15-meter waves hit Fukushima (The company originally estimated height @ 5.7 meters - Includes Video)

[Turborama]

Source: NHK

Updated at 14:21 UTC, Apr. 09

The operator of the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says the facility was hit by a tsunami as high as 15 meters on March 11th.

Tokyo Electric Power Company was reporting on Saturday on its survey of high-water marks left on the plant's buildings.

It says it found that the tsunami reached up to 15 meters on the ocean side of the reactor and turbine buildings. The figure is far beyond the company's originally estimated height of 5.7 meters.

TEPCO confirmed that the 6 reactors at Fukushima Daiichi power plant had been under as much as 5 meters of water.

Read more: http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/09_30.html

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Footage at the link was filmed by a plant worker who captured the footage with his mobile phone while fleeing for higher ground and shows the waves pounding against nearby cliffs to a height of more than 20 meters

[Purveyor]

1. So it took them a month to determine this? Are we getting any accurate information out of Japan

or does it take a month or more before the actual facts are acknowledged?

[SkyDaddy7]

3. My guess is they had more important things to focus on over this past month than...

double checking their first estimation of wave height...Seriously, does it really matter if the wave height was 5 meters or 15 meters everyone knows what happened.

Now, as far as the other info that has been coming from Tepco YES I could see them not being honest...But I can't see the point in lying about the wave height whats done is done. IT is clear the plant was not designed to deflect or sustain a Tsunami like it did the earthquake.

[bananas]

2. That means a much smaller quake and tsunami would have taken the plant out

[Snoutport]

4. or they are trying to put the blame for all their problems on mother nature

shifting blame ?

[Trajan]

5. I think we need to aknowledge a few facts:

The nuclear disaster, as awful as it is from a global perspective, and as heavy as it weighs on the minds of many NON Japanese (Some even on this thread!) ...

As awful as the nuclear problem is - The Earthquake was far worse, and along with the even more devastating tsunami, had the greatest impact on the well being of the Japanese people.

For those of us who sit comfortably away from the devastation to engage in vicious finger pointing because WE didn't get the information WE would prefer to have, in the timely manner in which WE demand it .... Well ... That just plainly sucks ....


The exact and precise measurement of a specific wave is of interest from a historical and scientific perspective ... but not really of any value beyond that ...


You want to know how high those fucking waves were ? .... They were 30,000 human beings high ...

[uppityperson]

8. + a brazillion.

[The Second Stone]

6. I think we need to acknowledge the facts

That the nuclear industry and government of Japan have not provided us with full information about this disaster

That nuclear radiation will build up in the environment and bio-accumulate and that we will never know how many cancers are caused by this catastrophe.

That the nuclear industry will not be safer after this catastrophe.

That plants already built are only built to be safe for earthquakes and tsunamis that are much much smaller than will actually occur.

That costs for these catastrophes will bankrupt the utilities that run the plants and individuals and government must deal with the damage.

[Prometheus Bound]

7. I think we need to acknowledge a few facts.

1. Japan sits roughly atop an area where four tectonic plates merge.
2. This area has a lot of big earthquakes.
3. Some of these earthquakes trigger tsunamis.
4. The 1933 Sanriku earthquake, 180 miles offshore resulted in waves 94 feet (28.7 m) high.
5. The 2011 waves according to the OP reached 15 m.
6. TEPCO designed the plant to withstand waves up to 6.5 m.

http://www.ouramazingplanet.com/japan-earthquakes-top-10-110408-1356/

[Turborama]

9. Valuable information

I didn't know about 4 & 6. Thanks for the link, that page is very informative - as is the website itself, which I'm bookimarking.

Living on the ring of fire myself - and not a million miles away from the nuclear disaster that's unfolding - in Indonesia, I find these facts much more important than just historical footnotes.

[dixiegrrrrl]

10. How high does the earthquake scale go, actually?

Is a 10 possible?

Obviously no one thought a 9 was possible, reportedly the plants had been designed handle only a 7.
Which indicates that designers could not even imagine a 9.

[Massacure]

12. The earthquake scale is a logarithmic formula, so it theoretically goes on forever.

Being logarithmic means that every time you move up one point, the the amplitude is 10 times greater.

That means that a 8.0 has ten times greater amplitude than a 7.0;
A 9.0 has ten times more amplitude than 8.0 and 100x more than a 7.0;
A 10.0 would be ten times larger than 9.0, 100 times than an 8.0 and 1000x more than a 7.0.

The amount of energy released is related to the 3/2 square of the amplitude. Therefor in reality a 1.0 increase in the Richter scale increases energy released by about 31.6 times (not 10) and a 2.0 jump in the Richter scale is 1000 times stronger (not 100).

The amount of energy released by a 9.0 earthquake is about equal to 475 megatons of TNT. To put that in perspective, the largest nuclear weapon ever tested by the United States was 15 megatons, the largest by the Soviet Union 50 megatons.

The largest earthquake ever recorded was a 9.5.

[Prometheus Bound]

13. There have been three bigger ones since 1960 - in Chile, Alaska and Indonesia.

Here are the 10 largest earthquakes – by magnitude, not devastation – in recorded history:

1. Valdivia, Chile – 22 May 1960 (magnitude 9.5)

2. Prince William Sound, Alaska – 28 March 1964 (magnitude 9.2)

3. Sumatra, Indonesia – 26 December 2004 (magnitude 9.1)

4. Sendai, Japan – 11 March 2011 (magnitude 9.0)

5. Kamchatka, Russia – 4 November 1952 (magnitude 9.0)
http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/the-10-biggest-earthquakes-in-recorded-history.htm

[dixiegrrrrl]

14. Gulp.

[Prometheus Bound]

16. Yes, I've been watching the discussion about nuclear power in Indonesia.

I was hoping this accident would put an end to their nuclear plans but they seem to want to go full steam ahead.

They could be the world leader in geothermal with their enormous potential.

Nuclear Power Seen as Only Answer for Our Power Needs
http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/technology/nuclear-power-seen-as-only-answer-for-our-power-needs/434336

Indonesia to Continue Plans for Nuclear Power
By AUBREY BELFORD
Published: March 17, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/18/business/global/18atomic.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

[Art_from_Ark]

17. The 94-ft tsunami wave of the 1933 Sanriku earthquake

was recorded at Ofunato, Iwate Pefecture, which is located at the end of a long, narrow inlet. The wave height decreased considerably away from that point. For example, at Onagawa, in Miyagi Prefecture just 30 miles south of Ofunato, the wave height was 14 meters, while at Kamaishi, 20 miles to the north, it was 9 meters. The wave height at Fukushima was much less than that.

[Prometheus Bound]

18. I see. But there have been other monster tsunamis.

It is criminal for them to pretend these sorts of tragedies could not be predicted.

June 15, 1896: Waves as high as 100 feet (30 meters), spawned by an earthquake, swept the east coast of Japan. Some 27,000 people died.

April 1, 1946: The April Fools tsunami, triggered by an earthquake in Alaska, killed 159 people, mostly in Hawaii.

July 9, 1958: Regarded as the largest recorded in modern times, the tsunami in Lituya Bay, Alaska was caused by a landslide triggered by an 8.3 magnitude earthquake. Waves reached a height of 1,720 feet (576 meters) in the bay, but because the area is relatively isolated and in a unique geologic setting the tsunami did not cause much damage elsewhere. It sank a single boat, killing two fishermen.

May 22, 1960: The largest recorded earthquake, magnitude 8.6 in Chile, created a tsunami that hit the Chilean coast within 15 minutes. The surge, up to 75 feet (25 meters) high, killed an estimated 1,500 people in Chile and Hawaii.

March 27, 1964: The Alaskan Good Friday earthquake, magnitude between 8.4, spawned a 201-foot (67-meter) tsunami in the Valdez Inlet. It traveled at over 400 mph, killing more than 120 people. Ten of the deaths occurred in Crescent City, in northern California, which saw waves as high as 20 feet (6.3 meters).

http://www.livescience.com/13176-history-biggest-tsunamis-earthquakes.html

[Art_from_Ark]

19. I understand that, but

We're talking Japan here.
So what happened in Alaska and Chile was mainly irrelevant to the Japanese discussion, if it did not directly affect Japan.

The reactors were designed in the late '60s and built in 1970. Back then, the largest tsunami that they had a record of was the Miyako tsunami (triggered by the Meiji Sanriku Earthquake) of 1896 , which hit the coast of Iwate Prefecture with a vengeance, but was relatively mild in neighboring prefectures (3 meters in Aomori and 3 meters in Miyagi), The 1933 tsunami also struck Iwate with a vengeance, but was relatively mild in Fukushima. So they based their tsunami scenarios on the worst cases that they had experienced in that part of their own country.

[Prometheus Bound]

20. Frightening to think that people so incompetent can be in charge of something so destructive.

This is an example of why nuclear power can never be safe. In the event of an accident they will always argue, "Well of course no one could ever have predicted...."

Actually it doesn't even take any imagination to predict such a scenario.

[ReggieVeggie]

11. video won't load for me

I can just imagine and that's horrifying...30 meters? Might as well kiss it goodbye. I'm amazed anything was left standing after that onslaught.

[Turborama]

15. TEPCO details tsunami damage / Waves that hit Fukushima plant exceeded firm's worst-case projections

Apr. 11, 2011 |The Yomiuri Shimbun (Japan)

Major facilities at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, including reactor and turbine buildings, were flooded to a depth of four meters to five meters during the March 11 tsunami, according to Tokyo Electric Power Co.

The tsunami inundated facilities including the Nos. 1 to 4 reactors and turbine buildings and rose as high as about 15 meters above sea level, according to TEPCO.

=snip=

According to TEPCO, facilities at the plant were struck by several tsunami caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake. The first wave arrived at the plant at 3:27 p.m.--41 minutes after the earthquake.

=snip=

Reactors No. 5 and No. 6, which are located 13 meters above sea level, were flooded by water one meter to two meters deep.

More details: http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110410003477.htm