Dec 05


YouTube Added: 04.12.2012

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Deadly flooding in the Philippines from a typhoon has claimed dozens of lives. A governor says at least 33 drowned when water dumped by the storm rushed down a mountain and engulfed the victims. Floodwaters also swept away a truck.

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Dec 05

- Typhoon pounds the Philippines, killing at least 7 (AP, Dec 4, 2012):

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — One of the strongest typhoons to hit the Philippines this year barreled across the country’s south on Tuesday, killing at least seven people and forcing more than 50,000 to flee from inundated villages.

Typhoon Bopha slammed into the Davao region at dawn, its ferocious winds ripping roofs from homes and its 500-kilometer- (311-mile-) wide rain band flooding low-lying farmland. The storm, packing winds of 160 kilometers (99 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 195 kph (121 mph), toppled trees, triggered landslides and sent flash floods surging across the region’s mountains and valleys. Continue reading »

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Jun 22

- NASA saw Tropical Storm Guchol’s rainfall drench Japan (PHYS.Org, June 21, 2012)

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Jun 22

Links on what will happen if reactor No.4 SFP collapses are down below.

From the article:

“Tepco completed installing a temporary cover at the No. 1 reactor building to prevent the diffusion of radioactive substances by the end of October. The cover is designed to withstand winds of 25 meters per second (56 miles per hour), Matsumoto said.”

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- Fukushima Plant Faces Typhoon Summer With Added Tornado Threat (Bloomberg, June 22, 2012):

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501)’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant faces its second typhoon season since the March 11 disaster last year, raising the risk of further radiation leaks if storms thrash exposed pools of uranium fuel rods or tanks holding contaminated water.

Typhoon Guchol hit Japan this week and moved up the main island of Honshu, prompting warnings of floods and landslides from the Japan Meteorological Agency. The Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant wasn’t damaged by the storm, which passed north of the crippled nuclear station, Tokyo Electric spokesman Taichi Okazaki said by telephone on June 21.

Typhoons rake through Japan’s islands most summers. The difference this year is Guchol arrived just a month after one of the most powerful tornadoes ever recorded in the nation hit Tsukuba, about 170 kilometers (106 miles) southwest of the Fukushima Dai-Ichi facility. The tornado, one of four to make landfall on May 6, ripped through an area 17 kilometers long and 500 meters wide, the weather agency said in a May 16 report.

The twisters killed a teenage boy, injured 50, wrecked nearly 300 houses and raised concern among scientists about tornado risk at the Fukushima plant, where explosions last year blew roofs off pools holding spent uranium fuel rods.

‘Naked’ Pools

“Uranium spent fuel pools of No. 3 and No. 4 reactors are currently naked,” Kazuhiko Kudo, a research professor of nuclear engineering at Kyushu University, said on June 5. “A tornado with winds of 100 meters per second like the one that hit Tsukuba could suck up the pool water,” exposing the fuel rods. He raised the concern during a meeting assessing safety measures at the crippled plant in May, he said.

As dismantling and decommissioning the reactors will take decades, Tepco should review the plant’s safety measures against not only aftershocks and tsunamis but also tornadoes and huge typhoons, even if the possibility of extreme phenomena are very low, said Kudo, one of 12 members of the advisory panel to the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, or NISA.

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Sep 22


YouTube Added: 21.09.2011

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Sep 20

- Typhoon Roke Nears Japan on Track for Leaking Nuclear Plant (Bloomberg, Sept. 20, 2011):

Typhoon Roke brought evacuation orders and fears of floods to Nagoya city in central Japan today as it approached the main island of Honshu on a course toward the crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant.

More than 1 million people in Nagoya have been advised to evacuate because of Roke and almost 80,000 have been ordered to leave due to flood risk, said Katsuya Kobayashi in the city’s disaster prevention center.

That’s more than double the numbers for typhoon Talas earlier this month, which dumped record rainfall on southern Japan, causing mudslides and floods that killed 67 people and left 26 missing. Talas was the deadliest storm to hit Japan in seven years.

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Sep 05

- Typhoon dumps record rain on Japan, killing 20 (AP, Sep 04, 20119):

TOKYO (AP) — Typhoon Talas dumped record amounts of rain Sunday in western and central Japan, killing at least 20 people and stranding thousands more as it turned towns into lakes, washed away cars and triggered mudslides that obliterated houses. At least 50 people were missing, local media reported.

Evacuation orders and advisories were issued to 460,000 people in the region, which is hundreds of miles (kilometers) from the country’s tsunami-ravaged northeastern coast.

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Jul 22

- Rain increases contaminated water at plant (NHK, July 21, 2011):

Heavy rain brought by a tropical storm has increased the level of radioactive contaminated water at the basements of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Typhoon Ma-on moved east off the southern coast of Japan’s main island of Honshu. 115 millimeters of precipitation was recorded in Namie Town, north of the plant, between Tuesday and Thursday.

Rain has been gathering in the buildings housing the reactors because the roofs were severely damaged by hydrogen explosions that occurred after the initial March 11th disaster.

Tokyo Electric Power Company or TEPCO, the plant’s operator, says that at 7 AM local time on Thursday, the level of contaminated water pooled at the basement of the building of the No. 1 reactor was 44 centimeters up from the previous day.

Continue reading »

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Jul 14

- Typhoon Ma-On Targeting Japan (AccuWeather, July 14, 2011):

A powerful typhoon is on track to strike mainland Japan early next week.

Widespread adverse impacts from rain, wind and heavy seas would result from a direct hit on the southern mainland. Heavy rain, high winds and rough seas could also impact the site of the tsunami and nuclear disaster north of Tokyo.

Continue reading »

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May 29

- Crippled nuke plant not prepared for heavy rain, wind (Mainichi, May 28, 2011):

TOKYO (Kyodo) — The crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant is not fully prepared for heavy rain and strong winds forecast due to a powerful typhoon moving Saturday toward disaster-affected areas of northeastern Japan, according to the plant’s operator Tokyo Electric Power Co.

Heavy rain has been forecast for the areas from Sunday to Monday due to the season’s second typhoon, Songda, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.

Tokyo Electric, or TEPCO, has for the last month been spreading anti-scattering agents around the troubled Nos. 1 to 4 reactor buildings to prevent radioactively contaminated dust from being carried into the air and sea by rain and wind.

But some of the reactor buildings have been left uncovered after they were damaged by hydrogen explosions following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. TEPCO plans to launch the work to put covers on the destroyed buildings in mid-June.

A TEPCO official said, “We have made utmost efforts, but we have not completed covering the damaged reactor buildings. We apologize for the lack of significant measures against wind and rain.”

Goshi Hosono, a special adviser to Prime Minister Naoto Kan, told a press conference Friday that the current measures “cannot be said to be appropriate.”

He added, “We are now doing the utmost to prevent further spreading of radioactive materials in consideration of the typhoon.”

On TEPCO’s ‘utmost efforts’:

-Typhoon Strengthens, May Hit Fukushima Nuke Plant (Bloomberg):

“We are still considering typhoon measures and can’t announce detailed plans yet,” Takeo Iwamoto, a spokesman at Tokyo Electric Power Co., said by phone when asked about the storm.

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