Tsunami in Japanese harbors

[REBrueckner]

It appears that like in a hurricane, even if your boat is securely fastened unless you are uptream of floating boats/ships/houses and other debris, damage is likely. I wonder what the relative force of all the debris is rising versus falling water heights.....because much is subsequently swept out to sea....

Portions of some of these are on tv...more than I have seen there appears below...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YPOK_3r8Dc&feature=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YPOK_3r8Dc&feature=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQTJy5mWejA&feature=

[REBrueckner]

If you notice boats going over small "waterfalls" they do quite well..initially...but the sideways movement in current gets them stuck under the "falls" flow in the backtow....looks like they'd fill up from the water fall......so anybody having to ride such a fall should run their boat parallel with the wate flow...perpendicular to the waterfall itself...could also drag an anchor to keep such an alignment....

[jim rosenthal]

There is a photo in NYTimes yesterday of a ferryboat sitting on top of a building in Japan...all those people dead, all the living ones homeless, and radiation leaking out of the damaged reactors. I can't imagine a worse situation.

[REBrueckner]

I've been following the radiation and reactor stories....mostly hype and uninformed, likely biased, articles........There seem to be political motivations in some articles....

"Meltdown" while possible is not likely....and there is NO evidence of such yet.....all the radiation testing of the public is precautionary....those reactors were 40 years old, some already scheduled for de commissioning and others were to be scheduled soon....

Good background and links to reliable technical sources here on PHYSICS FORUMS:

http://www.physicsforums.com/showthr...panese+nuclear

Note the posts from "Astronuc"...an ex astrophysicst then nuclear engineer...

[jim rosenthal]

The only real meltdown that has occurred with radiation release was at Chernobyl, and wasn't that because there was no containment vessel? I don't think that's going to occur here; I certainly hope not. Just as it is, I can't imagine how long it will take to rebuild all that damage. Years, maybe decades.

[Canuck Dennis]

If they have not yet secured cooling water to the rods something really wrong, a backup, without on site generators is available......fire trucks,,hoses to salt water and away you go..any excuse otherwise is criminal .