Mixing nukes with earthquakes
By now, everybody has seen video of the blast that occurred at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant, but this before/after comparison caught Desdemona’s eye:
“The secondary containment building blew up; it’s totally gone (along with any relief valves that may have been installed).” – Ghung At 21:00 JST (12:00 GMT) TEPCO announced that they planned to cool the leaking reactor with sea water (started at 8:30pm local time), then using boric acid to act as a neutron poison to prevent a criticality accident.[46] The sea water would take five to ten hours to fill the reactor core, after which it would require seawater cooling for around ten days.[40] At 23:00 JST (14:00 GMT) TEPCO announced that due to the quake at 22:15 the filling of the reactor with sea water and boric acid had been stopped.[47] – Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant “That quake at 22:15 local was a 6.4 centred just 12 miles from the reactor according to the USGS. Ouch.” – Undertow
Officials deny that the core has melted. Time will tell. For reference, here’s the video:
Note that it's a different perspective, giving a misleading impression. The building structure is probably still there, and the same height, but has clearly lost its cladding.
LATimes reports that 3 reactors are in trouble:
"The crisis intensified as officials reported that three of the six reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 plant were in trouble, and emergency measures were being taken to cool them." http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-japan-quake-main-20110313,0,738219.story