White smoke is now seen from Daiichi No. 4 reactor: report

Yokozuna Hakuho said Tuesday that he plans to lead efforts to provide aid to the area hit by the devastating earthquake and tsunami.

The mother of one of Hakuho's stablemates has been reported missing in the disaster and the Mongolian was reported as saying he wanted to do whatever he could to help.

South Korea says it will send some 50 tonnes of its boron reserves to Japan after a request from Tokyo, Reuters reports. The metalloid is vital for stopping fission nuclear reactions in nuclear reactors.

A Kagoshima town sent a public warning of an imprending "guerilla attack" Monday. It later blamed it on a worker who pushed the wrong button

5:25am After several Japanese carmarkers suspended production following the disasters, Toyota and Subaru are halting some production at North American factories - to assess availability of parts.

Subaru of America says it has suspended overtime at its plant in Lafayette, Indiana. The plant, Subaru's only North American factory, employs 3,500 workers and built 150,000 vehicles last year, including the Outback and Tribeca wagons and the Legacy sedan.

Toyota is suspending overtime and production on Saturdays at all of its North American plants to assess the availability of car parts.

Both are trying to conserve parts after the huge earthquake and tsunami, which is disrupting shipments from Japan to the US.

Japanese automakers Nissan and Honda say their North American plants have not been affected so far.

The price for insuring $10 million of Japanese sovereign debt for five years in the credit-default-swap market soared to $103,000 on Monday, from $79,000 on Friday, according to data provider Markit.

Reflecting the skepticism about Japan's outlook, even before the disaster, the net notional amount of Japanese debt being insured in the swaps market had surged to $7.4 billion from $4.1 billion a year ago, according to data from the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. through March 4. The number of contracts outstanding has more than doubled ....

Credit-default swaps of many corporate bonds have become even more valuable, rewarding those that bet on them. Among the biggest moves was in Tokyo Electric Power Co., owner of the nuclear-power plants crippled by the earthquake.

Commonwealth Opportunity Capital, a $90 million hedge fund in Los Angeles, made a profit of several million dollars on Tokyo Electric on Monday, from an investment of less than $200,000. The annual cost of protecting $10 million of Tokyo Electric's debt jumped to $240,000 on Monday from $40,700 on Friday.

6:35am Japan's nuclear safety committee say radiation levels of 400 millisieverts an hour had been recorded near Fukushima's No.4 reactor earlier today.

Exposure to over 100 millisieverts a year is a level which can lead to cancer, says to the World Nuclear Association.

Radiation levels in Tokyo, 250km south of the crippled plant, remain normal.

A small crew of technicians, braving radiation and fire, became the only people remaining at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station on Tuesday -- and perhaps Japan's last chance of preventing a broader nuclear catastrophe.

....

They breathe through uncomfortable respirators or carry heavy oxygen tanks on their backs. They wear white, full-body jumpsuits with snug-fitting hoods that provide scant protection from the invisible radiation sleeting through their bodies.

They are the faceless 50, the unnamed operators who stayed behind. They have volunteered, or been assigned, to pump seawater on dangerously exposed nuclear fuel, already thought to be partly melting and spewing radioactive material, to prevent full meltdowns that could throw thousands of tons of radioactive dust high into the air and imperil millions of their compatriots.

They struggled on Tuesday and Wednesday to keep hundreds of gallons of seawater a minute flowing through temporary fire pumps into the three stricken reactors, Nos. 1, 2 and 3. Among the many problems they faced was what appeared to be yet another fire at the plant.

The workers are being asked to make escalating -- and perhaps existential -- sacrifices that so far are being only implicitly acknowledged: Japan's Health Ministry said Tuesday it was raising the legal limit on the amount of radiation to which each worker could be exposed, to 250 millisieverts from 100 millisieverts, five times the maximum exposure permitted for American nuclear plant workers.

They will not remain anonymous, I confidently predict. But they will have to be replaced unless they are expecting the site to go so hot no one can enter. I will bet that their badges have been maxes out for days now.

I would suggest that the NRC officials who pissed all over the Alvarez proposal (cited by ceebs above the fold) to reduce the risks of just such developments as we are seeing be among those sent in to replace them.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/usc00023zp.php

you are the media you consume.

In the country that hosted the Kyoto Protocol, wind power has ground to a stunning halt. According to the last assessment by the Brussels-based Global Wind Energy Council, Japan ranked a dismal 14th in terms of yearly growth in wind capacity, with newly installed wind power totaling only 139 megawatts in 2007. That compares with 5.2 gigawatts - 38 times the capacity - installed the same year in the United States, and lags even further behind other wind-power giants such as Denmark, Germany and Spain.

Toshio Hori, president of the Tokyo-based Green Power Investment Corp., has been affiliated with the wind-power industry in Japan for 20 years. He blames Japan's renewable-energy policy for the slow growth.

"Japan's windpower industry is not growing," he said. "The renewable targets the government has set for wind power are tiny in comparison to other countries. There are no incentives for companies to grow."

....

The case of wind in Japan is instructive, as it shows how renewable energy can stumble without proper government intervention. It's especially significant given that Japan previously had been a green policy leader.

I don't know the law in Japan, so I can't tell you if Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) can plead insanity to the homicides about to happen.

But what will Obama plead?  The Administration, just months ago, asked Congress to provide a $4 billion loan guarantee for two new nuclear reactors to be built and operated on the Gulf Coast of Texas -- by Tokyo Electric Power and local partners.  As if the Gulf hasn't suffered enough.

110313-N-SB672-164 PACIFIC OCEAN (March 13, 2011) A Japanese home is seen adrift in the Pacific Ocean. Ships and aircraft from the Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group are searching for survivors in the coastal waters near Sendai, Japan. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Dylan McCord/Released)

you are the media you consume.

From the 1:24 mark they cite (with a good visualisation) the 1982 accident in the Armenian plant, with a failure of back-up generators as well - but they managed to keep the coolant flowing then.

Googling up gave the following links:

Nuclear Energy in Armenia (PDF)

Accidents, leaks, failures and other incidents in the nuclear industry and military (PDF)
(1054 items until 1991; the Armenian is No 568; note Chernobyl at 566 the same year)

Nuclear Files.org: Accidents Page

Just how much danger the spent fuel pool raises is made clear in a November 2010 powerpoint presentation from the Tokyo Electric Company detailing how fuel storage works at the huge complex.

The fuel inventory in the pool is detailed on page 9. According to TEPCO, each reactor generates 700 "waste" fuel assemblies a year, and there are 3450 assemblies in each pool at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, plus another 6,291 in a common pool in a separate building.
As shown in slide 10, the common pool building sits at ground level, with the pool itself above ground.  The building also has windows on at least one side, and experts fear these were broken out by the tsunami which would have flooded the building.

According to Albert Donnay, a former nuclear engineer, "This means the common pool is now full of radioactive and corrosive seawater that will cause the fuel assemblies to fail and burst open, as they are doing inside the reactor cores that have been deliberately flooded with seawater. If the pool drains or boils away, the fuel will melt, burn and even possibly explode if the fuel collapses into a sufficiently critical mass."

This may explain why the Japanese government began adding boric acid to the reactor spent fuel pools at the facility shortly after the earthquake and tidal wave.

The latest peak was 10.85 mSv/h at 12:30 pm local time. By 1:10 pm, the value dropped back to 2,538 μSv/h. The level was continuously in the multiple milli-Sieverts range from 11:00 pm yesterday.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

MIT NSE Nuclear Information Hub

Reactor decay heat vs. time.  The curves begin after the SCRAM of the reactors (complete and rapid control rod insertion) that occurred immediately after the earthquake.

UK rescue workers say they had to leave quake-hit Japan because they could not secure the necessary paperwork from the British embassy in Tokyo.

The International Rescue Corps said they were not given permission to work in Japan because it would have made the embassy legally responsible for them.

A spokesman for the team said it was "gut-wrenching" to be stopped from helping by "your own country".

The British ambassador to Japan said they helped them as much as they could.

<snip>

"This was the 32nd world disaster we have been to and we've only had problems twice before with host governments in China and Afghanistan.

"We have never encountered the position where the British embassy, our own country, came up with a show-stopper."

Mr McMartin said the team had permission from the Japanese embassy in London but they could not get a letter of authorisation from British officials in Japan stating that they were a bona fide organisation. They needed this so they could move around the country and buy fuel.

Japan's Emperor Akihito has said he is "deeply worried" about the crisis his country is facing following last Friday's earthquake and tsunami.

In an extremely rare appearance, Akihito went on live TV to make his first public comments on the disaster, and said he was praying for the people.

He spoke after technicians were forced to temporarily abandon a quake-crippled nuclear plant as radiation surged.

it says theyve increased the capacity of the spent fuel pools by "reracking" and have also installed a common spent fuel pool (page 5)

as of march 2010 there were 1,760 tons of spent fuel on site

then page 9 details storage at one plant and it's Fukashimi-daiichi it says that in total there are 3,450 fuel assemblies in the reactor storage pools, and 6,291 in the common pool (plus 408 in dry cask storage)for a total of 10,149) the plant has a capacity of 15,558 which is described as 450%of the total core capacity of 6 reactors. it also says that 700 fuel assemblies are generated every year

it also says the off site storage facility for long term is due to start building next year so we can assume that its all still there on site.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

The operators didn't protest so far. One of the plants was shut down by yesterday evening already, others are scheduled this week or next. However, the CDU's own federal parliament speaker announced that he wants to test the legality of the decision. Meanwhile, a leader of the Bavarian CSU opined that none of the seven plants, nor Krümmel (a newer but problem-plagued plant that is currently down) will ever go back in operation, because post-Fukushima security upgrades would cost too much.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

Kyokuto Petroleum Industries, the Japanese subsidy of ExxonMobil, has reopened operations to produce 175,000 barrels per day at its Chiba refinery, east of Tokyo, Reuters reports. The refinery was shut on Friday after the quake.

China is to donate 10,000 tonnes of diesel and 10,000 tonnes of gasoline to Japan to help counter shortages, China's Xinhua news agency reports.

with useful graphical aids

Wind power

Tepco, which runs the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, has apologised on its website for an earlier incident in which "an abnormal noise began emanating from [a] pressure suppression chamber". This led to a temporary evacuation of workers. "We are aware of and sincerely apologize for the great distress and inconvenience this incident has caused to not just those inhabitants residing in the immediate vicinity but also society at large," Tepco says.

I didn't realize that the JSDF would operate only under "safe" conditions. They are about as brave as U.S.S.Ronald Reagaon who quickly sailed away from the area when small radiation was detected.

I will become a patissier, God willing.

Kevin Maxwell from Namegata City, Ibaraki Prefecture writes: "We've been following the news and weather reports very closely. The official word is that radiation in my area is still far below dangerous levels. However, the headmaster at the school where my wife teaches received a phone call from a professor he knows at one of Japan's foremost science universities. He was told that radiation of potentially harmful levels had been detected as far away as Yokohama, which is twice as far from Fukushima as we are. Right now I'm not sure what to believe."

Japan: spent nuclear fuel rods reportedly exposed as containment pool boils off http://thetim.es/ezR7o7 ^LM-C

(Reuters) - The French government said on Wednesday that Japan was losing control of the situation at the Fukushima nuclear power plant and urged its nationals in Tokyo to leave the country or head to southern Japan.

The government has asked national carrier Air France (AIRF.PA) to increase capacity on its flights between Tokyo and Paris to accommodate any additional demand from French citizens wanting to leave the Japanese capital.

Industry Minister Eric Besson said the situation at the Fukushima plant, some 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo, appeared to be getting out of control.

NY Times reporting at 10 AM EST that Japanese officials reported to US inspectors that fires yesterday were from burning lubricating oil: "The explosion on Tuesday was caused by hydrogen gas bubbling up from chemical reactions set off by the fuel rods in the pool, Japanese officials said. Inspectors from the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission said they had been told by Japanese authorities that what was burning was lubricating oil from machinery near the pool.

""Fukushima 50" actually a group of 180 workers, rotating shifts. All heroes" and all hopefully to receive huge compensation and absolute top care after the event. These people are working not for a nationalised institution but for a private firm, the firm owes them everything when this is finished and i hopethey are forced to compensate them accordingly. Heroes!

First, all Swedish reactors have filters, since the 80's. Back then only the French and the Swedish felt the need for such things. There are no filters at Fukushima, which is why relatively large amounts of radiation is released when they vent. Neither do they seem to have chimneys, so when they vent, the steam passes through the reactor hall, and tends to explode.

Further, unlike the Fukushima plants, no Swedish BWR's have Mark I containments. The oldest plants have Mark II containments, and the newer ones have improved Mark II containments.

BWR's usually don't have core catchers as they have water below the reactor which will help cool a molten core. PWR's are all dry within the containment and that's why core catchers are a good idea for them.

If the Fukushima plants with their Mark I containments suffer such extensive meltdowns that the corium leaves the reactor tank, it is a real possibility that the containment will be breached, especially if the molten corium enter the torus, which is made only of steel.

Finally, I asked what he thought of the Japanese view of the accident as an INES 4. He said that while it was the role of the country in question and the IAEA to set INES ratings and that the Swedish authority had not made their own analysis of the matter, currently it seemed that the French view of the accident as an INES 5 or 6 was probably closer to reality, even though he felt that it was correct to see it as an INES 4 when the Japanese made that claim. But as we know, the situation has since deteriorated.

I forgot to ask any questions about the spent fuel pools and I'm going to call back when I figure out some good questions to ask. If you have any, please write them down.

Oh, and Mr. Gunsell seemed quite pleased that for once the journalist was not entirely clueless about nuclear reactors. ;p

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

10:05pm

Japanese rescue workers who may be exposed to high levels of radiation may be flown to Europe for treatment, if there is no room for them in Japanese hospitals, the European Group for Blood and Marrow Transplantation has offered.

A spokesman said:

Japan is more competent than any European country when it comes to radiation treatment, but they are dealing with an awful lot right now and so we made this offer and are ready to help if they blow the whistle.

After a person has been radiated, you have three to four days before they're on the cusp of severe complications. At that point they could be put on a flight to Europe if Japanese facilities are overwhelmed.

 

As many as 500 bone marrow transplant centres across 27 European countries have been put on alert and could treat 200 to 300 patients if necessary.

The European plans were drawn up in the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster.

http://www.japanquakemap.com

"People only accept change when they are faced with necessity, and only recognize necessity when a crisis is upon them." - Jean Monnet

BEIJING -- China suspended approval on Wednesday of 28 planned nuclear power plants while it revised safety standards, making the surprise announcement after Premier Wen Jiabao met with top advisers to discuss Japan's nuclear crisis.

The government said it was also requiring safety checks at all existing plants.

"We must fully grasp the importance and urgency of nuclear safety, and development of nuclear power must make safety the top priority," the government said on its Web site.

US Energy Secretary Steven Chu has just described events at the Fukushima plant as "appearing to be more serious than Three Mile Island". How much worse was not clear, he said, adding that it was very hard to tell how bad things were on the ground.

Mr Chu said there were conflicting reports coming from Japan. The US teams who have travelled there are not only assisting the Japanese, but also ensuring that the US can secure its own measurements of what is happening, he said.

The IAEA says the Japanese authorities "have reported concerns about the condition of the spent nuclear fuel pool at Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3 and Unit 4". The pools are where the still-radioactive fuel rods are kept after they have completed their useful life in the reactor.

Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant risks provoking a "major disaster" and was "effectively out of control", the European Union's energy chief has said.

Günther Oettinger, the EU Energy Commissioner, said there could be catastrophic events within only a matter of hours.

Dr Oettinger, who represents the European Commission, the 27- nation EU's executive arm, said a further deterioration in the situation could lead to the deaths of people in Japan.

He told a European Parliament committee in Brussels:

The site is effectively out of control. In the coming hours, there could be further catastrophic events.

We are somewhere between a disaster and a major disaster.

We are very much concerned and deeply distressed by the pictures we are seeing from Japan.

TEPCO : Press Release | Impact to TEPCO's Facilities due to Tohoku-Taiheiyou-Oki Earthquake (as of 2:00PM)

* (Unit 1) As it is confirmed that the temperature of the Emergency Equipment Cooling Water System ^*1 has increased, at 3:20 pm, March 15th, we stopped the Residual Heat Removal System (B) for the inspection. Subsequently, failure was detected in the power supply facility associated with the pumps of the Emergency Equipment Cooling Water System. At 4:25 pm, March 15th, after replacing the power facility, the pumps and the Residual Heat Removal System (B) have been reactivated. * (Unit 4) As it is confirmed that the pressure at the outlet of the pumps of the Emergency Equipment Cooling Water System^*1 has been decreased, at 8:05 pm, March 15th, we stopped the Residual Heat Removal System (B) for the inspection. Subsequently, failure was detected in the power supply facility associated with the pumps of the Emergency Equipment Cooling Water System. At 9:25 pm, March 15th, after replacing the relevant facility, the pumps and the Residual Heat Removal System (B) have been reactivated. *1:emergency water system in which cooling water (pure water) circulates which exchanged the heat with sea water in order to cool down bearing pumps and/or heat exchangers etc.

After the devastation wrought on the north-east coast, Japanese citizens in areas which escaped the brunt of the earthquake and tsunami are scrambling to help their compatriots.

Residents of Niigata city have so far collected around 100,000kg of spare food supplies to donate to shelters on the east coast.

Tomohide Nozawa, a 25-year-old student, said:

I heard the news about donations from my friends. I am here to give away supplies that are not immediately necessary for me, to give away what I can.

More from the IAEA. Its latest briefing says that officials are preparing to spray water onto reactor four and possibly three. "Some debris on the ground from the 14 March explosion at Unit 3 may need to be removed before the spraying can begin."

ZAMG - Aktuelle Informationen

CTBTO Messnetz misst erste Radioaktivitätswerte über Japan

Seit 12. März 2011 wird im japanischen Kernkraftwerk Fukushima Radioaktivität freigesetzt. Heute gelangten die ersten CTBTO (Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization) -Radionuklid-Analysen an die ZAMG, in ihrer Funktion als Nationales Datenzentrum von Österreich für die Verifikation des Umfassenden Atomteststop-Abkommens (CTBT). Es zeigt sich, wie wichtig die Daten des Internationalen Überwachungssystem der CTBTO auch für zivile Anwendungen sein können. Die CTBTO Station in Gunma, Japan (JPP38; 139°; O, 36.3° N), hat vom Samstag 12.3.2011 06:55 Z bis Sonntag 13.3.2011 06:55Z folgende Radionuklide detektiert:

US forces in #Japan not allowed within 80 kilometres of Fukushima #nuclear plant without special authorisation, Pentagon says

Kyodo is reporting new plumes of smoke coming from the building housing reactor three.

The governor of the region at the centre of Japan's nuclear crisis has criticised official handling of the evacuation of the area around the stricken Fukushima Daiichi power plant.

Fukushima prefecture governor Yuhei Sato said: "Anxiety and anger felt by people have reached boiling point."

Engineers are racing to avert a nuclear catastrophe at Fukushima Daiichi, badly damaged by Friday's quake and tsunami.

The government has declared a 20km (12-mile) evacuation zone around it.

Another 140,000 people living between 20-30km of the facility were told on Tuesday not to leave their homes.

Mr Sato said centres already housing people who had been moved from their homes near the plant did not have enough hot meals and basic necessities such as fuel and medical supplies. "We're lacking everything," he said.

The IAEA's Secretary General Yukiya Amano says he plans to go to Japan as early as Thursday, AP reports.

Facebook

Had an email from our friends in Japan, their village, amazingly, is still standing as the tsunami did not reach them, short of fuel and food and very concerned about the nuclear reactor, but alive and ok. Many more friends are unaccounted for, he is very worried about his former students and their families. Thank you all for supporting me and is supporting Japan in general!

Map released by using information from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reveals how the volatile earthquake zone is located near a number of nuclear power plants. Red spots indicate increased magnitude of quakes and the map displays areas of seismic shocks with 4.5+ magnitude since 1973.

Americans living within 50 miles of Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant have been told to evacuate

The U.S. NRC chairman tells Congress the NRC would recommend an evacuation area much larger than has taken place around Japan's reactors

Japan earthquake | Page 98 | Liveblog live blogging | Reuters.com

More comments from the NRC chair, says spent fuel pool at Reactor 4 has no water, radiation levels are "extremely high"

The debate over the future of nuclear power has just stepped up a notch - with US Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton saying the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima plant "raises questions" about the use of nuclear energy in the country. She said:

What's happening in Japan raises questions about the costs and the risks associated with nuclear power, but we have to answer those. We get 20 per cent of our energy right now in the United States from nuclear power.

A French parliamentary hearing called to discuss the worsening nuclear crisis in Japan has been suspended in uproar - in a spat over a parked car.

As ministers outlined France's response to the explosions, part-meltdowns and radiation leaks at Fukushima nuclear plant, independent member of parliament Maxime Gremetz stormed into the committee room to complain his car was blocked.

"That's enough! This is unworthy!" science committee chairman Claude Birraux protested, amid shouts from MPs, enraged by the timing of the interruption.

After disrupting the hearing - screened on live television - for a second time, Gremetz was ordered to get the car registration number. Committee chairman Birraux told him:

With Japanese people risking their lives today, don't come here and be a pain in the neck with your story about badly parked cars.

Energy minister Eric Besson said he was sure the offending vehicle did not belong either to him, or Environment Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, telling the committee:

If it was either of our cars, I am sure the chauffeurs would be sitting in the front.

The Tokyo Electric Power company says "a new power line that could solve the nuclear crisis is almost ready".

A German reactor safety organization has been attempting to plot and correlate the publicly released radiation measurements against timed reports of various explosions and venting events.

Comparisons between earlier days and the situation today is being hindered by unability to get measurements from the closest measurement posts (or locations for the mobile measurement vehicle to stop at), because the dose rates are too high to keep up continued manual dose rate counting.

If the graph is accurate, it does show a very disturbing trend indeed.

March 16 (Bloomberg) -- The earthquake disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant north of Tokyo was foretold in a report published two decades ago by a U.S. regulatory agency.

In a 1990 report, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, an independent agency responsible for ensuring the safety of the country's power plants, identified earthquake-induced diesel generator failure and power outage leading to failure of cooling systems as one of the "most likely causes" of nuclear accidents from an external event.

While the report was cited in a 2004 statement by Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, adequate measures to address the risk were not taken by Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the plant in Fukushima prefecture, said Jun Tateno, a former researcher at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency and professor at Chuo University.

"It's questionable whether Tokyo Electric really studied the risks outlined in the report," Tateno said in an interview. "That they weren't prepared for a once in a thousand year occurrence will not go over as an acceptable excuse."

(may have been posted here already but I haven't seen it)

The situation at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has become extremely unnerving. The Tokyo Electric Power Company has now admitted that the spent fuel rods could go critical - that is, a nuclear chain reaction could restart.

We have known since yesterday that the reactors themselves were coming under control, and that the biggest threat came from the spent fuel ponds, where the water level has fallen and temperatures have risen. That could lead to the stored fuel rods breaking open, releasing their radioactive contents.

Kyodo News reports:

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Wednesday it is considering spraying boric acid by helicopter to prevent spent nuclear fuel rods from reaching criticality again, restarting a chain reaction, at the troubled No. 4 reactor of its quake-hit Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. "The possibility of recriticality is not zero," TEPCO said as it announced the envisaged step against a possible fall in water levels in a pool storing the rods that would leave them exposed.

This is a real surprise. These ponds are a standard feature of nuclear reactors, and are typically designed to ensure that nuclear reactions cannot restart in the fuel rods. Among other things, the rods should be widely spaced in the pond.

(my bold)

I dont know about you, but maybe a Magnitude 9 earthquake might  have loosened the odd rod in its seating?

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

The United States is deploying additional radiation monitors on Hawaii and other U.S. islands even though it does not expect harmful levels of radiation from damaged Japanese nuclear power plants to reach U.S. soil, environmental regulators said.