One of the threads I’m following in SomethingAwful has this comment:
“Oil rigs explode for basically no reason, and a nuclear reactor gets hit with an earthquake of biblical proportions followed by a tsunami and you expect nothing to go wrong? Even with all this shit, it has posed less of a danger to the public than even 1 strip mining operation in Appalachia.”
This is very impressive. The refinery went down in flames nearly instantly and is still burning. There are apparently some trust issues with TEPCO (they’ve lied about inspections?) but if this were a BP operation, they’d be “stuffing orphans and kittens in there before giving up hint of a penny of profit”.
Also there was apparently seriously bad luck involved, even within the context of disaster — several of those nuclear plants were due to be shut down this month, being at the end of their lifetimes. So the earthquake hit *before* they get shut down and mothballed….
Gotcha Keef! Yes, I’m experiencing the same feeling now that I was then, watching it online… except I’m a lot further away from it now, and I was in the middle of it then.
What’s even scarier? Japan has 55 nuclear power plants. ALL of them on fault lines, since Japan is basically a little strip of land on the edge of a large fault/plate.
Well, maybe not 9/11… last time I checked, this couldn’t possibly have been caused by terrorists.
@ mIA re: 9/11. I meant more along the line that it was unfolding before our eyes on live TV.
One of the threads I’m following in SomethingAwful has this comment:
“Oil rigs explode for basically no reason, and a nuclear reactor gets hit with an earthquake of biblical proportions followed by a tsunami and you expect nothing to go wrong? Even with all this shit, it has posed less of a danger to the public than even 1 strip mining operation in Appalachia.”
This is very impressive. The refinery went down in flames nearly instantly and is still burning. There are apparently some trust issues with TEPCO (they’ve lied about inspections?) but if this were a BP operation, they’d be “stuffing orphans and kittens in there before giving up hint of a penny of profit”.
(P.S., thanks for all the years of comics!)
Also there was apparently seriously bad luck involved, even within the context of disaster — several of those nuclear plants were due to be shut down this month, being at the end of their lifetimes. So the earthquake hit *before* they get shut down and mothballed….
Gotcha Keef! Yes, I’m experiencing the same feeling now that I was then, watching it online… except I’m a lot further away from it now, and I was in the middle of it then.
What’s even scarier? Japan has 55 nuclear power plants. ALL of them on fault lines, since Japan is basically a little strip of land on the edge of a large fault/plate.
Actually I can imagine it happening in LA thanks to every disaster movie ever. :-\