against the LORD, and lie unto his neighbour in that which was delivered him to keep, or in fellowship, or in a thing taken away by violence, or hath deceived his neighbour;
3 Or have found that which was lost, and lieth concerning it, and sweareth falsely; in any of all these that a man doeth, sinning therein:
4 Then it shall be, because he hath sinned, and is guilty, that he shall restore that which he took violently away, or the thing which he hath deceitfully gotten, or that which was delivered him to keep, or the lost thing which he found,
5 Or all that about which he hath sworn falsely; he shall even restore it in the principal, and shall add the fifth part more thereto, and give it unto him to whom it appertaineth, in the day of his trespass offering.
6 And he shall bring his trespass offering unto the LORD, a ram without blemish out of the flock, with thy estimation, for a trespass offering, unto the priest:
7 And the priest shall make an atonement for him before the LORD: and it shall be forgiven him for any thing of all that he hath done in trespassing therein.
8 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
9 Command Aaron and his sons, saying, This is the law of the burnt offering: It is the burnt offering, because of the burning upon the altar all night unto the morning, and the fire of the altar shall be burning in it.
10 And the priest shall put on his linen garment, and his linen breeches shall he put upon his flesh, and take up the ashes which the fire hath consumed with the burnt offering on the altar, and he shall put them beside the altar.
11 And he shall put off his garments, and put on other garments, and carry forth the ashes without the camp unto a clean place.
12 And the fire upon the altar shall be burning in it; it shall not be put out: and the priest shall burn wood on it every morning, and lay the burnt offering in order upon it; and he shall burn thereon the fat of the peace offerings.
13 The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out.
14 And this is the law of the meat offering: the sons of Aaron shall offer it before the LORD, before the altar.
15 And he shall take of it his handful, of the flour of the meat offering, and of the oil thereof, and all the frankincense which is upon the meat offering, and shall burn it upon the altar for a sweet savour, even the memorial of it, unto the LORD.
16 And the remainder thereof shall Aaron and his sons eat: with unleavened bread shall it be eaten in the holy place; in the court of the tabernacle of the congregation they shall eat it.
17 It shall not be baken with leaven. I have given it unto them for their portion of my offerings made by fire; it is most holy, as is the sin offering, and as the trespass offering.
18 All the males among the children of Aaron shall eat of it. It shall be a statute for ever in your generations concerning the offerings of the LORD made by fire: every one that toucheth them shall be holy.
19 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
20 This is the offering of Aaron and of his sons, which they shall offer unto the LORD in the day when he is anointed; the tenth part of an ephah of fine flour for a meat offering perpetual, half of it in the morning, and half thereof at night.
21 In a pan it shall be made with oil; and when it is baken, thou shalt bring it in: and the baken pieces of the meat offering shalt thou offer for a sweet savour unto the LORD.
22 And the priest of his sons that is anointed in his stead shall offer it: it is a statute for ever unto the LORD; it shall be wholly burnt.
23 For every meat offering for the priest shall be wholly burnt: it shall not be eaten.
24 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
25 Speak unto Aaron and to his sons, saying, This is the law of the sin offering: In the place where the burnt offering is killed shall the sin offering be killed before the LORD: it is most holy.
26 The priest that offereth it for sin shall eat it: in the holy place shall it be eaten, in the court of the tabernacle of the congregation.
27 Whatsoever shall touch the flesh thereof shall be holy: and when there is sprinkled of the blood thereof upon any garment, thou shalt wash that whereon it was sprinkled in the holy place.
28 But the earthen vessel wherein it is sodden shall be broken: and if it be sodden in a brasen pot, it shall be both scoured, and rinsed in water.
29 All the males among the priests shall eat thereof: it is most holy.
30 And no sin offering, whereof any of the blood is brought into the tabernacle of the congregation to reconcile withal in the holy place, shall be eaten: it shall be burnt in the fire.
LEVITICUS 7:1-38
1 Likewise this is the law of the trespass offering: it is most holy.
2 In the place where they kill the burnt offering shall they kill the trespass offering: and the blood thereof shall he sprinkle round about upon the altar.
3 And he shall offer of it all the fat thereof; the rump, and the fat that covereth the inwards,
4 And the two kidneys, and the fat that is on them, which is by the flanks, and the caul that is above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away:
5 And the priest shall burn them upon the altar for an offering made by fire unto the LORD: it is a trespass offering.
6 Every male among the priests shall eat thereof: it shall be eaten in the holy place: it is most holy.
7 As the sin offering is, so is the trespass offering: there is one law for them: the priest that maketh atonement therewith shall have it.
8 And the priest that offereth any man's burnt offering, even the priest shall have to himself the skin of the burnt offering which he hath offered.
9 And all the meat offering that is baken in the oven, and all that is dressed in the fryingpan, and in the pan, shall be the priest's that offereth it.
10 And every meat offering, mingled with oil, and dry, shall all the sons of Aaron have, one as much as another.
11 And this is the law of the sacrifice of peace offerings, which he shall offer unto the LORD.
12 If he offer it for a thanksgiving, then he shall offer with the sacrifice of thanksgiving unleavened cakes mingled with oil, and unleavened wafers anointed with oil, and cakes mingled with oil, of fine flour, fried.
13 Besides the cakes, he shall offer for his offering leavened bread with the sacrifice of thanksgiving of his peace offerings.
14 And of it he shall offer one out of the whole oblation for an heave offering unto the LORD, and it shall be the priest's that sprinkleth the blood of the peace offerings.
15 And the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offerings for thanksgiving shall be eaten the same day that it is offered; he shall not leave any of it until the morning.
16 But if the sacrifice of his offering be a vow, or a voluntary offering, it shall be eaten the same day that he offereth his sacrifice: and on the morrow also the remainder of it shall be eaten:
17 But the remainder of the flesh of the sacrifice on the third day shall be burnt with fire.
18 And if any of the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offerings be eaten at all on the third day, it shall not be accepted, neither shall it be imputed unto him that offereth it: it shall be an abomination, and the soul that eateth of it shall bear his iniquity.
19 And the flesh that toucheth any unclean thing shall not be eaten; it shall be burnt with fire: and as for the flesh, all that be clean shall eat thereof.
20 But the soul that eateth of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace offerings, that pertain unto the LORD, having his uncleanness upon him, even that soul shall be cut off from his people.
21 Moreover the soul that shall touch any unclean thing, as the uncleanness of man, or any unclean beast, or any abominable unclean thing, and eat of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace offerings, which pertain unto the LORD, even that soul shall be cut off from his people.
22 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
23 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, Ye shall eat no manner of fat, of ox, or of sheep, or of goat.
24 And the fat of the beast that dieth of itself, and the fat of that which is torn with beasts, may be used in any other use: but ye shall in no wise eat of it.
25 For whosoever eateth the fat of the beast, of which men offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD, even the soul that eateth it shall be cut off from his people.
26 Moreover ye shall eat no manner of blood, whether it be of fowl or of beast, in any of your dwellings.
27 Whatsoever soul it be that eateth any manner of blood, even that soul shall be cut off from his people.
28 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
29 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, He that offereth the sacrifice of his peace offerings unto the LORD shall bring his oblation unto the LORD of the sacrifice of his peace offerings.
30 His own hands shall bring the offerings of the LORD made by fire, the fat with the breast, it shall he bring, that the breast may be waved for a wave offering before the LORD.
31 And the priest shall burn the fat upon the altar: but the breast shall be Aaron's and his sons'.
32 And the right shoulder shall ye give unto the priest for an heave offering of the sacrifices of your peace offerings.
33 He among the sons of Aaron, that offereth the blood of the peace offerings, and the fat, shall have the right shoulder for his part.
34 For the wave breast and the heave shoulder have I taken of the children of Israel from off the sacrifices of their peace offerings, and have given them unto Aaron the priest and unto his sons by a statute for ever from among the children of Israel.
35 This is the portion of the anointing of Aaron, and of the anointing of his sons, out of the offerings of the LORD made by fire, in the day when he presented them to minister unto the LORD in the priest's office;
36 Which the LORD commanded to be given them of the children of Israel, in the day that he anointed them, by a statute for ever throughout their generations.
37 This is the law of the burnt offering, of the meat offering, and of the sin offering, and of the trespass offering, and of the consecrations, and of the sacrifice of the peace offerings;
38 Which the LORD commanded Moses in mount Sinai, in the day that he commanded the children of Israel to offer their oblations unto the LORD, in the wilderness of Sinai.
LEVITICUS 8:1-36
1 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
2 Take Aaron and his sons with him, and the garments, and the anointing oil, and a bullock for the sin offering, and two rams, and a basket of unleavened bread;
3 And gather thou all the congregation together unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
4 And Moses did as the LORD commanded him; and the assembly was gathered together unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
5 And Moses said unto the congregation, This is the thing which the LORD commanded to be done.
6 And Moses brought Aaron and his sons, and washed them with water.
7 And he put upon him the coat, and girded him with the girdle, and clothed him with the robe, and put the ephod upon him, and he girded him with the curious girdle of the ephod, and bound it unto him therewith.
8 And he put the breastplate upon him: also he put in the breastplate the Urim and the Thummim.
9 And he put the mitre upon his head; also upon the mitre, even upon his forefront, did he put the golden plate, the holy crown; as the LORD commanded Moses.
10 And Moses took the anointing oil, and anointed the tabernacle and all that was therein, and sanctified them.
11 And he sprinkled thereof upon the altar seven times, and anointed the altar and all his vessels, both the laver and his foot, to sanctify them.
12 And he poured of the anointing oil upon Aaron's head, and anointed him, to sanctify him.
13 And Moses brought Aaron's sons, and put coats upon them, and girded them with girdles, and put bonnets upon them; as the LORD commanded Moses.
14 And he brought the bullock for the sin offering: and Aaron and his sons laid their hands upon the head of the bullock for the sin offering.
15 And he slew it; and Moses took the blood, and put it upon the horns of the altar round about with his finger, and purified the altar, and poured the blood at the bottom of the altar, and sanctified it, to make reconciliation upon it.
16 And he took all the fat that was upon the inwards, and the caul above the liver, and the two kidneys, and their fat, and Moses burned it upon the altar.
17 But the bullock, and his hide, his flesh, and his dung, he burnt with fire without the camp; as the LORD commanded Moses.
18 And he brought the ram for the burnt offering: and Aaron and his sons laid their hands upon the head of the ram.
19 And he killed it; and Moses sprinkled the blood upon the altar round about.
20 And he cut the ram into pieces; and Moses burnt the head, and the pieces, and the fat.
21 And he washed the inwards and the legs in water; and Moses burnt the whole ram upon the altar: it was a burnt sacrifice for a sweet savour, and an offering made by fire unto the LORD; as the LORD commanded Moses.
22 And he brought the other ram, the ram of consecration: and Aaron and his sons laid their hands upon the head of the ram.
23 And he slew it; and Moses took of the blood of it, and put it upon the tip of Aaron's right ear, and upon the thumb of his right hand, and upon the great toe of his right foot.
24 And he brought Aaron's sons, and Moses put of the blood upon the tip of their right ear, and upon the thumbs of their right hands, and upon the great toes of their right feet: and Moses sprinkled the blood upon the altar round about.
25 And he took the fat, and the rump, and all the fat that was upon the inwards, and the caul above the liver, and the two kidneys, and their fat, and the right shoulder:
26 And out of the basket of unleavened bread, that was before the LORD, he took one unleavened cake, and a cake of oiled bread, and one wafer, and put them on the fat, and upon the right shoulder:
27 And he put all upon Aaron's hands, and upon his sons' hands, and waved them for a wave offering before the LORD.
28 And Moses took them from off their hands, and burnt them on the altar upon the burnt offering: they were consecrations for a sweet savour: it is an offering made by fire unto the LORD.
29 And Moses took the breast, and waved it for a wave offering before the LORD: for of the ram of consecration it was Moses' part; as the LORD commanded Moses.
30 And Moses took of the anointing oil, and of the blood which was upon the altar, and sprinkled it upon Aaron, and upon his garments, and upon his sons, and upon his sons' garments with him; and sanctified Aaron, and his garments, and his sons, and his sons' garments with him.
31 And Moses said unto Aaron and to his sons, Boil the flesh at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation: and there eat it with the bread that is in the basket of consecrations, as I commanded, saying, Aaron and his sons shall eat it.
32 And that which remaineth of the flesh and of the bread shall ye burn with fire.
33 And ye shall not go out of the door of the tabernacle of the congregation in seven days, until the days of your consecration be at an end: for seven days shall he consecrate you.
34 As he hath done this day, so the LORD hath commanded to do, to make an atonement for you.
35 Therefore shall ye abide at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation day and night seven days, and keep the charge of the LORD, that ye die not: for so I am commanded.
36 So Aaron and his sons did all things which the LORD commanded by the hand of Moses.
PROPHETS PORTION
JEREMIAH 7:21-8:3
21 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Put your burnt offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat flesh.
22 For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices:
23 But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you.
24 But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward.
25 Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt unto this day I have even sent unto you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them:
26 Yet they hearkened not unto me, nor inclined their ear, but hardened their neck: they did worse than their fathers.
27 Therefore thou shalt speak all these words unto them; but they will not hearken to thee: thou shalt also call unto them; but they will not answer thee.
28 But thou shalt say unto them, This is a nation that obeyeth not the voice of the LORD their God, nor receiveth correction: truth is perished, and is cut off from their mouth.
29 Cut off thine hair, O Jerusalem, and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on high places; for the LORD hath rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.
30 For the children of Judah have done evil in my sight, saith the LORD: they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to pollute it.
31 And they have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my heart.
32 Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that it shall no more be called Tophet, nor the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter: for they shall bury in Tophet, till there be no place.
33 And the carcases of this people shall be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth; and none shall fray them away.
34 Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride: for the land shall be desolate.
1 At that time, saith the LORD, they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves:
2 And they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all the host of heaven, whom they have loved, and whom they have served, and after whom they have walked, and whom they have sought, and whom they have worshipped: they shall not be gathered, nor be buried; they shall be for dung upon the face of the earth.
3 And death shall be chosen rather than life by all the residue of them that remain of this evil family, which remain in all the places whither I have driven them, saith the LORD of hosts.
JEREMIAH 9:22-24
22 Speak, Thus saith the LORD, Even the carcases of men shall fall as dung upon the open field, and as the handful after the harvestman, and none shall gather them.
23 Thus saith the LORD, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches:
24 But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the LORD.
NEW TESTAMENT PORTION
MARK 12:28-34
28 And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, Which is the first commandment of all?
29 And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:
30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.
31 And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.
32 And the scribe said unto him, Well, Master, thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but he:
33 And to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.
34 And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. And no man after that durst ask him any question.
ROMANS 12:1-2
1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
1 CORINTHIANS 10:14-23
14 Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry.
15 I speak as to wise men; judge ye what I say.
16 The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?
17 For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread.
18 Behold Israel after the flesh: are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?
19 What say I then? that the idol is any thing, or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is any thing?
20 But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils.
21 Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table, and of the table of devils.
22 Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? are we stronger than he?
23 All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
JAPAN THE AFTERMATH OF THE QUAKE-TSUNAMI
EARTHQUAKES
MATTHEW 24:7-8
7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.
MARK 13:8
8 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom:(ETHNIC GROUP AGAINST ETHNIC GROUP) and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows.
LUKE 21:11
11 And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7359270n&tag=mg;mostpopvideo
WELL NOW WE MIGHT HAVE ANOTHER CHERNOBOL ON OUR HANDS.ITS 10:20AM MAR 12,11 AND I JUST WOKE UP AND HEARD THERE WAS A EXPLOSION AT ONE OF THE REACTOR SITES BUT THE LEAK ITSELF IS CONTAINED SO FAR.THEY ARE STILL EVACUATING A 12-13 MILE RADIOUS OF THE PLANT THOUGH.SO THERE IS OVIOUSLY A MIST LEAK SINCE THEY CHANGED THE EVACUATION AREA FROM 6 MILES TO NOW 12 OR 13 MILE RADIOUS.
AND NOW I JUST HEARD THAT SOME EUROPEAN OFFICIALS ARE BLAMING THIS JAPAN QUAKE ON GLOBAL WARMING.THE USUAL SCAM SO WE ARE FORCED TO HAVE SCAM WIND MILLS AND PAY TRILLIONS TO THE ELITE NWO CONTROL FREAKS IN CARBON TAXES TO PAY FOR THE ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT THEY WANT OVER US TO CONTROL OUR EVERY MOVES.THIS CARBON TAX SCAM FOR GIGANTIC TAXES WILL THE GOVERNMENTS NEVER STOP IT.
ITS 2:08PM AND THE JAPAN QUAKE HAS SPAWNED OVER 200 AFTERSHOCKS.AND REPORTS ALSO SAY THAT THERE IS A RED ALERT ON A POSSIBLE 2ND AND 3RD REACTORS THAT MIGHT BE STARTING TO LEAK.AND THE GOVERNMENT IS GIVING OUT POTTASIUM IODINE TO PEOPLE NEAR THE SITE.THIS IS REALLY STARTING TO GET SERIOUS NOW.1,300 PEOPLE HAVE BEEN CONFIRMED DEAD IN THE QUAKE-TSUNAMI SO FAR.SCIENTIST SAY THE QUAKE WAS SO POWERFULL IT MADE THE MAIN ISLAND OF JAPAN SHIFT 8 FEET.EARTHS AXIS SHIFTED 10 INCHES.AND NOW THIS CHANGES THE SPEED THAT THE EARTHS PLANET ROTATES.IT AFFECTS THE LENGTH OF OUR DAYS AND THE CHANGES OF SEASONS.BUT THIS IS A SLIGHT CHANGE,ITS IMPOSSIBLE TO NOTICE IN OUR EVERY DAY LIVES.WELL THIS JUST CONFIRMS BIBLE PROPHECY THAT THE POWER OF THE HEAVENS WILL BE SHAKIN.MY COMMENTS YESTERDAY WERE RIGHT ON.
DO ALL THESE COUNTRIES LOOK FAMILIAR FROM YESTERDAYS TSUNAMI-YES THE EXACT ONES.
ANGEL OF THE LORD TO DR DOCTORIAN
The first angel said: I have a message for all of Asia. When he said that, in a split few seconds, I could see all of China, India, the Asian countries like Vietnam, Laos - I've never been to those countries. I saw the Philippines, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. And then the angel showed me all of Papua New Guinea, Irian Jaya and down to Australia and New Zealand.I am the angel of Asia, he said. And in his hand I saw a tremendous trumpet that he is going to blow all over Asia. Whatever the angel said, it's going to happen with the trumpet of the Lord all over Asia. Millions are going to hear the mighty voice of the Lord. Then the angel said, There shall be disaster, starvation - many will die from hunger. Strong winds will be looked like has never happened before. A great part shall be shaken and destroyed.Earthquakes will take place all over Asia and the sea will cover the earth.
NUCLEAR WEAPONS WILL BE USED.
PSALMS 97:3
3 A fire goeth before him, and burneth up his enemies round about.
2 TIMOTHY 3:1
1 This know also, that in the last days perilous (DANGEROUS) times shall come.
JOEL 2:3,30
3 A fire devoureth before them; and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.
ZECHARIAH 14:12-13
12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.
13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.(1/2-3 BILLION DIE IN WW3)
REVELATION 16:3-7
3 And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea.(enviromentalists won't like this result)
4 And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood.
5 And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus.
6 For they(False World Church and Dictator) have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy.
BORON 10
Boron is used in pyrotechnics and flares to produce a green color. Boron has also been used in some rockets as an ignition source. Boron-10, one of the naturally occurring isotopes of boron, is a good absorber of neutrons and is used in the control of rods of nuclear reactors, as a radiation shield and as a neutron detector. Boron filaments are used in the aerospace industry because of their high-strength and lightweight.jjnorman, Answers Expert.
REVELATION 6:7-8
7 And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.
8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse:(CHLORES GREEN-SICKLY) and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword,(WEAPONS) and with hunger,(FAMINE) and with death,(INCURABLE DISEASES) and with the beasts of the earth.(ANIMAL TO HUMAN DISEASE).
CESIUM 137-https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Caesium-137
Small amounts of cesium-134 and caesium-137 were released into the environment during nearly all nuclear weapon tests and some nuclear accidents, most notably the Chernobyl disaster. As of 2005, caesium-137 is the principal source of radiation in the zone of alienation around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Together with cesium-134, iodine-131, and strontium-90, caesium-137 was among the isotopes with greatest health impact distributed by the reactor explosion.
The mean contamination of caesium-137 in Germany following the Chernobyl disaster was 2000 to 4000 Bq/m2. This corresponds to a contamination of 1 mg/km2 of caesium-137, totaling about 500 grams deposited over all of Germany.
Due to caesium-137 mostly being a product of artificial nuclear fission, it did not occur in nature to any significant degree before nuclear weapons testing began. By observing the characteristic gamma rays emitted by this isotope, it is possible to determine whether the contents of a given sealed container were made before or after the advent of atomic bomb explosions. This procedure has been used by researchers to check the authenticity of certain rare wines, most notably the purported Jefferson bottles.
NUCLEAR STATE OF EMERGENCY IN JAPAN-VIDEO
http://video.foxnews.com/v/4582072/nuclear-state-of-emergency-in-japan/?playlist_id=86857
For battered Japan, a new threat: nuclear meltdown
By ERIC TALMADGE and YURI KAGEYAMA, Associated Press 6:25PM
Eric Talmadge And Yuri Kageyama, Associated Press – 19 mins ago
IWAKI, Japan – Cooling systems failed at another nuclear reactor on Japan's devastated coast Sunday, hours after an explosion at a nearby unit made leaking radiation, or even outright meltdown, the central threat to the country following a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami.The Japanese government said radiation emanating from the plant appeared to have decreased after Saturday's blast, which produced a cloud of white smoke that obscured the complex. But the danger was grave enough that officials pumped seawater into the reactor to avoid disaster and moved 170,000 people from the area.Japan's nuclear safety agency then reported an emergency at another reactor unit, the third in the complex to have its cooling systems malfunction.Japan dealt with the nuclear threat as it struggled to determine the scope of the earthquake, the most powerful in its recorded history, and the tsunami that ravaged its northeast Friday with breathtaking speed and power. The official count of the dead was 686, but the government said the figure could far exceed 1,000.
Teams searched for the missing along hundreds of miles (kilometers) of the Japanese coast, and thousands of hungry survivors huddled in darkened emergency centers that were cut off from rescuers and aid. At least a million households had gone without water since the quake struck. Large areas of the countryside were surrounded by water and unreachable.The explosion at the nuclear plant, Fukushima Dai-ichi, 170 miles (274 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo, appeared to be a consequence of steps taken to prevent a meltdown after the quake and tsunami knocked out power to the plant, crippling the system used to cool fuel rods there.The blast destroyed the building housing the reactor, but not the reactor itself, which is enveloped by stainless steel 6 inches (15 centimeters) thick.Inside that superheated steel vessel, water being poured over the fuel rods to cool them formed hydrogen. When officials released some of the hydrogen gas to relieve pressure inside the reactor, the hydrogen apparently reacted with oxygen, either in the air or the cooling water, and caused the explosion.They are working furiously to find a solution to cool the core, said Mark Hibbs, a senior associate at the Nuclear Policy Program for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Nuclear agency officials said Japan was injecting seawater into the core — an indication, Hibbs said, of how serious the problem is and how the Japanese had to resort to unusual and improvised solutions to cool the reactor core.Officials declined to say what the temperature was inside the troubled reactor, Unit 1. At 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit (1,200 degrees Celsius), the zirconium casings of the fuel rods can react with the cooling water and create hydrogen. At 4,000 F (2,200 C), the uranium fuel pellets inside the rods start to melt, the beginning of a meltdown.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said radiation around the plant had fallen, not risen, after the blast but did not offer an explanation. Virtually any increase in dispersed radiation can raise the risk of cancer, and authorities were planning to distribute iodine, which helps protect against thyroid cancer. Authorities ordered 210,000 people out of the area within 12 miles (20 kilometers) of the reactor.It was the first time Japan had confronted the threat of a significant spread of radiation since the greatest nightmare in its history, a catastrophe exponentially worse: the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States, which resulted in more than 200,000 deaths from the explosions, fallout and radiation sickness.
Officials have said that radiation levels at Fukushima were elevated before the blast: At one point, the plant was releasing each hour the amount of radiation a person normally absorbs from the environment each year.The Japanese utility that runs the plant said four workers suffered fractures and bruises and were being treated at a hospital. Nine residents of a town near the plant who later evacuated the area tested positive for radiation exposure, though officials said they showed no health problems.As Japan entered its second night since the magnitude-8.9 quake, there were grim signs that the death toll could soar. One report said no one could find four whole trains. Others said 9,500 people in one coastal town were unaccounted for and that at least 200 bodies had washed ashore elsewhere.The government said 642 people were missing and 1,426 injured.Atsushi Ito, an official in Miyagi prefecture, among the worst-hit states, could not confirm the figures, noting that with so little access to the area, thousands of people in scores of towns could not yet be reached. Our estimates based on reported cases alone suggest that more than 1,000 people have lost their lives in the disaster, Edano said. Unfortunately, the actual damage could far exceed that number considering the difficulty assessing the full extent of damage.Japan, among the most technologically advanced countries in the world, is well-prepared for earthquakes. Its buildings are made to withstand strong jolts — even Friday's, the strongest in Japan since official records began in the late 1800s. The tsunami that followed was beyond human control.With waves 23 feet (7 meters) high and the speed of a jumbo jet, it raced inland as far as six miles (10 kilometers), swallowing homes, cars, trees, people and anything else in its path.The tsunami was unbelievably fast, said Koichi Takairin, a 34-year-old truck driver who was inside his sturdy, four-ton rig when the wave hit the port town of Sendai. Smaller cars were being swept around me. All I could do was sit in my truck.
His rig ruined, he joined the steady flow of survivors who walked along the road away from the sea and back into the city Saturday.Smashed cars and small airplanes were jumbled against buildings near the local airport, several miles (kilometers) from the shore. Felled trees and wooden debris lay everywhere as rescue workers in boats nosed through murky waters and around flooded structures.The tsunami set off warnings across the Pacific Ocean, and waves sent boats crashing into one another and demolished docks on the U.S. West Coast. In Crescent City, California, near the Oregon state line, one person was swept out to sea and had not been found Saturday.
In Japan early Sunday, firefighters had yet to contain a large blaze at the Cosmo Oil refinery in the city of Ichihara. Four million households remained without power. The Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported that Japan had asked for additional energy supplies from Russia.Prime Minister Naoto Kan said 50,000 troops had joined the rescue and recovery efforts, helped by boats and helicopters. Dozens of countries offered to pitch in. President Barack Obama said one American aircraft carrier was already off Japan and a second on its way.Aid had just begun to trickle into many areas. More than 215,000 people were living in 1,350 temporary shelters in five prefectures, the Japanese national police agency said.All we have to eat are biscuits and rice balls, said Noboru Uehara, 24, a delivery truck driver who was wrapped in a blanket against the cold at a shelter in Iwake. I'm worried that we will run out of food.The transport ministry said all highways from Tokyo leading to quake-stricken areas were closed, except for emergency vehicles. Mobile communications were spotty and calls to the devastated areas were going unanswered.
One hospital in Miyagi prefecture was seen surrounded by water, and the staff had painted SOS, in English, on its rooftop and were waving white flags.Around the nuclear plant, where 51,000 people had previously been urged to leave, others struggled to get away.Everyone wants to get out of the town. But the roads are terrible, said Reiko Takagi, a middle-aged woman, standing outside a taxi company. It is too dangerous to go anywhere. But we are afraid that winds may change and bring radiation toward us.Although the government played down fears of radiation leak, Japanese nuclear agency spokesman Shinji Kinjo acknowledged there were still fears of a meltdown — the collapse of a power plant's systems, rendering it unable regulate temperatures and keep the reactor fuel cool.Yaroslov Shtrombakh, a Russian nuclear expert, said it was unlikely that the Japanese plant would suffer a meltdown like the one in 1986 at Chernobyl, when a reactor exploded and sent a cloud of radiation over much of Europe. That reactor, unlike the reactor at Fukushima, was not housed in a sealed container.Kageyama reported from Tokyo. Associated Press writers Malcolm J. Foster, Mari Yamaguchi, Tomoko A. Hosaka and Shino Yuasa in Tokyo, Jay Alabaster in Sendai, Sylvia Hui in London, David Nowak in Moscow, and Margie Mason in Hanoi also contributed.
HERES WHAT TO EXPECT IF ITS ANOTHER CHERNOBOL
Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster Revisited Part one of a series
By Roberta C. Barbalace
http://environmentalchemistry.com/yogi/hazmat/articles/chernobyl1.html
A Human Face
In May 1996 a colleague sent me an article from Chemical and Engineering News (C&EN) about the Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident. I set it aside, thoroughly intending to write about it at a later time. I might have totally forgotten about it had I not unexpectedly encountered a young man from Belarus who provided a real face and a real personality that I needed to identify with the catastrophe. Blasa was a round faced lad probably about eleven years old visiting from Belarus. His English was about as fluent as my Russian was. Between us there were perhaps a couple of dozen words that we both understood. His host family explained that he was a survivor of Chernobyl and was visiting the United States through a project sponsored by a group of business men who wanted to give the children some relief from the stress that they experience daily as a result of the Chernobyl disaster. I had thought about possible increase in cancer and birth defects. Somehow, stress ten years after the accident never entered my mind. I started shuffling through my pile of potential articles and found the one that Jim Bley had sent. The facts were mind-boggling.
Chernobyl Disaster Recalled
At 1:23 AM on April 26, 1986, two explosions ripped through the Unit 4 reactor of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Ukraine. The reactor block and adjacent structure were wrecked by the initial explosion. Nearby buildings were ignited by burning graphite projectiles. Radioactive particles swept across the Ukraine, Belarus, the western portion of Russia and eventually spread across Europe and the whole Northern Hemisphere. The accident followed a safety experiment in which the plant was operated outside of its designed parameters at very low power and unfavorable cooling conditions.The graphite fires continued to burn for several days despite the fact that thousands of tons of boron carbide, lead, sand and clay were dumped over the core reactor by helicopter. The fire eventually extinguished itself when the core melted, flowed into the lower part of the building and then solidified, sealing off the entry. About 71% of the radioactive fuel in the core (about 135 metric tons) remained uncovered for about 10 days until cooling and solidification took place. 135,000 people were evacuated from a 30-km radius exclusion zone. Clean up involved some 800,000 people. The radioactivity released was estimated to be about two hundred times that of the combined releases in the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Millions of people were exposed to the radiation in varying doses.
Health Consequences of the Chernobyl Disaster
Compulsory health monitoring was provided to those who lived and worked in the heavily contaminated area. Health monitoring was also provided for more than 4.5 million people who were exposed to lower levels of radiation. Still, the available information on the direct health effects of the catastrophe are sketchy at best.
Twenty different radionuclides with half-lives varying from 8 days to 24,400 years were released into the atmosphere during the ten day period following the explosion. The contaminants include idiodine-131, cesium-134 and -137 and several plutonium isotopes. There were 444 workers at the site at the time of the accident. Of the 300 admitted to hospitals, 134 were diagnosed with acute radiation syndrome (ARS). Only 45 of these individuals have died to date, though the survivors still suffer with emotional and sleep disturbances and 30% have gastrointestinal, cardiovascular and immuno-function disorders. In Belarus alone 2.2 million people including 600,000 juveniles and children have been exposed to the prolonged impact of long-lived radionuclides. A total of 415 settlements have been evacuated, and the 130,000 residents resettled, making monitoring of them difficult.
The actual death toll due to this catastrophe is hard to determine. Greenpeace Ukraine estimates the total number to be about 32,000. Some estimates are higher, many are much lower. The rate of thyroid cancer in children up to the age of 15 has increased 200 fold in Gomel Oblast, Belarus since the accident. At least 90% of these are curable, but the number of cases is expected to increase, especially in children like Blasa who were younger than three at the time of the release. Thyroid cancer is due to inhalation of radioactive iodine or ingestion from drinking milk from cows that have eaten grass that is contaminated with radioactive particles. Iodine-134 is absorbed and concentrated (biointensified) in the milk. When humans drink the milk, the iodine-134 becomes incorporated almost exclusively in the thyroid gland. Many diets in the fall-out affected area of the former Soviet Union are typically deficient in iodine. Individuals who had low levels of iodine in their diet incorporated large quantities of the radioactive iodine into their system as their bodies attempted to compensate for the deficiency. At the moment few republics are reporting a rise in leukemia, a condition which would have been expected to increase. It is possible that the actual rise in incidents of the disease is masked by the mass resettlement into other unaffected areas after the accident. This may have resulted in skewed results since any increase in the rate of leukemia would be averaged over a larger population of individuals, many of whom had not been exposed.
The incidences of birth defects have increased in heavily contaminated areas. A condition known as minisatellite mutation in the Mogilev district of Belarus is unusually high.Most genetic mutations resulting from exposure to radiation are recessive and are not likely to be expressed until the individuals affected have grandchildren. The mutation will be fully manifested when two people carrying the same mutant gene marry and produce a child who receives the identical mutant gene from each parent (a one-in-four chance for each child they produce). Radiation effects are dependent upon both level and time of exposure and some individuals continue to be exposed. As a result many effects of radiation on an exposed individual may not be manifested for years to come. Madame Curie reportedly worked with radioactive materials for years before she finally succumbed to its effects. Cancer may take many years to develop after exposure to a carcinogen.The secondary effects of the accident are readily obvious. Millions of people are suffering from mental and emotional illness and these conditions lead to disturbances of the physical kind, including digestive disorders, high blood pressure, heart conditions and more generally sleeplessness and alcoholism. General living conditions in the three affected republics are substandard. The economy is deteriorating and health services are experiencing total collapse. People are malnourished, and diseases like tuberculosis are on the increase. Some of this economic depression is due to the accident, and some is a result of the general economic situation in the former Soviet Union as a whole. The immediate problems are more important to them than diseases that will not have a major impact until some time in the future. As a result, leukemia, thyroid cancer and birth defects must take a back seat to more pressing issues, such as basic survival. Extensive studies will be necessary in order to determine the total impact of the Chernobyl disaster and approach a solution intelligently.
Could it be that human invasion has a greater impact on the environment than the most catastrophic nuclear accident in the 20th century?
In 1986 the Chernobyl accident contaminated 125,000 square miles of land in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine with radionucleotides including cesium-137, strontium-90 and plutonium-239. It is too early to determine the long-term effects of the radioactive contaminants on the various affected habitats, because genetic changes are often not expressed in a general population for two or three generations. From early observations, however, the prognosis is much more promising than had originally been expected.About 40% of the contaminated area was used for agriculture. The remainder was forest, bodies of water and urban centers. Plants and animals living in the 30-km exclusion zone received the highest level of radiation. Since radionucleotides migrate very slowly in soil, the radiation level in this region remains high. In Belrus 2,640 sq. km of farmland and 1,900 sq. km of forest have been taken out of use by humans forever; so predicted Igor V. Rolevich, Belarus first deputy minister for emergencies.The Chernobyl accident took place during the growing season. It took only two weeks for the conifers to suffer significant damage from exposure. Initially many trees suffered sever damage to reproductive tissue.Within three years of the accident, the trees had regained their reproductive functions. The forests have begun to thrive. Areas within the heart of the exclusion zone have the largest density of animals as well as the greatest diversity. Since people and their livestock do not enter the exclusion zone, there is not much overgrazing, no fires and no destruction. The grass is very deep and the habitat is doing very well. The area outside the exclusion zone has been so severely overgrazed by cattle that there is little grass. In addition, the trees have been cut for firewood, a stress factor that has not affected the exclusion zone.
One must avoid the temptation to become too overly optimistic about the rapid recovery of the contaminated area. Currently there is no standard by which to predict the long-term effects on populations, species or ecosystems.Contamination of the soil by radionucleotides with long half-lives such as cesium-137 is a particular problem for the local residents near the Chernobyl Nuclear Reactor. These radionucleotides remain in the soil for a long while, is taken up by plants and transferred to the milk and meat products of cattle that graze the area. Human exposure could have been reduced by imposing strict countermeasures immediately following the release. Had local residents not worked in the field, or eaten fresh vegetables, and had they kept their livestock from eating the contaminated forage. Such measures need to be taken immediately, however, and they were not. Very specific countermeasures applied immediately can have a great bearing on the long term effects of a radioactive release. Changing the type of crop planted (each species has a different rate at which it absorbs specific chemical elements or compounds) or adding chemicals such as lime or potassium fertilizers can protect the population. In order for this to happen, residents have to be trained to respond, and the needed supplies must be readily available. No emergency procedure was in place for dealing with the catastrophe.It is interesting that the water supply is not nearly as contaminated as the soil. The radionucleotides tend to settle out with time. Aquatic habitats also tend to be more tolerant of radioactive contamination. There is no evidence of any long term effects to the populations in the water near the nuclear reactor's cooling pond, which was the most contaminated body of water in the exclusion zone.While the groundwater has not been contaminated to date, the Sarcophagus, which was built around Reactor Unit 4 is crumbling and there are many sites where radiation contaminated equipment were dumped.While the environment in the exclusion zone seems to have recovered, it still has to deal with long term effects (such as genetic mutations, which may not surface for a few generations) and the real threat of another release of radioactivity should the integrity of the sarcophagus continue to disintegrate.
If societies worldwide want to continue using nuclear power, the benefits must be balanced against the risks!
Chernobyl's accident was a turning point for the nuclear power industry worldwide. According to World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO), It demonstrated clearly that nuclear power in some parts of the world was not safe enough.The association points out that the accident caused such a negative opinion of nuclear energy that, should such an accident occur again, the existence and future of nuclear energy all over the world would be compromised.On the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES), the Chernobyl nuclear accident rates the highest classification, which is level seven. The worst nuclear accident in the West, which was rated a level five by the INES, occurred in the pressurized water reactor at the Three Mile Island facility in Pennsylvania in 1979.Chernobyl incidents are still happening but now are relatively minor compared to the two explosions occurred on April 26, 1986. For example, on Nov, 1995, a small amount of nuclear fuel leaked from the Unit 1 reactor and exposed a worker to about one year's permitted radiation dose.Past experience indicates that there will be another Chernobyl-scale accident, World Health Organization (WHO) scientist Keith F. Baverstock suggests. The increasing number of older reactors is especially a cause for concern.
According to David R. Kyd, director of the Division of Public Information at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Vienna, Austria, There are more than 430 nuclear reactors in the world, with more being built. More significantly, the number of reactors that are aging is inevitably increasing. The first nuclear reactor went on-line about 40 years ago.The huge 300,000-metric-ton concrete and steel sarcophagus that was built at Chernobyl to entomb the destroyed reactor still contains uranium fuel. It is thought to include pellets and hot particles of enriched uranium dioxide, and three streams of solidified lava of fuel mixed with sand and concrete. The long-term stability of the sarcophagus is causing concern. It is now generally accepted that the Chernobyl accident occurred, as WANO puts it, because of a combination of the physics characteristics of the reactor, the design of the control rods, human error, and management shortcomings in the design and implementation of the [safety] experiment. The theory that accidents are rarely due to a single cause is well demonstrated here. Chernobyl was an accident waiting to happen. Changes to the design on nuclear plants along with the implementation of administrative measures have improved safety conditions of operations. There have been other safety improvements since the accident, including the installation of emergency core-cooling systems and remote-control rooms in the first-generation Chernobyl-type, and better operation rules and procedures.The nuclear industry has learned a number of things from Chernobyl. The most important is that it led to the formation of the World Association of Nuclear Operators, an organization that brougth together operators to look at safety and coordination of safety on a world scale.
Professor Sir Dillwyn Williams at the University of Cambridge said that, If societies want to continue using nuclear power, the benefits must be balanced against the risks. Precautions must be taken to prevent those types of disasters from happening again. Although the environment seems to have recovered, right now we don't have a really good overview of the long-term effects on populations, species, or ecosystems.
Chernobyl Disaster From the Mouths of Children
From Footprint of the Black Wind - written by children - Chernobyl in my destiny (Minsk 1995)
Irina Prokopenko - 9th grade
In the days after the accident we were light-hearted and trusting, we inhabitants of the contamination zone. We lived the same lives as before. Children played out in the radioactive rain; we ate pies off open stalls, went to the woods; the grown-ups worked in the fields... I am now 17, and for seven years have lived with thyroid disease...
Natalla Jarmolenko - 11th grade
...Last year one of my classmates, my friend Maja Kasajed, died. The whole school gave her a send-off like a bride. We all stood outside the schoolhouse, and the head-mistress rang the bell for Maja, for the end of the last lesson of her short life...
Yelena Kulazhenko - 10th grade
Chernobyl called my dad too. He worked for the Department of Internal Affairs...in the 30 km (exclusion) zone...He came home with a voice that was strange and dry. He drank lots of mineral water; that's what the doctors prescribed. He told us about empty villages of Palessia, the domestic animals howling crazily in the roads... In 1989 they gave Dad a terrible diagnosis: cancer of spinal marrow... Doctors in Minsk refused to operate... Soviet people in Moscow refused to treat him...Dad was two months in a hospital in Michigan. Dad came back full of hope. Enchanted, we listened to his tales about the strange but sympathetic and kind people he had met in that far-off land... (Moscow) refused follow up treatment. He began to get worse... On March 28th (1993) he died... That's how (Chernobyl) took away my Dad. And it took away my birthday too; Dad died exactly on the day I reached 14.
FACT SHEET: Fukushima Nuclear Plant
Published March 12, 2011| FoxNews.com
March 11: Fukushima Daiichi power plant's Unit 1 is seen in Okumamachi, Fukushima prefecture, Japan. The nuclear power plant affected by a massive earthquake is facing a possible meltdown, an official with Japan's nuclear safety commission said Saturday. (AP/The Yomiuri Shimbun)IWAKI, Japan – The Fukushima plant is located 150 miles away from Tokyo, 40 miles from the earthquake's epicenter.
- About 30% of electricity in Japan is produced by 55 nuclear power units in 17 plants
Japan is the world's third largest producer of nuclear power.
- The earthquake has led to the shutdown of 11 of the Japan's 55 nuclear power plants, representing nearly 20% of the country's capacity.
- The Fukushima Daiichi unit is just one of five reactors severely imperiled by the earthquake.
- The Fukushima plant covers about 865 acres and it is built on solid bedrock.
- Opened in 1971 -- the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (No.1) would be marking its 40th anniversary on March 26.
- Some 40,000 people had evacuated from the areas around two Fukushima plants as of Saturday afternoon, according to reports.
- Authorities evacuated a 12.5 mile radius around the reactor, and told residents within 16.5 miles to remain indoors.
- Virtually any increase in ambient radiation can raise long-term cancer rates.
- A partial meltdown in one of the light water reactors at Three Mile Island in 1979 resulted in the release of radioactive gases in the most serious incident in the history of the U.S. nuclear power industry.
(Source: Japan Officials Probe Nuclear Plant Collapse, The Wall Street Journal: 12 March 2011)
(Source: Damage to cooling system had sparked warning of meltdown, MarketWatch: 12 March 2011)
(Source: Japan Officials Probe Nuclear Plant Collapse, The Wall Street Journal: 12 March 2011)
(Source: IAEA, http://www.iaea.org/cgi-bin/db.page.pl/pris.powrea.htm?country=JP&sort=&sortlong=Alphabetic)
(Source: Explosion at Japan nuke plant, disaster toll rises, Associated Press: 12 Mar 2011)
(Source: Explosion rocks Japanese power plant, The Washington Post: 12 Mar 2011. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/11/AR2011031103673_4.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2011031100651)
(Source: Fukushima nuclear plant blast puts Japan on high alert, Guardian Unlimited: 13 March 2011)
Dr. Manny: Potential Danger as Radiation Levels Surge in Japan
By Dr. Manny Alvarez Published March 11, 2011| FoxNews.com
As I watch the tragedy unfolding in Japan since an 8.9-magnitude earthquake rocked the nation this morning, triggering a deadly tsunami, I am realizing just how much devastation this small country is potentially facing – and it’s scary.Hundreds of people have already died, and I’m sure the number will continue to rise as the clean-up efforts kick into high gear.But new concerns are growing. The massive earthquake caused a power outage that disabled a nuclear power plant’s cooling system in the Onahoma city, about 170 miles north of Tokyo.Surging radiation levels of 1,000 times more than normal have caused an evacuation of 3,000 people near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant—making it the first-ever state of emergency declared at a nuclear plant in Japan.Soon after the evacuation order, the government announced that the plant will release slightly radioactive vapor from the unit to lower the pressure in an effort to protect it from a possible meltdown.
Dr. Manny Alvarez
Government officials said the amount of radioactive elements leaking from the plant would be very small and would not affect the environment or human health—if the leak is kept under control.However, if they cannot continue to restore cooling of the plant, it could become a very dangerous situation to those living in close range of the plant, and the fallout would only spread.If the reactor does indeed melt down, the results could be similar – if not worse – than that of Chernobyl.When a reactor at a nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine went out of control in April of 1986 during a low-power test that led to an explosion and subsequent meltdown, it contaminated 58,000 square miles of land between Belarus, Russia and the Ukraine, and prompted the evacuation of thousands of residents.The reactor meltdown released a hundred radioactive elements into the atmosphere including dangerous iodine, strontium and caesium, which are the most dangerous, and can still be found in the affected areas today.In the years since this devastating accident, studies on groups of emergency workers and individuals with the highest exposure rates have linked the radioactive fallout to several health consequences like certain cancers, cardiovascular disease and death.
Radiation is predicated on three factors: total exposure, how close you were to the accident and how much time you were exposed to it.The human body is very resilient and has mechanisms in place to repair damage to cells from radiation and chemical carcinogens. But exposure to high levels of ionizing radiation can lead to radiation sickness, and sometimes, permanent biophysical changes to the cells.The severity of radiation sickness depends on the amount of radiation the person encounters and the amount of time he or she is exposed.Symptoms can arise at any point after exposure. It can be immediate or occur over days, weeks or months.Early exposure symptoms can include: nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, headache and fever.Signs that may appear in the days following exposure include: dizziness, disorientation, weakness, fatigue, hair loss, bloody vomit and stools, infections, poor wound healing and low blood pressure.
But radioactive fallout traveling through the environment can pose long-term health consequences depending on the amount of exposure — and chronic exposure to these high levels of radiation can cause more serious conditions like cancer and premature aging.From the time a person becomes contaminated to the time when he or she starts developing symptoms is a good indicator of just how significant the radiation exposure is. The earlier the signs show up, the more concentrated the exposure.The most important thing to remember is if someone experiences any of these issues he or she should not remain in that area. They should seek emergency treatment immediately and destroy their contaminated clothing.Right now, it seems the Japanese government is controlling the situation. And we can only pray that it stays that way.
Factbox: Experts on explosion at Japan nuclear plant
– Sat Mar 12, 8:23 am ET
(Reuters) – Radiation was leaking from an unstable nuclear reactor north of Tokyo on Saturday, the Japanese government said, after an explosion blew the roof off the facility following a massive earthquake.The development has led to fears of a disastrous meltdown. Here are comments from experts about what might have happened.
PROF PADDY REGAN, PROFESSOR OF NUCLEAR PHYSICS AT THE
UNIVERSITY OF SURREY
It looks as if the coolant pumps had initially stopped working. They shut down automatically when the reactor shuts down, but there is a backup system running off a diesel generator -- it looks as though that's the bit that failed.As a result there is no way of pumping heat out of the reactor, so it has to cool naturally. If the reactor gets too hot, in principle this means the fuel rods can melt - but it looks unlikely this has happened to any great extent in this case.To reduce the pressure, you would have to release some steam into the atmosphere from the system. In that steam, there will be small but measurable amounts of radioactive nitrogen - nitrogen 16 (produced when neutrons hit water). This remains radioactive for only about 5 seconds, after which it decays to natural oxygen.But if any of the fuel rods have been compromised, there would be evidence of a small amount of other radioisotopes in the atmosphere called fission fragments (radio-caesium and radio-iodine).The amount that you measure would tell you to what degree the fuel rods have been compromised. Scientists in Japan should be able to establish this very quickly using gamma ray spectroscopy as the isotopes have characteristic decay signatures. Current reports seem consistent with a small leak to relieve pressure.But we still need to establish the cause and exact location of the explosion, which is a separate issue. So far it looks like it's not the reactor core that's affected which would be good news.We must remember that there are 55 reactors in Japan and this was a huge earthquake, and as a test of the resilience and robustness of nuclear plants it seems they have withstood the effects very well.
TIMOTHY ABRAM, PROFESSOR OF NUCLEAR FUEL TECHNOLOGY AT
BRITAIN'S MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY
By sampling the air around the station, you'd be able to tell how much radioactivity has been released. The thing they'll be looking for more than anything is whether there's any evidence of the fuel actually degrading, he told Reuters.If the fuel is substantially intact, then there'll be a much, much lower release of radioactivity and the explosion that's happened might be just due to a build-up of steam in the reactor circuit.The most probable (cause of the explosion) is the coolant, particularly if it's water, can overheat and turn to steam more rapidly than it was designed to cope with.He said it was unlikely it would develop into anything more serious, but this would depend on the integrity of the fuel, which contains nearly all the radioactivity of the plant. He said he thought it would be pretty unlikely that the fuel itself had been significantly damaged.He said if this did occur, some radioactive material might be released into the primary circuit, which in turn might be vented into the containment building to release the pressure. Even the worse case scenario from there is the pressure in the containment building itself builds up to dangerous levels and has to be released, he said.Consequently you are releasing pressure from in the containment building, some of which contains radioactivity, out into the environment. There are a lot of ifs in that chain of events.
VALERIY HLYHALO, DEPUTY DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE CHERNOBYL
NUCLEAR SAFETY Center
The explosion at No. 1 generating set of the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan, which took place today, will not be a repetition of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, Interfax quoted the Ukrainian expert as saying.He said that the Japanese nuclear power plants use reactors of a totally different design to Chernobyl's.Japan has modern-type reactors. All fission products should be isolated by the confinement (the reactor's protection shell). Only gas emission is possible.Hlyhalo said that Japanese nuclear power plants are earthquake resistant.Apart from that, these reactors are designed to work at a high seismicity zone, although what has happened is beyond the impact the plants were designed to withstand. Therefore, the consequences should not be as serious as after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
IAN HORE-LACY OF THE WORLD NUCLEAR ASSOCIATION, AN INDUSTRY
BODY REPRESENTING 180 COMPANIES IN THE NUCLEAR SECTOR
It is obviously an hydrogen explosion ... due to hydrogen igniting. If the hydrogen has ignited, then it is gone, it doesn't pose any further threat.The whole situation is quite serious but the actual hydrogen explosion doesn't add a great deal to it.He said it was most unlikely to be a major disaster and he also did not believe there would be a full fuel meltdown.That would have been much more likely early yesterday in the European time. We are now 24 hours into the situation and the fuel has cooled a lot in that time and the likelihood of meltdown at this stage I would think would be very, very small.
ROBIN GRIMES, PROFESSOR OF MATERIALS PHYSICS AT IMPERIAL
COLLEGE LONDON
It does seem as if the back-up generators although they started initially to work, then failed, Grimes, an expert in radiation damage told BBC TV.So it means slowly the heat and the pressure built up in this reactor. One of the things that might just have happened is a large release of that pressure. If it's that then we're not in such bad circumstances.Despite the damage to the outer structure, as long as that steel inner vessel remains intact, then the vast majority of the radiation will be contained.At the moment it does seem that they are still contained and it's a release of significant steam pressure that's caused this explosion. The key will be the monitoring of those radiation levels.
NUCLEAR EXPERT MARK HIBBS OF THE CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR
INTERNATIONAL PEACE
We don't have any information from inside the plant. That is the problem in this case.If it melts down the probability that there would be a breach or that radiation would get outside of the plant because of weakness of the structure of the plant ... is much greater.(Reporting by Michael Holden and Fredrik Dahl in Vienna)
Explosion at Japan nuke plant, disaster toll rises By ERIC TALMADGE and YURI KAGEYAMA, Associated Press - MAR 12,11
IWAKI, Japan – An explosion at a nuclear power station Saturday destroyed a building housing the reactor, but a radiation leak was decreasing despite fears of a meltdown from damage caused by a powerful earthquake and tsunami, officials said.Government spokesman Yukio Edano said the explosion destroyed the exterior walls of the building where the reactor is placed, but not the actual metal housing enveloping the reactor.That was welcome news for a country suffering from Friday's double disaster that pulverized the northeastern coast, leaving at least 574 people dead by official count.The scale of destruction was not yet known, but there were grim signs that the death toll could soar. One report said four whole trains had disappeared Friday and still not been located. Local media reports said at least 1,300 people may have been killed.Edano said the radiation around the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant had not risen after the blast, but had in fact decreased. He did not say why that was so.Officials have not given specific radiation readings for the area, though they said they were elevated before the blast: At one point, the plant was releasing each hour the amount of radiation a person normally absorbs from the environment each year.Virtually any increase in ambient radiation can raise long-term cancer rates, and authorities were planning to distribute iodine to residents in the area, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Iodine counteracts the effects of radiation.The pressure in the reactor was also decreasing after the blast, according to Edano.
The explosion was preceded by puff of white smoke that gathered intensity until it became a huge cloud enveloping the entire facility, located in Fukushima, 20 miles (30 kilometers) from Iwaki. After the explosion, the walls of the building crumbled, leaving only a skeletal metal frame.Tokyo Power Electric Co., the utility that runs the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, said four workers suffered fractures and bruises and were being treated at a hospital.We have confirmed that the walls of this building were what exploded, and it was not the reactor's container that exploded, said Edano.
The trouble began at the plant's Unit 1 after the massive 8.9-magnitude earthquake and the tsunami it spawned knocked out power there, depriving it of its cooling system.The concerns about a radiation leak at the nuclear power plant overshadowed the massive tragedy laid out along a 1,300-mile (2,100-kilometer) stretch of the coastline where scores of villages, towns and cities were battered by the tsunami, packing 23-feet (7-meter) high waves.It swept inland about six miles (10 kilometers) in some areas, swallowing boats, homes, cars, trees and everything else.The tsunami was unbelievably fast, said Koichi Takairin, a 34-year-old truck driver who was inside his sturdy four-ton rig when the wave hit the port town of Sendai.Smaller cars were being swept around me, he said. All I could do was sit in my truck.His rig ruined, he joined the steady flow of survivors who walked along the road away from the sea and back into the city on Saturday.Smashed cars and small airplanes were jumbled up against buildings near the local airport, several miles (kilometers) from the shore. Felled trees and wooden debris lay everywhere as rescue workers coasted on boats through murky waters around flooded structures, nosing their way through a sea of debris.According to official figures, 586 people are missing and 1,105 injured. In addition, police said between 200 and 300 bodies were found along the coast in Sendai, the biggest city in the area near the quake's epicenter.The true scale of the destruction was still not known more than 24 hours after the quake since washed-out roads and shut airports have hindered access to the area. An untold number of bodies were believed to be buried in the rubble and debris.
Meanwhile, the first wave of military rescuers began arriving by boats and helicopters.Prime Minister Naoto Kan said 50,000 troops joined rescue and recovery efforts, aided by boats and helicopters. Dozens of countries also offered help. President Barack Obama pledged U.S. assistance following what he called a potentially catastrophic disaster. He said one U.S. aircraft carrier was already in Japan and a second was on its way. Washington has also dispatched urban search and rescue teams, according to U.S. Ambassador John Roos.More than 215,000 people were living in 1,350 temporary shelters in five prefectures, or states, the national police agency said. Since the quake, more than 1 million households have not had water, mostly concentrated in northeast. Some 4 million buildings were without power.About 24 percent of electricity in Japan is produced by 55 nuclear power units in 17 plants and some were in trouble after the quake.Japan declared states of emergency at two power plants after their units lost cooling ability.Although the government spokesman played down fears of radiation leak, the Japanese nuclear agency spokesman Shinji Kinjo acknowledged there were still fears of a meltdown. A meltdown is not a technical term. Rather, it is an informal way of referring to a very serious collapse of a power plant's systems and its ability to manage temperatures.Yaroslov Shtrombakh, a Russian nuclear expert, said a Chernobyl-style meltdown was unlikely.It's not a fast reaction like at Chernobyl, he said. I think that everything will be contained within the grounds, and there will be no big catastrophe.
In 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear reactor exploded and caught fire, sending a cloud of radiation over much of Europe. That reactor — unlike the Fukushima one — was not housed in a sealed container, so there was no way to contain the radiation once the reactor exploded.The reactor in trouble has already leaked some radiation: Before the explosion, operators had detected eight times the normal radiation levels outside the facility and 1,000 times normal inside Unit 1's control room.An evacuation area around the plant was expanded to a radius of 12 miles (20 kilometers) from the six miles (10 kilometers) before. People in the expanded area were advised to leave quickly; 51,000 residents were previously evacuated.Everyone wants to get out of the town. But the roads are terrible, said Reiko Takagi, a middle-aged woman, standing outside a taxi company. It is too dangerous to go anywhere. But we are afraid that winds may change and bring radiation toward us.
The transport ministry said all highways from Tokyo leading to quake-hit areas were closed, except for emergency vehicles. Mobile communications were spotty and calls to the devastated areas were going unanswered.Local TV stations broadcast footage of people lining up for water and food such as rice balls. In Fukushima, city officials were handing out bottled drinks, snacks and blankets. But there were large areas that were surrounded by water and were unreachable.One hospital in Miyagi prefecture was seen surrounded by water. The staff had painted an SOS on its rooftop and were waving white flags.Technologically advanced Japan is well prepared for quakes and its buildings can withstand strong jolts, even a temblor like Friday's, which was the strongest the country has experienced since official records started in the late 1800s. What was beyond human control was the killer tsunami that followed.Japan's worst previous quake was a magnitude 8.3 temblor in Kanto that killed 143,000 people in 1923, according to the USGS. A magnitude 7.2 quake in Kobe killed 6,400 people in 1995.Japan lies on the Ring of Fire — an arc of earthquake and volcanic zones stretching around the Pacific where about 90 percent of the world's quakes occur, including the one that triggered the Dec. 26, 2004, Indian Ocean tsunami that killed an estimated 230,000 people in 12 countries. A magnitude-8.8 quake that shook central Chile in February 2010 also generated a tsunami and killed 524 people.
Kageyama reported from Tokyo. Associated Press writers Malcolm J. Foster, Mari Yamaguchi, Tomoko A. Hosaka and Shino Yuasa in Tokyo, Jay Alabaster in Sendai, and Sylvia Hui in London also contributed.
Why America Isn't Ready for a Disaster
Irwin Redlener – Fri Mar 11, 10:14 pm ET
NEW YORK – Japan’s tradition of emergency planning and strict building codes saved countless lives this week—but what would happen here? Disaster-preparation expert Irwin Redlener on America’s shocking lack of readiness—and our history of ignoring wakeup calls. Plus, full coverage of Japan’s quake.On Friday morning, Americans awoke to news of an unfolding catastrophe in Japan. This latest disaster will certainly fall among the more serious natural calamities in modern times.
Unfortunately, fatalities and damages will most certainly dwarf early estimates. The need for bolstering initial rescue efforts and preventing secondary calamities is rising by the hour, with the most serious threat ahead being damage to a nuclear-power plant located in the disaster impact area. A meltdown at the plant could imperil tens of thousands of citizens, especially children and pregnant women.But unlike Haiti, for example, Japan is a highly developed nation that was motivated to develop and invest in a national plan to protect its citizens and vital systems in the event of precisely this kind of catastrophe. Strict earthquake-resistant standards apply to building codes, tsunami early-warning systems are in place, and Japanese citizens have a high level of awareness with respect to emergency planning and response. This means that the consequences of this kind of “megadisaster” will be less than would otherwise be the case.
But what about the United States? Every major disaster is invariably labeled a wakeup call. Media coverage is intense, rescue efforts rise to the occasion and we are fully focused—until we’re not.Unfortunately, the U.S. has not reached a level of preparedness that we might have expected 10 years after the 9/11 attacks and five years after Katrina and the flooding of New Orleans. Billions of dollars have been spent and progress has been made—but progress has been slow and spotty. Part of the problem is a multiplicity of federal, state and local agencies have a major influence on planning, from decisions about priorities to levels of dedicated funding. One bright spot: FEMA is being upgraded and reorganized and, under the leadership of its director, Craig Fugate, the agency is even more effective than it was in its prime, prior to its serious degradation under the previous administration.
Still, major challenges remain. American citizens are extraordinarily underprepared for disasters. Few of us have the supplies we’d need if we were caught up in a disaster or know how we’d keep ourselves and our families’ safe. Motivating citizen efforts to prepare for any kind of disaster, from earthquakes and hurricanes to pandemics and terrorism, has been essentially unsuccessful over the past decade.And we have only begun to address the disaster-readiness needs of our most vulnerable citizens, particularly our children, who make up nearly 25 percent of the nation’s population. This is an issue that the National Commission on Children and Disasters has been working on for the past two years. But we also need to make sure that other groups, including the elderly, people with disabilities, and economically disenfranchised individuals, are fully accounted for in our disaster-planning efforts.Every major disaster is invariably labeled a wakeup call. Media coverage is intense, rescue efforts rise to the occasion and we are fully focused—until we’re not. The predictable pattern is rapt attention and concern followed by a drift back into a state of complacency. This is hardly a wakeup call; it’s more like a snooze alarm.We have much work to do to make America as disaster-ready as it should be. Our health systems and hospitals are woefully underprepared, our infrastructure is dangerously fragile, and our response systems poorly coordinated.What worries me is that in this time of serious economic distress, we seem have a general lack of capacity to make critical long-term investments for anything, including doing what’s needed to prepare America for the inevitable disasters of the future.Irwin Redlener, MD, is director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. He speaks and writes regularly on disaster preparedness and recovery policy and is the author of Americans at Risk: Why We Are Not Prepared for Megadisasters and What We Can Do Now (Knopf). He is also president of the Children's Health Fund.
The Science Behind Japan's Deadly Earthquake
Brett Israel,LiveScience.com - MAR 11,11
The fifth largest earthquake ever recorded hit Japan today (March 11), sending huge tsunami waves crashing onshore and reportedly killing at least 300 people.The 8.9-magnitude earthquake struck at 2:46 p.m. local time (12:46 a.m. EST), near Honshu, Japan, an island that is home to about 100 million people. The temblor was the fifth in the past two days to hit the region, and major aftershocks can be expected for months, possibly even a year. Despite the massive foreshocks, there was no way to predict that Japan's biggest-recorded earthquake was looming, said Paul Caruso, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in Golden, Colo.We have big quakes there all the time, Caruso told OurAmazingPlanet. For all scientists knew at the time, the 6.3-magnitude quake that struck yesterday was the main shock, Caruso said. Not every big earthquake has a foreshock but they all have aftershocks.
Aftershock alert
The rule of thumb for seismologists is that an earthquake's largest aftershock will be one magnitude smaller than the main shock, Caruso said. That means a 7.9-magnitude earthquake could hit the region even a year from now. Yet aftershocks are already hitting northern Japan now — 35 larger than magnitude 5.0 and 14 larger than magnitude 6 — according to the UGSS.Big aftershocks are not unusual. In February, a 6.6-magnitude aftershock ruptured near Maule, Chile — almost a year after what is now the sixth largest earthquake in recorded history, a magnitude 8.8, hit in the same region.The Japanese earthquake ruptured near the boundary between the Pacific and North American tectonic plates — huge, moving slabs of the Earth's crust. The quake was a megathrust earthquake, where the Pacific plate dove underneath Japan at the Japan Trench. The seafloor was pushed away from Japan sending waves roaring toward Hawaii and the West Coast of the United States.The tsunami wave speed in deep water, open ocean, is about the same as a commercial jet's ground speed, said Ken Hudnut, a USGS geologist in Pasadena, Calif.The epicenter of today's quake was about 15.2 miles (24.4 kilometers) deep, according to the USGS, which is near enough to the surface to set off a tsunami.Generally we don't get a tsunami unless we have a shallow quake, and that's exactly what happened, Caruso said.
Foreshocks, not forewarning
Today's earthquake was preceded by a series of large foreshocks over the previous two days, beginning on March 9 with a magnitude 7.2 quake about 25 miles (40 km) away, and continuing with three other earthquakes greater than magnitude 6, according to the USGS.Japan's latest national seismic risk map gave a 99 percent chance of at least a magnitude 7.5 quake hiting the region in the next 30 years, Robert Geller, University of Tokyo geophysicist, told Science Magazine, but today's quake was more than 100 times powerful.Earthquakes in the region are common, because Japan lies along the volatile Pacific Ring of Fire — a narrow zone around the Pacific Ocean where a large chunk of Earth's earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur. Roughly 90 percent of all the world's earthquakes, and 80 percent of the largest ones, strike along the Ring of Fire.The Japan Trench has seen nine events of magnitude 7 or greater since 1973. The largest of these was a magnitude 7.8 earthquake in December 1994, which caused 3 fatalities and almost 700 injuries, approximately 160 miles (260 km) to the north of today's quake. In June of 1978, a magnitude 7.7 earthquake about 22 miles (35 km) to the southwest caused 22 fatalities and over 400 injuries.The epicenter of the earthquake was 231 miles (373 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo and 80 miles (130 km) east of Sendai, Honshu, according to the USGS.Brett Israel is a staff writer for OurAmazingPlanet, a sister site to LiveScience. Email Brett at @btisrael.
Daybreak reveals huge devastation in tsunami-hit Japan By Linda Sieg and Chisa Fujioka - MAR 11,11
TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan confronted devastation along its northeastern coast on Saturday, with fires raging and parts of some cities under water after a massive earthquake and tsunami that likely killed at least 1,000 people.Daybreak revealed the full extent of damage from Friday's 8.9 magnitude earthquake -- the strongest in Japan since records began -- and the 10-meter high tsunami it sent surging into cities and villages, sweeping away everything in its path.This is likely to be a humanitarian relief operation of epic proportions, said Japan expert Sheila Smith of the U.S.-based Council on Foreign Relations.The government warned there could be a radiation leak from nuclear reactors in Fukushima whose cooling system was knocked out by the quake. Prime Minister Naoto Kan ordered an evacuation zone expanded to 10 km (6 miles) from 3 km. Some 3,000 people had earlier been evacuated.It's possible that radioactive material in the reactor vessel could leak outside but the amount is expected to be small, and the wind blowing toward the sea will be considered, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told a news conference.As authorities battled to contain rising pressure at the Fukushima facility, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo, officials called for calm and said a meltdown remained unlikely.The unfolding natural disaster prompted offers of search and rescue help from 50 countries.
China said rescuers were ready to help with quake relief while President Barack Obama told Kan the United States would assist in any way.In one of the worst-hit residential areas, people buried under rubble could be heard calling out for rescue, Kyodo news agency reported. TV footage showed staff at one hospital waving banners with the words FOOD and HELP from a rooftop.In Tokyo, office workers who were stranded in the city after the quake forced the subway system to close early slept alongside the homeless at one station. Scores of men in suits lay on newspapers, using their briefcases as pillows.Kyodo said at least 116,000 people in Tokyo had been unable to return home on Friday evening due to transport disruption.The northeastern Japanese city of Kesennuma, with a population of 74,000, was hit by widespread fires and one-third of the city was under water, Jiji news agency said on Saturday.The airport in the city of Sendai, home to one million people, was on fire, it added.TV footage from Friday showed a muddy torrent of water carrying cars and wrecked homes at high speed across farmland near Sendai, 300 km (180 miles) northeast of Tokyo. Ships had been flung onto a harbor wharf, where they lay helplessly on their side.Boats, cars and trucks were tossed around like toys in the water after the tsunami hit the town of Kamaishi. Kyodo news agency reported that contact had been lost with four trains in the coastal area. Japanese politicians pushed for an emergency budget to fund relief efforts after Kan asked them to save the country, Kyodo reported. Japan is already the most heavily indebted major economy in the world, meaning any funding efforts would be closely scrutinized by financial markets.Domestic media said the death toll was expected to exceed 1,000, most of whom appeared to have drowned by churning waters.Even in a nation accustomed to earthquakes, the devastation was shocking.A big area of Sendai city near the coast, is flooded. We are hearing that people who were evacuated are stranded, said Rie Sugimoto, a reporter for NHK television in Sendai.About 140 people, including children, were rushed to an elementary school and are on the rooftop but they are surrounded by water and have nowhere else to go.Japan prides itself on its speedy tsunami warning system, which has been upgraded several times since its inception in 1952, including after a 7.8 magnitude quake triggered a 30-meter high wave before a warning was given.
FIRES ACROSS THE COAST
The quake, the most powerful since Japan started keeping records 140 years ago, sparked at least 80 fires in cities and towns along the coast, Kyodo said.I was unable stay on my feet because of the violent shaking. The aftershocks gave us no reprieve. Then the tsunami came when we tried to run for cover. It was the strongest quake I experienced, a woman with a baby on her back told television in northern Japan.Other nuclear power plants and oil refineries were shut down and one refinery was ablaze. Power to millions of homes and businesses was knocked out. Several airports, including Tokyo's Narita, were closed and rail services halted. All ports were shut.The central bank said it would cut short a two-day policy review scheduled for next week to one day on Monday and promised to do its utmost to ensure financial market stability.The disaster struck as the world's third-largest economy had been showing signs of reviving from an economic contraction in the final quarter of last year. It raised the prospect of major disruptions for many key businesses and a massive repair bill running into tens of billions of dollars.The tsunami alerts revived memories of the giant waves that struck Asia in 2004.Warnings were issued for countries to the west of Japan and across the Pacific as far away as Colombia and Peru, but the tsunami dissipated as it sped across the ocean and worst fears in the Americas were not realized.The earthquake was the fifth most powerful to hit the world in the past century. It surpassed the Great Kanto quake of September 1, 1923, which had a magnitude of 7.9 and killed more than 140,000 people in the Tokyo area.
The 1995 Kobe quake caused $100 billion in damage and was the most expensive natural disaster in history. Economic damage from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was estimated at about $10 billion.(Writing by Dean Yates and Andrew Marshall; Editing by Jonathan Thatcher)
Japan warns of radiation leak from quake-hit plants By Osamu Tsukimori and Mayumi Negishi - MAR 11,11
TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan warned of a possible radiation leak on Saturday as authorities battled to contain rising pressure at two nuclear plants damaged by a massive earthquake, and were moving tens of thousands of residents in the area out of harm's way.Tokyo Electric Power Co said it has begun steps to release pressure at its two nuclear power plants in Fukushima, located some 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo.While some radiation leakage could be expected, Naoto Sekimura, a professor at the University of Tokyo, said a major radioactive disaster was not likely.No Chernobyl is possible at a light water reactor. Loss of coolant means a temperature rise, but it also will stop the reaction, he said.Even in the worst-case scenario, that would mean some radioactive leakage and equipment damage, but not an explosion. If venting is done carefully, there will be little leakage. Certainly not beyond the 3 km radius.Kyodo news agency reported that authorities had begun evacuating about 20,000 people from the vicinity of one of the plants, the Daini plant. Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who was flying by helicopter to view the plant by air, had earlier ordered that residents within a 10 km radius to be evacuated from the other plant, the Daiichi plant.Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said amount of leaked radiation would likely be small.
It's possible that radioactive material in the reactor vessel could leak outside but the amount is expected to be small, and the wind blowing toward the sea will be considered, he told a news conference.TEPCO said it had lost ability to control pressure in some of the reactors at its Daini plant as it had with the Daiichi plant. Pressure was stable inside the reactors of the Daini plant but rising in the containment vessels, a spokesman said.Pressure at one Daiichi reactor may have risen to 2.1 times the designed capacity, the trade ministry said.The cooling problems at the Japanese plant raised fears of a repeat of 1979's Three Mile Island accident, the most serious in the history of the U.S. nuclear power industry. However, experts said the situation was, so far, less serious.Equipment malfunctions, design problems and human error led to a partial meltdown of the reactor core at the Three Mile Island plant, but only minute amounts of dangerous radioactive gases were released.
The situation is still several stages away from Three Mile Island when the reactor container ceased to function as it should, said Tomoko Murakami, leader of the nuclear energy group at Japan's Institute of Energy Economics.Japan informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that the quake and tsunami cut the supply of off-site power to the plant and diesel generators intended to provide back-up electricity to the cooling system.(It's) a sign that the Japanese are pulling out all the stops they can to prevent this accident from developing into a core melt and also prevent it from causing a breach of the containment (system) from the pressure that is building up inside the core because of excess heat, said Mark Hibbs, a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.Radiation levels detected at the control unit of the reactors at the Daiichi plant were not ones that would require workers at the plant to evacuate, a trade ministry official said, adding that radiation at the control unit has risen to about 1,000 times the normal level.The Union of Concerned Scientists, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization, said this power failure resulted in one of the most serious conditions that can affect a nuclear plant -- a station blackout -- during which off-site power and on-site emergency alternating current (AC) power is lost.
Nuclear plants generally need AC power to operate the motors, valves and instruments that control the systems that provide cooling water to the radioactive core. If all AC power is lost, the options to cool the core are limited. If the core overheats, then the fuel would become damaged and a molten mass could melt through the reactor vessel, releasing a large amount of radioactivity into the containment building surrounding the vessel, the UCS said.It added that it was not clear if the quake had undermined the containment building to contain pressure from any meltdown and allow radioactivity to leak out.Power supply systems that would provide emergency electricity for the plant were being put in place, the World Nuclear Association said, with a source in the organization saying the situation is improving. The reactors shut down due to the earthquake account for 18 percent of Japan's nuclear power generating capacity.Nuclear power produces about 30 percent of the country's electricity. Many reactors are located in earthquake-prone zones such as Fukushima and Fukui on the coast.The IAEA estimates that around 20 percent of nuclear reactors around the world are currently operating in areas of significant seismic activity.
It said the sector began putting more emphasis on external hazards after an earthquake hit TEPCO's Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant in July 2007, until then the largest to ever affect a nuclear facility.When the earthquake hit the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant, four reactors shut down automatically. Water containing radioactive material was released into the sea, but without an adverse effect on human health or the environment, it said.TEPCO had been operating three out of six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant at the time of the quake, all of which shut down. A spokesman said that there were no concerns of a leak for the remaining three reactors at the plant, which had been shut for planned maintenance.
(Additional reporting by Risa Maeda, Kiyoshi Takenaka and Chikako Mogi in Tokyo and Fredrik Dahl in Vienna; Writing by Edwina Gibbs; Editing by Jonathan Thatcher)
MATTHEW 24:7-8
7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.
MARK 13:8
8 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom:(ETHNIC GROUP AGAINST ETHNIC GROUP) and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows.
LUKE 21:11
11 And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7359270n&tag=mg;mostpopvideo
WELL NOW WE MIGHT HAVE ANOTHER CHERNOBOL ON OUR HANDS.ITS 10:20AM MAR 12,11 AND I JUST WOKE UP AND HEARD THERE WAS A EXPLOSION AT ONE OF THE REACTOR SITES BUT THE LEAK ITSELF IS CONTAINED SO FAR.THEY ARE STILL EVACUATING A 12-13 MILE RADIOUS OF THE PLANT THOUGH.SO THERE IS OVIOUSLY A MIST LEAK SINCE THEY CHANGED THE EVACUATION AREA FROM 6 MILES TO NOW 12 OR 13 MILE RADIOUS.
AND NOW I JUST HEARD THAT SOME EUROPEAN OFFICIALS ARE BLAMING THIS JAPAN QUAKE ON GLOBAL WARMING.THE USUAL SCAM SO WE ARE FORCED TO HAVE SCAM WIND MILLS AND PAY TRILLIONS TO THE ELITE NWO CONTROL FREAKS IN CARBON TAXES TO PAY FOR THE ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT THEY WANT OVER US TO CONTROL OUR EVERY MOVES.THIS CARBON TAX SCAM FOR GIGANTIC TAXES WILL THE GOVERNMENTS NEVER STOP IT.
ITS 2:08PM AND THE JAPAN QUAKE HAS SPAWNED OVER 200 AFTERSHOCKS.AND REPORTS ALSO SAY THAT THERE IS A RED ALERT ON A POSSIBLE 2ND AND 3RD REACTORS THAT MIGHT BE STARTING TO LEAK.AND THE GOVERNMENT IS GIVING OUT POTTASIUM IODINE TO PEOPLE NEAR THE SITE.THIS IS REALLY STARTING TO GET SERIOUS NOW.1,300 PEOPLE HAVE BEEN CONFIRMED DEAD IN THE QUAKE-TSUNAMI SO FAR.SCIENTIST SAY THE QUAKE WAS SO POWERFULL IT MADE THE MAIN ISLAND OF JAPAN SHIFT 8 FEET.EARTHS AXIS SHIFTED 10 INCHES.AND NOW THIS CHANGES THE SPEED THAT THE EARTHS PLANET ROTATES.IT AFFECTS THE LENGTH OF OUR DAYS AND THE CHANGES OF SEASONS.BUT THIS IS A SLIGHT CHANGE,ITS IMPOSSIBLE TO NOTICE IN OUR EVERY DAY LIVES.WELL THIS JUST CONFIRMS BIBLE PROPHECY THAT THE POWER OF THE HEAVENS WILL BE SHAKIN.MY COMMENTS YESTERDAY WERE RIGHT ON.
DO ALL THESE COUNTRIES LOOK FAMILIAR FROM YESTERDAYS TSUNAMI-YES THE EXACT ONES.
ANGEL OF THE LORD TO DR DOCTORIAN
The first angel said: I have a message for all of Asia. When he said that, in a split few seconds, I could see all of China, India, the Asian countries like Vietnam, Laos - I've never been to those countries. I saw the Philippines, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. And then the angel showed me all of Papua New Guinea, Irian Jaya and down to Australia and New Zealand.I am the angel of Asia, he said. And in his hand I saw a tremendous trumpet that he is going to blow all over Asia. Whatever the angel said, it's going to happen with the trumpet of the Lord all over Asia. Millions are going to hear the mighty voice of the Lord. Then the angel said, There shall be disaster, starvation - many will die from hunger. Strong winds will be looked like has never happened before. A great part shall be shaken and destroyed.Earthquakes will take place all over Asia and the sea will cover the earth.
NUCLEAR WEAPONS WILL BE USED.
PSALMS 97:3
3 A fire goeth before him, and burneth up his enemies round about.
2 TIMOTHY 3:1
1 This know also, that in the last days perilous (DANGEROUS) times shall come.
JOEL 2:3,30
3 A fire devoureth before them; and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.
ZECHARIAH 14:12-13
12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.
13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.(1/2-3 BILLION DIE IN WW3)
REVELATION 16:3-7
3 And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea.(enviromentalists won't like this result)
4 And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood.
5 And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus.
6 For they(False World Church and Dictator) have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy.
BORON 10
Boron is used in pyrotechnics and flares to produce a green color. Boron has also been used in some rockets as an ignition source. Boron-10, one of the naturally occurring isotopes of boron, is a good absorber of neutrons and is used in the control of rods of nuclear reactors, as a radiation shield and as a neutron detector. Boron filaments are used in the aerospace industry because of their high-strength and lightweight.jjnorman, Answers Expert.
REVELATION 6:7-8
7 And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.
8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse:(CHLORES GREEN-SICKLY) and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword,(WEAPONS) and with hunger,(FAMINE) and with death,(INCURABLE DISEASES) and with the beasts of the earth.(ANIMAL TO HUMAN DISEASE).
CESIUM 137-https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Caesium-137
Small amounts of cesium-134 and caesium-137 were released into the environment during nearly all nuclear weapon tests and some nuclear accidents, most notably the Chernobyl disaster. As of 2005, caesium-137 is the principal source of radiation in the zone of alienation around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Together with cesium-134, iodine-131, and strontium-90, caesium-137 was among the isotopes with greatest health impact distributed by the reactor explosion.
The mean contamination of caesium-137 in Germany following the Chernobyl disaster was 2000 to 4000 Bq/m2. This corresponds to a contamination of 1 mg/km2 of caesium-137, totaling about 500 grams deposited over all of Germany.
Due to caesium-137 mostly being a product of artificial nuclear fission, it did not occur in nature to any significant degree before nuclear weapons testing began. By observing the characteristic gamma rays emitted by this isotope, it is possible to determine whether the contents of a given sealed container were made before or after the advent of atomic bomb explosions. This procedure has been used by researchers to check the authenticity of certain rare wines, most notably the purported Jefferson bottles.
NUCLEAR STATE OF EMERGENCY IN JAPAN-VIDEO
http://video.foxnews.com/v/4582072/nuclear-state-of-emergency-in-japan/?playlist_id=86857
For battered Japan, a new threat: nuclear meltdown
By ERIC TALMADGE and YURI KAGEYAMA, Associated Press 6:25PM
Eric Talmadge And Yuri Kageyama, Associated Press – 19 mins ago
IWAKI, Japan – Cooling systems failed at another nuclear reactor on Japan's devastated coast Sunday, hours after an explosion at a nearby unit made leaking radiation, or even outright meltdown, the central threat to the country following a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami.The Japanese government said radiation emanating from the plant appeared to have decreased after Saturday's blast, which produced a cloud of white smoke that obscured the complex. But the danger was grave enough that officials pumped seawater into the reactor to avoid disaster and moved 170,000 people from the area.Japan's nuclear safety agency then reported an emergency at another reactor unit, the third in the complex to have its cooling systems malfunction.Japan dealt with the nuclear threat as it struggled to determine the scope of the earthquake, the most powerful in its recorded history, and the tsunami that ravaged its northeast Friday with breathtaking speed and power. The official count of the dead was 686, but the government said the figure could far exceed 1,000.
Teams searched for the missing along hundreds of miles (kilometers) of the Japanese coast, and thousands of hungry survivors huddled in darkened emergency centers that were cut off from rescuers and aid. At least a million households had gone without water since the quake struck. Large areas of the countryside were surrounded by water and unreachable.The explosion at the nuclear plant, Fukushima Dai-ichi, 170 miles (274 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo, appeared to be a consequence of steps taken to prevent a meltdown after the quake and tsunami knocked out power to the plant, crippling the system used to cool fuel rods there.The blast destroyed the building housing the reactor, but not the reactor itself, which is enveloped by stainless steel 6 inches (15 centimeters) thick.Inside that superheated steel vessel, water being poured over the fuel rods to cool them formed hydrogen. When officials released some of the hydrogen gas to relieve pressure inside the reactor, the hydrogen apparently reacted with oxygen, either in the air or the cooling water, and caused the explosion.They are working furiously to find a solution to cool the core, said Mark Hibbs, a senior associate at the Nuclear Policy Program for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Nuclear agency officials said Japan was injecting seawater into the core — an indication, Hibbs said, of how serious the problem is and how the Japanese had to resort to unusual and improvised solutions to cool the reactor core.Officials declined to say what the temperature was inside the troubled reactor, Unit 1. At 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit (1,200 degrees Celsius), the zirconium casings of the fuel rods can react with the cooling water and create hydrogen. At 4,000 F (2,200 C), the uranium fuel pellets inside the rods start to melt, the beginning of a meltdown.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said radiation around the plant had fallen, not risen, after the blast but did not offer an explanation. Virtually any increase in dispersed radiation can raise the risk of cancer, and authorities were planning to distribute iodine, which helps protect against thyroid cancer. Authorities ordered 210,000 people out of the area within 12 miles (20 kilometers) of the reactor.It was the first time Japan had confronted the threat of a significant spread of radiation since the greatest nightmare in its history, a catastrophe exponentially worse: the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States, which resulted in more than 200,000 deaths from the explosions, fallout and radiation sickness.
Officials have said that radiation levels at Fukushima were elevated before the blast: At one point, the plant was releasing each hour the amount of radiation a person normally absorbs from the environment each year.The Japanese utility that runs the plant said four workers suffered fractures and bruises and were being treated at a hospital. Nine residents of a town near the plant who later evacuated the area tested positive for radiation exposure, though officials said they showed no health problems.As Japan entered its second night since the magnitude-8.9 quake, there were grim signs that the death toll could soar. One report said no one could find four whole trains. Others said 9,500 people in one coastal town were unaccounted for and that at least 200 bodies had washed ashore elsewhere.The government said 642 people were missing and 1,426 injured.Atsushi Ito, an official in Miyagi prefecture, among the worst-hit states, could not confirm the figures, noting that with so little access to the area, thousands of people in scores of towns could not yet be reached. Our estimates based on reported cases alone suggest that more than 1,000 people have lost their lives in the disaster, Edano said. Unfortunately, the actual damage could far exceed that number considering the difficulty assessing the full extent of damage.Japan, among the most technologically advanced countries in the world, is well-prepared for earthquakes. Its buildings are made to withstand strong jolts — even Friday's, the strongest in Japan since official records began in the late 1800s. The tsunami that followed was beyond human control.With waves 23 feet (7 meters) high and the speed of a jumbo jet, it raced inland as far as six miles (10 kilometers), swallowing homes, cars, trees, people and anything else in its path.The tsunami was unbelievably fast, said Koichi Takairin, a 34-year-old truck driver who was inside his sturdy, four-ton rig when the wave hit the port town of Sendai. Smaller cars were being swept around me. All I could do was sit in my truck.
His rig ruined, he joined the steady flow of survivors who walked along the road away from the sea and back into the city Saturday.Smashed cars and small airplanes were jumbled against buildings near the local airport, several miles (kilometers) from the shore. Felled trees and wooden debris lay everywhere as rescue workers in boats nosed through murky waters and around flooded structures.The tsunami set off warnings across the Pacific Ocean, and waves sent boats crashing into one another and demolished docks on the U.S. West Coast. In Crescent City, California, near the Oregon state line, one person was swept out to sea and had not been found Saturday.
In Japan early Sunday, firefighters had yet to contain a large blaze at the Cosmo Oil refinery in the city of Ichihara. Four million households remained without power. The Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported that Japan had asked for additional energy supplies from Russia.Prime Minister Naoto Kan said 50,000 troops had joined the rescue and recovery efforts, helped by boats and helicopters. Dozens of countries offered to pitch in. President Barack Obama said one American aircraft carrier was already off Japan and a second on its way.Aid had just begun to trickle into many areas. More than 215,000 people were living in 1,350 temporary shelters in five prefectures, the Japanese national police agency said.All we have to eat are biscuits and rice balls, said Noboru Uehara, 24, a delivery truck driver who was wrapped in a blanket against the cold at a shelter in Iwake. I'm worried that we will run out of food.The transport ministry said all highways from Tokyo leading to quake-stricken areas were closed, except for emergency vehicles. Mobile communications were spotty and calls to the devastated areas were going unanswered.
One hospital in Miyagi prefecture was seen surrounded by water, and the staff had painted SOS, in English, on its rooftop and were waving white flags.Around the nuclear plant, where 51,000 people had previously been urged to leave, others struggled to get away.Everyone wants to get out of the town. But the roads are terrible, said Reiko Takagi, a middle-aged woman, standing outside a taxi company. It is too dangerous to go anywhere. But we are afraid that winds may change and bring radiation toward us.Although the government played down fears of radiation leak, Japanese nuclear agency spokesman Shinji Kinjo acknowledged there were still fears of a meltdown — the collapse of a power plant's systems, rendering it unable regulate temperatures and keep the reactor fuel cool.Yaroslov Shtrombakh, a Russian nuclear expert, said it was unlikely that the Japanese plant would suffer a meltdown like the one in 1986 at Chernobyl, when a reactor exploded and sent a cloud of radiation over much of Europe. That reactor, unlike the reactor at Fukushima, was not housed in a sealed container.Kageyama reported from Tokyo. Associated Press writers Malcolm J. Foster, Mari Yamaguchi, Tomoko A. Hosaka and Shino Yuasa in Tokyo, Jay Alabaster in Sendai, Sylvia Hui in London, David Nowak in Moscow, and Margie Mason in Hanoi also contributed.
HERES WHAT TO EXPECT IF ITS ANOTHER CHERNOBOL
Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster Revisited Part one of a series
By Roberta C. Barbalace
http://environmentalchemistry.com/yogi/hazmat/articles/chernobyl1.html
A Human Face
In May 1996 a colleague sent me an article from Chemical and Engineering News (C&EN) about the Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident. I set it aside, thoroughly intending to write about it at a later time. I might have totally forgotten about it had I not unexpectedly encountered a young man from Belarus who provided a real face and a real personality that I needed to identify with the catastrophe. Blasa was a round faced lad probably about eleven years old visiting from Belarus. His English was about as fluent as my Russian was. Between us there were perhaps a couple of dozen words that we both understood. His host family explained that he was a survivor of Chernobyl and was visiting the United States through a project sponsored by a group of business men who wanted to give the children some relief from the stress that they experience daily as a result of the Chernobyl disaster. I had thought about possible increase in cancer and birth defects. Somehow, stress ten years after the accident never entered my mind. I started shuffling through my pile of potential articles and found the one that Jim Bley had sent. The facts were mind-boggling.
Chernobyl Disaster Recalled
At 1:23 AM on April 26, 1986, two explosions ripped through the Unit 4 reactor of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Ukraine. The reactor block and adjacent structure were wrecked by the initial explosion. Nearby buildings were ignited by burning graphite projectiles. Radioactive particles swept across the Ukraine, Belarus, the western portion of Russia and eventually spread across Europe and the whole Northern Hemisphere. The accident followed a safety experiment in which the plant was operated outside of its designed parameters at very low power and unfavorable cooling conditions.The graphite fires continued to burn for several days despite the fact that thousands of tons of boron carbide, lead, sand and clay were dumped over the core reactor by helicopter. The fire eventually extinguished itself when the core melted, flowed into the lower part of the building and then solidified, sealing off the entry. About 71% of the radioactive fuel in the core (about 135 metric tons) remained uncovered for about 10 days until cooling and solidification took place. 135,000 people were evacuated from a 30-km radius exclusion zone. Clean up involved some 800,000 people. The radioactivity released was estimated to be about two hundred times that of the combined releases in the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Millions of people were exposed to the radiation in varying doses.
Health Consequences of the Chernobyl Disaster
Compulsory health monitoring was provided to those who lived and worked in the heavily contaminated area. Health monitoring was also provided for more than 4.5 million people who were exposed to lower levels of radiation. Still, the available information on the direct health effects of the catastrophe are sketchy at best.
Twenty different radionuclides with half-lives varying from 8 days to 24,400 years were released into the atmosphere during the ten day period following the explosion. The contaminants include idiodine-131, cesium-134 and -137 and several plutonium isotopes. There were 444 workers at the site at the time of the accident. Of the 300 admitted to hospitals, 134 were diagnosed with acute radiation syndrome (ARS). Only 45 of these individuals have died to date, though the survivors still suffer with emotional and sleep disturbances and 30% have gastrointestinal, cardiovascular and immuno-function disorders. In Belarus alone 2.2 million people including 600,000 juveniles and children have been exposed to the prolonged impact of long-lived radionuclides. A total of 415 settlements have been evacuated, and the 130,000 residents resettled, making monitoring of them difficult.
The actual death toll due to this catastrophe is hard to determine. Greenpeace Ukraine estimates the total number to be about 32,000. Some estimates are higher, many are much lower. The rate of thyroid cancer in children up to the age of 15 has increased 200 fold in Gomel Oblast, Belarus since the accident. At least 90% of these are curable, but the number of cases is expected to increase, especially in children like Blasa who were younger than three at the time of the release. Thyroid cancer is due to inhalation of radioactive iodine or ingestion from drinking milk from cows that have eaten grass that is contaminated with radioactive particles. Iodine-134 is absorbed and concentrated (biointensified) in the milk. When humans drink the milk, the iodine-134 becomes incorporated almost exclusively in the thyroid gland. Many diets in the fall-out affected area of the former Soviet Union are typically deficient in iodine. Individuals who had low levels of iodine in their diet incorporated large quantities of the radioactive iodine into their system as their bodies attempted to compensate for the deficiency. At the moment few republics are reporting a rise in leukemia, a condition which would have been expected to increase. It is possible that the actual rise in incidents of the disease is masked by the mass resettlement into other unaffected areas after the accident. This may have resulted in skewed results since any increase in the rate of leukemia would be averaged over a larger population of individuals, many of whom had not been exposed.
The incidences of birth defects have increased in heavily contaminated areas. A condition known as minisatellite mutation in the Mogilev district of Belarus is unusually high.Most genetic mutations resulting from exposure to radiation are recessive and are not likely to be expressed until the individuals affected have grandchildren. The mutation will be fully manifested when two people carrying the same mutant gene marry and produce a child who receives the identical mutant gene from each parent (a one-in-four chance for each child they produce). Radiation effects are dependent upon both level and time of exposure and some individuals continue to be exposed. As a result many effects of radiation on an exposed individual may not be manifested for years to come. Madame Curie reportedly worked with radioactive materials for years before she finally succumbed to its effects. Cancer may take many years to develop after exposure to a carcinogen.The secondary effects of the accident are readily obvious. Millions of people are suffering from mental and emotional illness and these conditions lead to disturbances of the physical kind, including digestive disorders, high blood pressure, heart conditions and more generally sleeplessness and alcoholism. General living conditions in the three affected republics are substandard. The economy is deteriorating and health services are experiencing total collapse. People are malnourished, and diseases like tuberculosis are on the increase. Some of this economic depression is due to the accident, and some is a result of the general economic situation in the former Soviet Union as a whole. The immediate problems are more important to them than diseases that will not have a major impact until some time in the future. As a result, leukemia, thyroid cancer and birth defects must take a back seat to more pressing issues, such as basic survival. Extensive studies will be necessary in order to determine the total impact of the Chernobyl disaster and approach a solution intelligently.
Could it be that human invasion has a greater impact on the environment than the most catastrophic nuclear accident in the 20th century?
In 1986 the Chernobyl accident contaminated 125,000 square miles of land in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine with radionucleotides including cesium-137, strontium-90 and plutonium-239. It is too early to determine the long-term effects of the radioactive contaminants on the various affected habitats, because genetic changes are often not expressed in a general population for two or three generations. From early observations, however, the prognosis is much more promising than had originally been expected.About 40% of the contaminated area was used for agriculture. The remainder was forest, bodies of water and urban centers. Plants and animals living in the 30-km exclusion zone received the highest level of radiation. Since radionucleotides migrate very slowly in soil, the radiation level in this region remains high. In Belrus 2,640 sq. km of farmland and 1,900 sq. km of forest have been taken out of use by humans forever; so predicted Igor V. Rolevich, Belarus first deputy minister for emergencies.The Chernobyl accident took place during the growing season. It took only two weeks for the conifers to suffer significant damage from exposure. Initially many trees suffered sever damage to reproductive tissue.Within three years of the accident, the trees had regained their reproductive functions. The forests have begun to thrive. Areas within the heart of the exclusion zone have the largest density of animals as well as the greatest diversity. Since people and their livestock do not enter the exclusion zone, there is not much overgrazing, no fires and no destruction. The grass is very deep and the habitat is doing very well. The area outside the exclusion zone has been so severely overgrazed by cattle that there is little grass. In addition, the trees have been cut for firewood, a stress factor that has not affected the exclusion zone.
One must avoid the temptation to become too overly optimistic about the rapid recovery of the contaminated area. Currently there is no standard by which to predict the long-term effects on populations, species or ecosystems.Contamination of the soil by radionucleotides with long half-lives such as cesium-137 is a particular problem for the local residents near the Chernobyl Nuclear Reactor. These radionucleotides remain in the soil for a long while, is taken up by plants and transferred to the milk and meat products of cattle that graze the area. Human exposure could have been reduced by imposing strict countermeasures immediately following the release. Had local residents not worked in the field, or eaten fresh vegetables, and had they kept their livestock from eating the contaminated forage. Such measures need to be taken immediately, however, and they were not. Very specific countermeasures applied immediately can have a great bearing on the long term effects of a radioactive release. Changing the type of crop planted (each species has a different rate at which it absorbs specific chemical elements or compounds) or adding chemicals such as lime or potassium fertilizers can protect the population. In order for this to happen, residents have to be trained to respond, and the needed supplies must be readily available. No emergency procedure was in place for dealing with the catastrophe.It is interesting that the water supply is not nearly as contaminated as the soil. The radionucleotides tend to settle out with time. Aquatic habitats also tend to be more tolerant of radioactive contamination. There is no evidence of any long term effects to the populations in the water near the nuclear reactor's cooling pond, which was the most contaminated body of water in the exclusion zone.While the groundwater has not been contaminated to date, the Sarcophagus, which was built around Reactor Unit 4 is crumbling and there are many sites where radiation contaminated equipment were dumped.While the environment in the exclusion zone seems to have recovered, it still has to deal with long term effects (such as genetic mutations, which may not surface for a few generations) and the real threat of another release of radioactivity should the integrity of the sarcophagus continue to disintegrate.
If societies worldwide want to continue using nuclear power, the benefits must be balanced against the risks!
Chernobyl's accident was a turning point for the nuclear power industry worldwide. According to World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO), It demonstrated clearly that nuclear power in some parts of the world was not safe enough.The association points out that the accident caused such a negative opinion of nuclear energy that, should such an accident occur again, the existence and future of nuclear energy all over the world would be compromised.On the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES), the Chernobyl nuclear accident rates the highest classification, which is level seven. The worst nuclear accident in the West, which was rated a level five by the INES, occurred in the pressurized water reactor at the Three Mile Island facility in Pennsylvania in 1979.Chernobyl incidents are still happening but now are relatively minor compared to the two explosions occurred on April 26, 1986. For example, on Nov, 1995, a small amount of nuclear fuel leaked from the Unit 1 reactor and exposed a worker to about one year's permitted radiation dose.Past experience indicates that there will be another Chernobyl-scale accident, World Health Organization (WHO) scientist Keith F. Baverstock suggests. The increasing number of older reactors is especially a cause for concern.
According to David R. Kyd, director of the Division of Public Information at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Vienna, Austria, There are more than 430 nuclear reactors in the world, with more being built. More significantly, the number of reactors that are aging is inevitably increasing. The first nuclear reactor went on-line about 40 years ago.The huge 300,000-metric-ton concrete and steel sarcophagus that was built at Chernobyl to entomb the destroyed reactor still contains uranium fuel. It is thought to include pellets and hot particles of enriched uranium dioxide, and three streams of solidified lava of fuel mixed with sand and concrete. The long-term stability of the sarcophagus is causing concern. It is now generally accepted that the Chernobyl accident occurred, as WANO puts it, because of a combination of the physics characteristics of the reactor, the design of the control rods, human error, and management shortcomings in the design and implementation of the [safety] experiment. The theory that accidents are rarely due to a single cause is well demonstrated here. Chernobyl was an accident waiting to happen. Changes to the design on nuclear plants along with the implementation of administrative measures have improved safety conditions of operations. There have been other safety improvements since the accident, including the installation of emergency core-cooling systems and remote-control rooms in the first-generation Chernobyl-type, and better operation rules and procedures.The nuclear industry has learned a number of things from Chernobyl. The most important is that it led to the formation of the World Association of Nuclear Operators, an organization that brougth together operators to look at safety and coordination of safety on a world scale.
Professor Sir Dillwyn Williams at the University of Cambridge said that, If societies want to continue using nuclear power, the benefits must be balanced against the risks. Precautions must be taken to prevent those types of disasters from happening again. Although the environment seems to have recovered, right now we don't have a really good overview of the long-term effects on populations, species, or ecosystems.
Chernobyl Disaster From the Mouths of Children
From Footprint of the Black Wind - written by children - Chernobyl in my destiny (Minsk 1995)
Irina Prokopenko - 9th grade
In the days after the accident we were light-hearted and trusting, we inhabitants of the contamination zone. We lived the same lives as before. Children played out in the radioactive rain; we ate pies off open stalls, went to the woods; the grown-ups worked in the fields... I am now 17, and for seven years have lived with thyroid disease...
Natalla Jarmolenko - 11th grade
...Last year one of my classmates, my friend Maja Kasajed, died. The whole school gave her a send-off like a bride. We all stood outside the schoolhouse, and the head-mistress rang the bell for Maja, for the end of the last lesson of her short life...
Yelena Kulazhenko - 10th grade
Chernobyl called my dad too. He worked for the Department of Internal Affairs...in the 30 km (exclusion) zone...He came home with a voice that was strange and dry. He drank lots of mineral water; that's what the doctors prescribed. He told us about empty villages of Palessia, the domestic animals howling crazily in the roads... In 1989 they gave Dad a terrible diagnosis: cancer of spinal marrow... Doctors in Minsk refused to operate... Soviet people in Moscow refused to treat him...Dad was two months in a hospital in Michigan. Dad came back full of hope. Enchanted, we listened to his tales about the strange but sympathetic and kind people he had met in that far-off land... (Moscow) refused follow up treatment. He began to get worse... On March 28th (1993) he died... That's how (Chernobyl) took away my Dad. And it took away my birthday too; Dad died exactly on the day I reached 14.
FACT SHEET: Fukushima Nuclear Plant
Published March 12, 2011| FoxNews.com
March 11: Fukushima Daiichi power plant's Unit 1 is seen in Okumamachi, Fukushima prefecture, Japan. The nuclear power plant affected by a massive earthquake is facing a possible meltdown, an official with Japan's nuclear safety commission said Saturday. (AP/The Yomiuri Shimbun)IWAKI, Japan – The Fukushima plant is located 150 miles away from Tokyo, 40 miles from the earthquake's epicenter.
- About 30% of electricity in Japan is produced by 55 nuclear power units in 17 plants
Japan is the world's third largest producer of nuclear power.
- The earthquake has led to the shutdown of 11 of the Japan's 55 nuclear power plants, representing nearly 20% of the country's capacity.
- The Fukushima Daiichi unit is just one of five reactors severely imperiled by the earthquake.
- The Fukushima plant covers about 865 acres and it is built on solid bedrock.
- Opened in 1971 -- the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (No.1) would be marking its 40th anniversary on March 26.
- Some 40,000 people had evacuated from the areas around two Fukushima plants as of Saturday afternoon, according to reports.
- Authorities evacuated a 12.5 mile radius around the reactor, and told residents within 16.5 miles to remain indoors.
- Virtually any increase in ambient radiation can raise long-term cancer rates.
- A partial meltdown in one of the light water reactors at Three Mile Island in 1979 resulted in the release of radioactive gases in the most serious incident in the history of the U.S. nuclear power industry.
(Source: Japan Officials Probe Nuclear Plant Collapse, The Wall Street Journal: 12 March 2011)
(Source: Damage to cooling system had sparked warning of meltdown, MarketWatch: 12 March 2011)
(Source: Japan Officials Probe Nuclear Plant Collapse, The Wall Street Journal: 12 March 2011)
(Source: IAEA, http://www.iaea.org/cgi-bin/db.page.pl/pris.powrea.htm?country=JP&sort=&sortlong=Alphabetic)
(Source: Explosion at Japan nuke plant, disaster toll rises, Associated Press: 12 Mar 2011)
(Source: Explosion rocks Japanese power plant, The Washington Post: 12 Mar 2011. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/11/AR2011031103673_4.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2011031100651)
(Source: Fukushima nuclear plant blast puts Japan on high alert, Guardian Unlimited: 13 March 2011)
Dr. Manny: Potential Danger as Radiation Levels Surge in Japan
By Dr. Manny Alvarez Published March 11, 2011| FoxNews.com
As I watch the tragedy unfolding in Japan since an 8.9-magnitude earthquake rocked the nation this morning, triggering a deadly tsunami, I am realizing just how much devastation this small country is potentially facing – and it’s scary.Hundreds of people have already died, and I’m sure the number will continue to rise as the clean-up efforts kick into high gear.But new concerns are growing. The massive earthquake caused a power outage that disabled a nuclear power plant’s cooling system in the Onahoma city, about 170 miles north of Tokyo.Surging radiation levels of 1,000 times more than normal have caused an evacuation of 3,000 people near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant—making it the first-ever state of emergency declared at a nuclear plant in Japan.Soon after the evacuation order, the government announced that the plant will release slightly radioactive vapor from the unit to lower the pressure in an effort to protect it from a possible meltdown.
Dr. Manny Alvarez
Government officials said the amount of radioactive elements leaking from the plant would be very small and would not affect the environment or human health—if the leak is kept under control.However, if they cannot continue to restore cooling of the plant, it could become a very dangerous situation to those living in close range of the plant, and the fallout would only spread.If the reactor does indeed melt down, the results could be similar – if not worse – than that of Chernobyl.When a reactor at a nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine went out of control in April of 1986 during a low-power test that led to an explosion and subsequent meltdown, it contaminated 58,000 square miles of land between Belarus, Russia and the Ukraine, and prompted the evacuation of thousands of residents.The reactor meltdown released a hundred radioactive elements into the atmosphere including dangerous iodine, strontium and caesium, which are the most dangerous, and can still be found in the affected areas today.In the years since this devastating accident, studies on groups of emergency workers and individuals with the highest exposure rates have linked the radioactive fallout to several health consequences like certain cancers, cardiovascular disease and death.
Radiation is predicated on three factors: total exposure, how close you were to the accident and how much time you were exposed to it.The human body is very resilient and has mechanisms in place to repair damage to cells from radiation and chemical carcinogens. But exposure to high levels of ionizing radiation can lead to radiation sickness, and sometimes, permanent biophysical changes to the cells.The severity of radiation sickness depends on the amount of radiation the person encounters and the amount of time he or she is exposed.Symptoms can arise at any point after exposure. It can be immediate or occur over days, weeks or months.Early exposure symptoms can include: nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, headache and fever.Signs that may appear in the days following exposure include: dizziness, disorientation, weakness, fatigue, hair loss, bloody vomit and stools, infections, poor wound healing and low blood pressure.
But radioactive fallout traveling through the environment can pose long-term health consequences depending on the amount of exposure — and chronic exposure to these high levels of radiation can cause more serious conditions like cancer and premature aging.From the time a person becomes contaminated to the time when he or she starts developing symptoms is a good indicator of just how significant the radiation exposure is. The earlier the signs show up, the more concentrated the exposure.The most important thing to remember is if someone experiences any of these issues he or she should not remain in that area. They should seek emergency treatment immediately and destroy their contaminated clothing.Right now, it seems the Japanese government is controlling the situation. And we can only pray that it stays that way.
Factbox: Experts on explosion at Japan nuclear plant
– Sat Mar 12, 8:23 am ET
(Reuters) – Radiation was leaking from an unstable nuclear reactor north of Tokyo on Saturday, the Japanese government said, after an explosion blew the roof off the facility following a massive earthquake.The development has led to fears of a disastrous meltdown. Here are comments from experts about what might have happened.
PROF PADDY REGAN, PROFESSOR OF NUCLEAR PHYSICS AT THE
UNIVERSITY OF SURREY
It looks as if the coolant pumps had initially stopped working. They shut down automatically when the reactor shuts down, but there is a backup system running off a diesel generator -- it looks as though that's the bit that failed.As a result there is no way of pumping heat out of the reactor, so it has to cool naturally. If the reactor gets too hot, in principle this means the fuel rods can melt - but it looks unlikely this has happened to any great extent in this case.To reduce the pressure, you would have to release some steam into the atmosphere from the system. In that steam, there will be small but measurable amounts of radioactive nitrogen - nitrogen 16 (produced when neutrons hit water). This remains radioactive for only about 5 seconds, after which it decays to natural oxygen.But if any of the fuel rods have been compromised, there would be evidence of a small amount of other radioisotopes in the atmosphere called fission fragments (radio-caesium and radio-iodine).The amount that you measure would tell you to what degree the fuel rods have been compromised. Scientists in Japan should be able to establish this very quickly using gamma ray spectroscopy as the isotopes have characteristic decay signatures. Current reports seem consistent with a small leak to relieve pressure.But we still need to establish the cause and exact location of the explosion, which is a separate issue. So far it looks like it's not the reactor core that's affected which would be good news.We must remember that there are 55 reactors in Japan and this was a huge earthquake, and as a test of the resilience and robustness of nuclear plants it seems they have withstood the effects very well.
TIMOTHY ABRAM, PROFESSOR OF NUCLEAR FUEL TECHNOLOGY AT
BRITAIN'S MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY
By sampling the air around the station, you'd be able to tell how much radioactivity has been released. The thing they'll be looking for more than anything is whether there's any evidence of the fuel actually degrading, he told Reuters.If the fuel is substantially intact, then there'll be a much, much lower release of radioactivity and the explosion that's happened might be just due to a build-up of steam in the reactor circuit.The most probable (cause of the explosion) is the coolant, particularly if it's water, can overheat and turn to steam more rapidly than it was designed to cope with.He said it was unlikely it would develop into anything more serious, but this would depend on the integrity of the fuel, which contains nearly all the radioactivity of the plant. He said he thought it would be pretty unlikely that the fuel itself had been significantly damaged.He said if this did occur, some radioactive material might be released into the primary circuit, which in turn might be vented into the containment building to release the pressure. Even the worse case scenario from there is the pressure in the containment building itself builds up to dangerous levels and has to be released, he said.Consequently you are releasing pressure from in the containment building, some of which contains radioactivity, out into the environment. There are a lot of ifs in that chain of events.
VALERIY HLYHALO, DEPUTY DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE CHERNOBYL
NUCLEAR SAFETY Center
The explosion at No. 1 generating set of the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan, which took place today, will not be a repetition of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, Interfax quoted the Ukrainian expert as saying.He said that the Japanese nuclear power plants use reactors of a totally different design to Chernobyl's.Japan has modern-type reactors. All fission products should be isolated by the confinement (the reactor's protection shell). Only gas emission is possible.Hlyhalo said that Japanese nuclear power plants are earthquake resistant.Apart from that, these reactors are designed to work at a high seismicity zone, although what has happened is beyond the impact the plants were designed to withstand. Therefore, the consequences should not be as serious as after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
IAN HORE-LACY OF THE WORLD NUCLEAR ASSOCIATION, AN INDUSTRY
BODY REPRESENTING 180 COMPANIES IN THE NUCLEAR SECTOR
It is obviously an hydrogen explosion ... due to hydrogen igniting. If the hydrogen has ignited, then it is gone, it doesn't pose any further threat.The whole situation is quite serious but the actual hydrogen explosion doesn't add a great deal to it.He said it was most unlikely to be a major disaster and he also did not believe there would be a full fuel meltdown.That would have been much more likely early yesterday in the European time. We are now 24 hours into the situation and the fuel has cooled a lot in that time and the likelihood of meltdown at this stage I would think would be very, very small.
ROBIN GRIMES, PROFESSOR OF MATERIALS PHYSICS AT IMPERIAL
COLLEGE LONDON
It does seem as if the back-up generators although they started initially to work, then failed, Grimes, an expert in radiation damage told BBC TV.So it means slowly the heat and the pressure built up in this reactor. One of the things that might just have happened is a large release of that pressure. If it's that then we're not in such bad circumstances.Despite the damage to the outer structure, as long as that steel inner vessel remains intact, then the vast majority of the radiation will be contained.At the moment it does seem that they are still contained and it's a release of significant steam pressure that's caused this explosion. The key will be the monitoring of those radiation levels.
NUCLEAR EXPERT MARK HIBBS OF THE CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR
INTERNATIONAL PEACE
We don't have any information from inside the plant. That is the problem in this case.If it melts down the probability that there would be a breach or that radiation would get outside of the plant because of weakness of the structure of the plant ... is much greater.(Reporting by Michael Holden and Fredrik Dahl in Vienna)
Explosion at Japan nuke plant, disaster toll rises By ERIC TALMADGE and YURI KAGEYAMA, Associated Press - MAR 12,11
IWAKI, Japan – An explosion at a nuclear power station Saturday destroyed a building housing the reactor, but a radiation leak was decreasing despite fears of a meltdown from damage caused by a powerful earthquake and tsunami, officials said.Government spokesman Yukio Edano said the explosion destroyed the exterior walls of the building where the reactor is placed, but not the actual metal housing enveloping the reactor.That was welcome news for a country suffering from Friday's double disaster that pulverized the northeastern coast, leaving at least 574 people dead by official count.The scale of destruction was not yet known, but there were grim signs that the death toll could soar. One report said four whole trains had disappeared Friday and still not been located. Local media reports said at least 1,300 people may have been killed.Edano said the radiation around the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant had not risen after the blast, but had in fact decreased. He did not say why that was so.Officials have not given specific radiation readings for the area, though they said they were elevated before the blast: At one point, the plant was releasing each hour the amount of radiation a person normally absorbs from the environment each year.Virtually any increase in ambient radiation can raise long-term cancer rates, and authorities were planning to distribute iodine to residents in the area, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Iodine counteracts the effects of radiation.The pressure in the reactor was also decreasing after the blast, according to Edano.
The explosion was preceded by puff of white smoke that gathered intensity until it became a huge cloud enveloping the entire facility, located in Fukushima, 20 miles (30 kilometers) from Iwaki. After the explosion, the walls of the building crumbled, leaving only a skeletal metal frame.Tokyo Power Electric Co., the utility that runs the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, said four workers suffered fractures and bruises and were being treated at a hospital.We have confirmed that the walls of this building were what exploded, and it was not the reactor's container that exploded, said Edano.
The trouble began at the plant's Unit 1 after the massive 8.9-magnitude earthquake and the tsunami it spawned knocked out power there, depriving it of its cooling system.The concerns about a radiation leak at the nuclear power plant overshadowed the massive tragedy laid out along a 1,300-mile (2,100-kilometer) stretch of the coastline where scores of villages, towns and cities were battered by the tsunami, packing 23-feet (7-meter) high waves.It swept inland about six miles (10 kilometers) in some areas, swallowing boats, homes, cars, trees and everything else.The tsunami was unbelievably fast, said Koichi Takairin, a 34-year-old truck driver who was inside his sturdy four-ton rig when the wave hit the port town of Sendai.Smaller cars were being swept around me, he said. All I could do was sit in my truck.His rig ruined, he joined the steady flow of survivors who walked along the road away from the sea and back into the city on Saturday.Smashed cars and small airplanes were jumbled up against buildings near the local airport, several miles (kilometers) from the shore. Felled trees and wooden debris lay everywhere as rescue workers coasted on boats through murky waters around flooded structures, nosing their way through a sea of debris.According to official figures, 586 people are missing and 1,105 injured. In addition, police said between 200 and 300 bodies were found along the coast in Sendai, the biggest city in the area near the quake's epicenter.The true scale of the destruction was still not known more than 24 hours after the quake since washed-out roads and shut airports have hindered access to the area. An untold number of bodies were believed to be buried in the rubble and debris.
Meanwhile, the first wave of military rescuers began arriving by boats and helicopters.Prime Minister Naoto Kan said 50,000 troops joined rescue and recovery efforts, aided by boats and helicopters. Dozens of countries also offered help. President Barack Obama pledged U.S. assistance following what he called a potentially catastrophic disaster. He said one U.S. aircraft carrier was already in Japan and a second was on its way. Washington has also dispatched urban search and rescue teams, according to U.S. Ambassador John Roos.More than 215,000 people were living in 1,350 temporary shelters in five prefectures, or states, the national police agency said. Since the quake, more than 1 million households have not had water, mostly concentrated in northeast. Some 4 million buildings were without power.About 24 percent of electricity in Japan is produced by 55 nuclear power units in 17 plants and some were in trouble after the quake.Japan declared states of emergency at two power plants after their units lost cooling ability.Although the government spokesman played down fears of radiation leak, the Japanese nuclear agency spokesman Shinji Kinjo acknowledged there were still fears of a meltdown. A meltdown is not a technical term. Rather, it is an informal way of referring to a very serious collapse of a power plant's systems and its ability to manage temperatures.Yaroslov Shtrombakh, a Russian nuclear expert, said a Chernobyl-style meltdown was unlikely.It's not a fast reaction like at Chernobyl, he said. I think that everything will be contained within the grounds, and there will be no big catastrophe.
In 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear reactor exploded and caught fire, sending a cloud of radiation over much of Europe. That reactor — unlike the Fukushima one — was not housed in a sealed container, so there was no way to contain the radiation once the reactor exploded.The reactor in trouble has already leaked some radiation: Before the explosion, operators had detected eight times the normal radiation levels outside the facility and 1,000 times normal inside Unit 1's control room.An evacuation area around the plant was expanded to a radius of 12 miles (20 kilometers) from the six miles (10 kilometers) before. People in the expanded area were advised to leave quickly; 51,000 residents were previously evacuated.Everyone wants to get out of the town. But the roads are terrible, said Reiko Takagi, a middle-aged woman, standing outside a taxi company. It is too dangerous to go anywhere. But we are afraid that winds may change and bring radiation toward us.
The transport ministry said all highways from Tokyo leading to quake-hit areas were closed, except for emergency vehicles. Mobile communications were spotty and calls to the devastated areas were going unanswered.Local TV stations broadcast footage of people lining up for water and food such as rice balls. In Fukushima, city officials were handing out bottled drinks, snacks and blankets. But there were large areas that were surrounded by water and were unreachable.One hospital in Miyagi prefecture was seen surrounded by water. The staff had painted an SOS on its rooftop and were waving white flags.Technologically advanced Japan is well prepared for quakes and its buildings can withstand strong jolts, even a temblor like Friday's, which was the strongest the country has experienced since official records started in the late 1800s. What was beyond human control was the killer tsunami that followed.Japan's worst previous quake was a magnitude 8.3 temblor in Kanto that killed 143,000 people in 1923, according to the USGS. A magnitude 7.2 quake in Kobe killed 6,400 people in 1995.Japan lies on the Ring of Fire — an arc of earthquake and volcanic zones stretching around the Pacific where about 90 percent of the world's quakes occur, including the one that triggered the Dec. 26, 2004, Indian Ocean tsunami that killed an estimated 230,000 people in 12 countries. A magnitude-8.8 quake that shook central Chile in February 2010 also generated a tsunami and killed 524 people.
Kageyama reported from Tokyo. Associated Press writers Malcolm J. Foster, Mari Yamaguchi, Tomoko A. Hosaka and Shino Yuasa in Tokyo, Jay Alabaster in Sendai, and Sylvia Hui in London also contributed.
Why America Isn't Ready for a Disaster
Irwin Redlener – Fri Mar 11, 10:14 pm ET
NEW YORK – Japan’s tradition of emergency planning and strict building codes saved countless lives this week—but what would happen here? Disaster-preparation expert Irwin Redlener on America’s shocking lack of readiness—and our history of ignoring wakeup calls. Plus, full coverage of Japan’s quake.On Friday morning, Americans awoke to news of an unfolding catastrophe in Japan. This latest disaster will certainly fall among the more serious natural calamities in modern times.
Unfortunately, fatalities and damages will most certainly dwarf early estimates. The need for bolstering initial rescue efforts and preventing secondary calamities is rising by the hour, with the most serious threat ahead being damage to a nuclear-power plant located in the disaster impact area. A meltdown at the plant could imperil tens of thousands of citizens, especially children and pregnant women.But unlike Haiti, for example, Japan is a highly developed nation that was motivated to develop and invest in a national plan to protect its citizens and vital systems in the event of precisely this kind of catastrophe. Strict earthquake-resistant standards apply to building codes, tsunami early-warning systems are in place, and Japanese citizens have a high level of awareness with respect to emergency planning and response. This means that the consequences of this kind of “megadisaster” will be less than would otherwise be the case.
But what about the United States? Every major disaster is invariably labeled a wakeup call. Media coverage is intense, rescue efforts rise to the occasion and we are fully focused—until we’re not.Unfortunately, the U.S. has not reached a level of preparedness that we might have expected 10 years after the 9/11 attacks and five years after Katrina and the flooding of New Orleans. Billions of dollars have been spent and progress has been made—but progress has been slow and spotty. Part of the problem is a multiplicity of federal, state and local agencies have a major influence on planning, from decisions about priorities to levels of dedicated funding. One bright spot: FEMA is being upgraded and reorganized and, under the leadership of its director, Craig Fugate, the agency is even more effective than it was in its prime, prior to its serious degradation under the previous administration.
Still, major challenges remain. American citizens are extraordinarily underprepared for disasters. Few of us have the supplies we’d need if we were caught up in a disaster or know how we’d keep ourselves and our families’ safe. Motivating citizen efforts to prepare for any kind of disaster, from earthquakes and hurricanes to pandemics and terrorism, has been essentially unsuccessful over the past decade.And we have only begun to address the disaster-readiness needs of our most vulnerable citizens, particularly our children, who make up nearly 25 percent of the nation’s population. This is an issue that the National Commission on Children and Disasters has been working on for the past two years. But we also need to make sure that other groups, including the elderly, people with disabilities, and economically disenfranchised individuals, are fully accounted for in our disaster-planning efforts.Every major disaster is invariably labeled a wakeup call. Media coverage is intense, rescue efforts rise to the occasion and we are fully focused—until we’re not. The predictable pattern is rapt attention and concern followed by a drift back into a state of complacency. This is hardly a wakeup call; it’s more like a snooze alarm.We have much work to do to make America as disaster-ready as it should be. Our health systems and hospitals are woefully underprepared, our infrastructure is dangerously fragile, and our response systems poorly coordinated.What worries me is that in this time of serious economic distress, we seem have a general lack of capacity to make critical long-term investments for anything, including doing what’s needed to prepare America for the inevitable disasters of the future.Irwin Redlener, MD, is director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. He speaks and writes regularly on disaster preparedness and recovery policy and is the author of Americans at Risk: Why We Are Not Prepared for Megadisasters and What We Can Do Now (Knopf). He is also president of the Children's Health Fund.
The Science Behind Japan's Deadly Earthquake
Brett Israel,LiveScience.com - MAR 11,11
The fifth largest earthquake ever recorded hit Japan today (March 11), sending huge tsunami waves crashing onshore and reportedly killing at least 300 people.The 8.9-magnitude earthquake struck at 2:46 p.m. local time (12:46 a.m. EST), near Honshu, Japan, an island that is home to about 100 million people. The temblor was the fifth in the past two days to hit the region, and major aftershocks can be expected for months, possibly even a year. Despite the massive foreshocks, there was no way to predict that Japan's biggest-recorded earthquake was looming, said Paul Caruso, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in Golden, Colo.We have big quakes there all the time, Caruso told OurAmazingPlanet. For all scientists knew at the time, the 6.3-magnitude quake that struck yesterday was the main shock, Caruso said. Not every big earthquake has a foreshock but they all have aftershocks.
Aftershock alert
The rule of thumb for seismologists is that an earthquake's largest aftershock will be one magnitude smaller than the main shock, Caruso said. That means a 7.9-magnitude earthquake could hit the region even a year from now. Yet aftershocks are already hitting northern Japan now — 35 larger than magnitude 5.0 and 14 larger than magnitude 6 — according to the UGSS.Big aftershocks are not unusual. In February, a 6.6-magnitude aftershock ruptured near Maule, Chile — almost a year after what is now the sixth largest earthquake in recorded history, a magnitude 8.8, hit in the same region.The Japanese earthquake ruptured near the boundary between the Pacific and North American tectonic plates — huge, moving slabs of the Earth's crust. The quake was a megathrust earthquake, where the Pacific plate dove underneath Japan at the Japan Trench. The seafloor was pushed away from Japan sending waves roaring toward Hawaii and the West Coast of the United States.The tsunami wave speed in deep water, open ocean, is about the same as a commercial jet's ground speed, said Ken Hudnut, a USGS geologist in Pasadena, Calif.The epicenter of today's quake was about 15.2 miles (24.4 kilometers) deep, according to the USGS, which is near enough to the surface to set off a tsunami.Generally we don't get a tsunami unless we have a shallow quake, and that's exactly what happened, Caruso said.
Foreshocks, not forewarning
Today's earthquake was preceded by a series of large foreshocks over the previous two days, beginning on March 9 with a magnitude 7.2 quake about 25 miles (40 km) away, and continuing with three other earthquakes greater than magnitude 6, according to the USGS.Japan's latest national seismic risk map gave a 99 percent chance of at least a magnitude 7.5 quake hiting the region in the next 30 years, Robert Geller, University of Tokyo geophysicist, told Science Magazine, but today's quake was more than 100 times powerful.Earthquakes in the region are common, because Japan lies along the volatile Pacific Ring of Fire — a narrow zone around the Pacific Ocean where a large chunk of Earth's earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur. Roughly 90 percent of all the world's earthquakes, and 80 percent of the largest ones, strike along the Ring of Fire.The Japan Trench has seen nine events of magnitude 7 or greater since 1973. The largest of these was a magnitude 7.8 earthquake in December 1994, which caused 3 fatalities and almost 700 injuries, approximately 160 miles (260 km) to the north of today's quake. In June of 1978, a magnitude 7.7 earthquake about 22 miles (35 km) to the southwest caused 22 fatalities and over 400 injuries.The epicenter of the earthquake was 231 miles (373 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo and 80 miles (130 km) east of Sendai, Honshu, according to the USGS.Brett Israel is a staff writer for OurAmazingPlanet, a sister site to LiveScience. Email Brett at @btisrael.
Daybreak reveals huge devastation in tsunami-hit Japan By Linda Sieg and Chisa Fujioka - MAR 11,11
TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan confronted devastation along its northeastern coast on Saturday, with fires raging and parts of some cities under water after a massive earthquake and tsunami that likely killed at least 1,000 people.Daybreak revealed the full extent of damage from Friday's 8.9 magnitude earthquake -- the strongest in Japan since records began -- and the 10-meter high tsunami it sent surging into cities and villages, sweeping away everything in its path.This is likely to be a humanitarian relief operation of epic proportions, said Japan expert Sheila Smith of the U.S.-based Council on Foreign Relations.The government warned there could be a radiation leak from nuclear reactors in Fukushima whose cooling system was knocked out by the quake. Prime Minister Naoto Kan ordered an evacuation zone expanded to 10 km (6 miles) from 3 km. Some 3,000 people had earlier been evacuated.It's possible that radioactive material in the reactor vessel could leak outside but the amount is expected to be small, and the wind blowing toward the sea will be considered, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told a news conference.As authorities battled to contain rising pressure at the Fukushima facility, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo, officials called for calm and said a meltdown remained unlikely.The unfolding natural disaster prompted offers of search and rescue help from 50 countries.
China said rescuers were ready to help with quake relief while President Barack Obama told Kan the United States would assist in any way.In one of the worst-hit residential areas, people buried under rubble could be heard calling out for rescue, Kyodo news agency reported. TV footage showed staff at one hospital waving banners with the words FOOD and HELP from a rooftop.In Tokyo, office workers who were stranded in the city after the quake forced the subway system to close early slept alongside the homeless at one station. Scores of men in suits lay on newspapers, using their briefcases as pillows.Kyodo said at least 116,000 people in Tokyo had been unable to return home on Friday evening due to transport disruption.The northeastern Japanese city of Kesennuma, with a population of 74,000, was hit by widespread fires and one-third of the city was under water, Jiji news agency said on Saturday.The airport in the city of Sendai, home to one million people, was on fire, it added.TV footage from Friday showed a muddy torrent of water carrying cars and wrecked homes at high speed across farmland near Sendai, 300 km (180 miles) northeast of Tokyo. Ships had been flung onto a harbor wharf, where they lay helplessly on their side.Boats, cars and trucks were tossed around like toys in the water after the tsunami hit the town of Kamaishi. Kyodo news agency reported that contact had been lost with four trains in the coastal area. Japanese politicians pushed for an emergency budget to fund relief efforts after Kan asked them to save the country, Kyodo reported. Japan is already the most heavily indebted major economy in the world, meaning any funding efforts would be closely scrutinized by financial markets.Domestic media said the death toll was expected to exceed 1,000, most of whom appeared to have drowned by churning waters.Even in a nation accustomed to earthquakes, the devastation was shocking.A big area of Sendai city near the coast, is flooded. We are hearing that people who were evacuated are stranded, said Rie Sugimoto, a reporter for NHK television in Sendai.About 140 people, including children, were rushed to an elementary school and are on the rooftop but they are surrounded by water and have nowhere else to go.Japan prides itself on its speedy tsunami warning system, which has been upgraded several times since its inception in 1952, including after a 7.8 magnitude quake triggered a 30-meter high wave before a warning was given.
FIRES ACROSS THE COAST
The quake, the most powerful since Japan started keeping records 140 years ago, sparked at least 80 fires in cities and towns along the coast, Kyodo said.I was unable stay on my feet because of the violent shaking. The aftershocks gave us no reprieve. Then the tsunami came when we tried to run for cover. It was the strongest quake I experienced, a woman with a baby on her back told television in northern Japan.Other nuclear power plants and oil refineries were shut down and one refinery was ablaze. Power to millions of homes and businesses was knocked out. Several airports, including Tokyo's Narita, were closed and rail services halted. All ports were shut.The central bank said it would cut short a two-day policy review scheduled for next week to one day on Monday and promised to do its utmost to ensure financial market stability.The disaster struck as the world's third-largest economy had been showing signs of reviving from an economic contraction in the final quarter of last year. It raised the prospect of major disruptions for many key businesses and a massive repair bill running into tens of billions of dollars.The tsunami alerts revived memories of the giant waves that struck Asia in 2004.Warnings were issued for countries to the west of Japan and across the Pacific as far away as Colombia and Peru, but the tsunami dissipated as it sped across the ocean and worst fears in the Americas were not realized.The earthquake was the fifth most powerful to hit the world in the past century. It surpassed the Great Kanto quake of September 1, 1923, which had a magnitude of 7.9 and killed more than 140,000 people in the Tokyo area.
The 1995 Kobe quake caused $100 billion in damage and was the most expensive natural disaster in history. Economic damage from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was estimated at about $10 billion.(Writing by Dean Yates and Andrew Marshall; Editing by Jonathan Thatcher)
Japan warns of radiation leak from quake-hit plants By Osamu Tsukimori and Mayumi Negishi - MAR 11,11
TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan warned of a possible radiation leak on Saturday as authorities battled to contain rising pressure at two nuclear plants damaged by a massive earthquake, and were moving tens of thousands of residents in the area out of harm's way.Tokyo Electric Power Co said it has begun steps to release pressure at its two nuclear power plants in Fukushima, located some 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo.While some radiation leakage could be expected, Naoto Sekimura, a professor at the University of Tokyo, said a major radioactive disaster was not likely.No Chernobyl is possible at a light water reactor. Loss of coolant means a temperature rise, but it also will stop the reaction, he said.Even in the worst-case scenario, that would mean some radioactive leakage and equipment damage, but not an explosion. If venting is done carefully, there will be little leakage. Certainly not beyond the 3 km radius.Kyodo news agency reported that authorities had begun evacuating about 20,000 people from the vicinity of one of the plants, the Daini plant. Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who was flying by helicopter to view the plant by air, had earlier ordered that residents within a 10 km radius to be evacuated from the other plant, the Daiichi plant.Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said amount of leaked radiation would likely be small.
It's possible that radioactive material in the reactor vessel could leak outside but the amount is expected to be small, and the wind blowing toward the sea will be considered, he told a news conference.TEPCO said it had lost ability to control pressure in some of the reactors at its Daini plant as it had with the Daiichi plant. Pressure was stable inside the reactors of the Daini plant but rising in the containment vessels, a spokesman said.Pressure at one Daiichi reactor may have risen to 2.1 times the designed capacity, the trade ministry said.The cooling problems at the Japanese plant raised fears of a repeat of 1979's Three Mile Island accident, the most serious in the history of the U.S. nuclear power industry. However, experts said the situation was, so far, less serious.Equipment malfunctions, design problems and human error led to a partial meltdown of the reactor core at the Three Mile Island plant, but only minute amounts of dangerous radioactive gases were released.
The situation is still several stages away from Three Mile Island when the reactor container ceased to function as it should, said Tomoko Murakami, leader of the nuclear energy group at Japan's Institute of Energy Economics.Japan informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that the quake and tsunami cut the supply of off-site power to the plant and diesel generators intended to provide back-up electricity to the cooling system.(It's) a sign that the Japanese are pulling out all the stops they can to prevent this accident from developing into a core melt and also prevent it from causing a breach of the containment (system) from the pressure that is building up inside the core because of excess heat, said Mark Hibbs, a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.Radiation levels detected at the control unit of the reactors at the Daiichi plant were not ones that would require workers at the plant to evacuate, a trade ministry official said, adding that radiation at the control unit has risen to about 1,000 times the normal level.The Union of Concerned Scientists, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization, said this power failure resulted in one of the most serious conditions that can affect a nuclear plant -- a station blackout -- during which off-site power and on-site emergency alternating current (AC) power is lost.
Nuclear plants generally need AC power to operate the motors, valves and instruments that control the systems that provide cooling water to the radioactive core. If all AC power is lost, the options to cool the core are limited. If the core overheats, then the fuel would become damaged and a molten mass could melt through the reactor vessel, releasing a large amount of radioactivity into the containment building surrounding the vessel, the UCS said.It added that it was not clear if the quake had undermined the containment building to contain pressure from any meltdown and allow radioactivity to leak out.Power supply systems that would provide emergency electricity for the plant were being put in place, the World Nuclear Association said, with a source in the organization saying the situation is improving. The reactors shut down due to the earthquake account for 18 percent of Japan's nuclear power generating capacity.Nuclear power produces about 30 percent of the country's electricity. Many reactors are located in earthquake-prone zones such as Fukushima and Fukui on the coast.The IAEA estimates that around 20 percent of nuclear reactors around the world are currently operating in areas of significant seismic activity.
It said the sector began putting more emphasis on external hazards after an earthquake hit TEPCO's Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant in July 2007, until then the largest to ever affect a nuclear facility.When the earthquake hit the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant, four reactors shut down automatically. Water containing radioactive material was released into the sea, but without an adverse effect on human health or the environment, it said.TEPCO had been operating three out of six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant at the time of the quake, all of which shut down. A spokesman said that there were no concerns of a leak for the remaining three reactors at the plant, which had been shut for planned maintenance.
(Additional reporting by Risa Maeda, Kiyoshi Takenaka and Chikako Mogi in Tokyo and Fredrik Dahl in Vienna; Writing by Edwina Gibbs; Editing by Jonathan Thatcher)
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