Tokyo toward Peripheral Part
The First Business Day since the Great Tsunami
The Japanese Government has mobilized 100,000 Self-Defense Force personnels to help search & rescue and recovery work in the great earthquake/tsunami hit regions 200 km to 600 km northeast of Tokyo.
The U.S. has dispatched one aircraft-carrier fleet to the sea off the northeast coastal area of Honsyu Island.
Though it is the scale of natural disaster that could happen only once in 1000 years in the Japanese islands, the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant troubles cannot be so simply accepted, though the magnitude 9.0 of the earthquake was beyond imagination and design concepts of the Plant.
Those living in and around Tokyo, namely 30 million citizens in the Kanto Plain, are not directly hit but are suffering some shortage of electric power and thus traffic problems for commuting.
We will have to carefully watch the situation in the fifth day, that is tomorrow, since the 3/11 Disaster.
PART 14-5:
Still hard efforts are going on to cool down nuclear plants in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan.
There are two sites, No.1 and No.2 Plants, each of which have several nuclear reactor units.
Now, especially, three units of No.1 Plant show a trouble in keeping water inside their reactor vessel at a sufficiently high level to cool fuel rods inside the reactor vessel.
(Two of them exploded to blow off their housing building ceilings and walls as hydrogen explosion occurred due to extreme heat inside the buildings housing the nuclear reactor vessels. However, the reactor vessels withstood it.)
As the great earthquake damaged the original mechanism to circulate cooling water in and out of the reactor vessel at each unit, they performed ad-hoc installation of pumps to use seawater as coolant. However, it was found a little difficult to keep the level of seawater at a level high enough to fully submerge fuel rods inside the reactor vessel.
Yet, no grave radioactive contamination has been reported outside the Plant.
The power company that runs the Nuclear Power Plant holds a press conference so often being broadcast live on TV so as to explain the situation.
American media are also extensively covering the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant troubles.
PART 14-4:
In the earthquake/tsunami hit prefectures of northeast part of Honsyu Island, Japan, total 450,000 citizens now stay in shelters and refuges.
It is also estimated that total 63,000 houses and buildings have been fully or partially destroyed or damaged by the great earthquakes and tsunami in those prefectures.
At 7:20 p.m.
PART 14-3:
Some traffic restriction has been found today around Tokyo.
Businesses in Tokyo close the day earlier around 2 p.m. or 3 p.m.
Many residents around Tokyo have tried to buy instant food products, batteries, and other commodities at convenience stores, in case, where replenishment of goods are delayed.
Some area has undergone a planned outage of electric power in a prefecture around Tokyo.
At 6:20 p.m.
PART 14-2:
Due to a possible power shortage, some railway lines to and from Tokyo have reduced operation services, influencing hundreds of thousands of commuters.
In general, no confusion is observed in a hundred or so stations around Tokyo.
Yet, the shinkansen express lines to the Tohoku Regions are out of service since last Friday when the great earthquakes and tsunami started to occur. Other super-express shinkansen networks are under almost normal operation to and from Tokyo.
PART 14-1:
The third unit of Fukushima No.1 Nuclear Plant exploded. Only the housing building was blasted. The reactor vessel intact. At 11:08 a.m.
PART I: Plate Tectonics
Around Tokyo, four continental plates converge: Pacific Plate, North American Plate, Filipino Plate, and Eurasian Plate.
(Click to enlarge.)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_tectonics
(Click to enlarge.)The great earthquake that happened on March 11, 2011, was caused by the friction between Pacific Plate and North American Plate at the undersea location 400 kilometers northeast of Tokyo.
So, you see only Tokyo, among the leading cities and capitals in the world, is situated at a fringe of the Plate or a Plates-converging point.
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Honestly, the largest concern is about whether a Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant-class accident or a Chernobyl nuclear meltdown-class accident will occur in the Fukushima No.1 Nuclear Power Plant.
Yet, three units of the No. 1 Plant are being worked on with seawater infusion into their reactor vessels to cool nuclear fuel, since original cooling mechanisms were broken by the great earthquake in the afternoon of last Friday, March 11.
The main problem is that one of unit cannot keep seawater inside its reactor vessel at a higher level so as to fully cover fuel rods.
Some TV stations are going to inform the audience of the ongoing situation live overnight.
It will be a tough night, too, since it is around 0:30 a.m. of March 15, Japan Time, now.
I of course ask the God Almighty to save the world, Japan, and the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plants.
(Containment Vessel with the Pressure Container Inside and the Cooling Equipment and Pressure Adjusters in the Nuclear Power Plant of Japan)
Rev 3:13 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.
Rev 3:14 And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God;
Rev 3:15 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.