Japan’s Terrifying Day Saw Unprecedented Exposed Fuel Rods

[AsahinaKimi]

Makoto Nagai was sitting in his third-floor office at 2:46 p.m. on March 11 when the earthquake alarm buzzed. An orange LCD screen flashed 100 and 4, telling him the number of seconds before a category 4 quake would hit the city of Sendai on Japan’s northeast coast.

The intensity warning quickly jumped to 6, said Nagai, 55, head of the emergency response team in Sendai, located 129 kilometers (80 miles) west of the epicenter of what became the strongest quake in Japan’s recorded history.

“I stood up, and my coffee cup bounced sideways off my desk,” he said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-25/japan-s-terrifying-day-saw-unprecedented-exposed-fuel-rods.html

[TheMadMonk]

1. Not much info in your choice of excerpt.

And when you read through the article, it becomes clear how admirably the engineering systems performed in circumstances far beyond what their designs called for.

Virtualy every failure in this event has been a human one: Choosing to try to contain hydrogen saturated steam inside a structure where ignition sources could not be ruled out, and would in fact almost certainly be present after an earthquake of such magnitude; The US naval fleet stationed nearby steaming off, rather than tossing an extension lead ashore as they could easily have done; Leaving animals confined without feed or care; Trying to be seen to be "doing something" by holding back contaminated runoff until FORCED to dump it in one big flush, rather than accepting the inevitable in the short term and allowing a portion at least to trickle into the ocean until a more permanent solution can be implemented; condemning crops, water, milk that is only notionally dangerous, and then only if consumed over an extended period of time.