Term Paper on Japan Tragedy and its Aftermaths

Submitted by Name Enroll No. Department Section Batch : : : : : Arvind Kumar A2305210170 ASET 3CSE 1 2010 - 2014

In partial fulfilment of the requirement for B. Tech Degree

Under the supervision of : Name of Faculty Guide Department Date : : : Dr. Vinay Tripathi AIES

Acknowledgement

I ARVIND KUMAR feel great pleasure in submitting this project as the culmination of my guides efforts. This project required hard work; sincerity and devotion that I tried my best to put in this project and in turn gained a lot of knowledge from this project.

I am deeply grateful to my faculty guide Dr. Vinay Tripathi who motivated me to take an environment related topic as a part of my Term Paper project and explore the consequences of nature against science.

At last i am thankful to a number of news sources available widely which helped me out to prepare a research work on the topic.

X
ARVIND KUMAR 3CSE 1

Japan Tragedy and its aftermaths

CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that

Mr. Arvind Kumar, student of B.Tech. in ASET

Department has carried out the work presented in the project of the Term paper entitled JAPAN TRADEGY AND ITS AFTERMATHS from Amity

School of Engineering and Technology, Amity University, Noida, Uttar Pradesh under my supervision.

X
Dr. Vinay Tripathi Department of Environmental Sciences, AIES

Amity University, Noida

Japan Tragedy and its aftermaths

Index

S. No. 1 2 3 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. Abstract What is Tsunami ?

Topic

Pg. No. 4 5 6-7 8 9-10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20-21

Important facts about Tsunami and Detection Techniques Earthquakes and their Effects on buildings Earthquake : Protection Measures Pacific Ring Of Fire Japan Tsunami Report : March 11, 2011 The fatal flaw in Boiling Water Nuclear Reactors The worst case Scenario : Japan Nuclear Crisis Explosions at Japan Nuclear Power Plants Next Steps in Japan Nuclear Crisis Aftermaths Current Radiation levels in Japan Radiations in Japan may be worse then we thought References

Japan Tragedy and its aftermaths

Abstract

This Term Paper report is a consolidated effort of combining authentic news sources and articles relating to the JAPAN TRADEGY AND ITS AFTERMATHS, MARCH 11, 2011.

The paper starts with the brief description of the TSUNAMI and EARTHQAUKES along with their effects on environment, ways to mitigate them, and possible detection techniques deployed out in the suspected regions.

Thereafter a brief report has been given about Pacific ring of fire and the March 11, 2011, Tsunami occurred at Japan after the violent 9.0 magnitude earthquake, the nuclear crisis happened out there and its consequences.

Aftermaths of the disaster have been compiled up at the end of the report, all from authentic sources and informations.

Japan Tragedy and its aftermaths

TSUNAMI

The term Tsunami has been coined from the Japanese term Tsu meaning harbour and nami meaning waves.
[1]

Tsunamis are waves generated by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, or underwater landslides and can reach 15m or more in height devastating coastal communities.

In recorded history, tsunamis worldwide have killed thousands of people. Tsunamis caused by nearby earthquakes may reach the coast within minutes. When the waves enter shallow water, they may rise to several feet or, in rare cases, tens of feet, striking the coast with devastating force. The Tsunami danger period can continue for many hours after a major earthquake.

Fig. 1 : Formation of Tsunami [1]

Tsunamis may also be generated by very large earthquakes far away in other areas of the Ocean. Waves caused by these travel at hundreds of kilometers per hour, reaching the coast several hours after the earthquake, see fig 1. Unlike ordinary tides, which are short, frequent and surface level, tsunami, are barely noticeable in their deep-sea formation stage. At this point despite a wavelength up to 100 km, they are shallow in depth and move at hundreds of kilometer per hour. If a quake hits Los Angeles, a Tsunami can reach Tokyo in a time less than a Jet would take to traverse the same distance.
[1]

Japan Tragedy and its aftermaths

Important facts about Tsunami :

Some tsunamis can be very large. In coastal areas their height can be as great as 10m or more (30m in extreme cases), and they can move inland several hundred meters. All low-lying coastal areas can be struck by tsunamis. A tsunami consists of a series of waves. Often the first wave may not be the largest. The danger from subsequent tsunami waves can last for several hours after the arrival of the first wave. When the ocean is deep, tsunamis may be less than a foot high on the oceans surface, can
[2]

travel at speeds up to 500 mph without being noticed and cross the entire ocean in less than a day.
Tsunamis can move even 50 km per hour on coastal plain, faster than a person can run. Sometimes a tsunami causes the water near the shore to recede, exposing the ocean floor. This is natures Tsunami warning and should be checked. The force of some tsunamis is enormous. Large rocks weighing several tons along with boats and other debris can be moved inland several meters by tsunami wave activity. Homes and other buildings are destroyed. All floating material and water move with great force and can kill or injure people.
[3]

Tsunamis can occur at any time of day or night. Tsunamis can travel up rivers and streams that lead to the ocean. Hawaii is the U.S. state at greatest risk for a tsunami they get about one per year and a damaging one every seven years. The biggest tsunami that occurred Hawaii happened on April 1, 1946, where the coast of Hilo Island was hit with 30 foot waves coming in at 500 miles per hour. 170 people died as a result. [4]

Japan Tragedy and its aftermaths

Fig. 2 : Tsunami Wave Train Formation [1] Detecting Tsunami :

With the use of satellite technology it is possible to provide nearly immediate warning of potentially tsuna-migenic earthquakes. Warning time depends upon the distance of the epicentre from the coast line. The warning includes predicted times at selected coastal communities where the tsunami could travel in a few hours. Coastal tidal gauges can stop tsunamis close to the shore, but they are useless in deep oceans. Tsunami detectors, linked to land by submarine cables, are deployed 50 odd kms. out at sea. Tsunameters transmit warnings of buoys on the sea surface, which relay it to satellites. [5] .

Japan Tragedy and its aftermaths

EARTHQUAKES
Earthquake : Any abrupt disturbance within the earth that is tectonic or volcanic in origin and that results in the generation of elastic waves. The passage of such seismic waves through the earth often causes violent shaking at its surface. [1]

GROUND MOVEMENTS[1]
The ground movements caused by earthquakes can have several types of damaging effects. Some of the major effects are:

1. Ground shaking, i.e. back-and-forth motion of the ground, caused by the passing
vibratory waves through the ground.

2. Soil failures, such as liquefaction and landslides, caused by shaking; 3. Surface fault ruptures, such as cracks, vertical shifts, etc. 4. Tidal waves (tsunamis), i.e. large waves on the surface of bodies of water that can
cause major damage to shoreline areas.

EFFECT ON BUILDINGS[1]
As the vibrations and waves continue to move through the earth, buildings on the earths surface are set in motion. Each building responds differently, depending on its construction. When the waves strike, the earth begins to move backward and forward along the same line. The lower part of a building on the earths surface immediately moves with the earth. The upper portion, however, initially remains at rest; thus the building is stretched out of shape. Gradually the upper portion tries to catch up with the bottom, but as it does so, the earth moves in the other direction, causing a whiplash effect. The vibration can cause structural failure in the building itself, or to an adjacent building having different response characteristics. Taller buildings also tend to shake longer than short buildings, which can make them relatively more susceptible to damage.

Fig 3. Shaking of short and tall building due to ground acceleration

Japan Tragedy and its aftermaths

PROTECTION MEASURES
The primary objective of earthquake resistant design is to prevent collapse during earthquakes thus minimising the risk of death or injury to people in or around the buildings. There are certain features which if taken into consideration at the stage of architectural planning and structural design of buildings, their performance during earthquakes will be appreciably improved. Some of these are stated below : 1) Building configuration[6] The building should have a simple rectangular plan. Long walls should be supported by Reinforced Concrete columns as shown on the right side. Large buildings having plans with shapes like T, L, U and X should preferably be separated into rectangular blocks by providing gaps in between.

2) Foundation[6]
Buildings which are structurally strong to withstand earthquakes sometimes fail due t o inadequate foundation design. Tilting, cracking and failure of structure may result from soil liquefaction. Soil liquefaction refers to transformation of soil from a solid state to a liquid state as a consequence pressure. of increased

Japan Tragedy and its aftermaths

Control on openings in walls

Door and window openings in walls should preferably be small and more centrally located. Too many or large openings will make the wall vulnerable to collapse during earthquakes. The location of openings should not be too close to the edge of the wall.

3) Reinforced concrete bands in masonry buildings[6]

For integrating the walls of an enclosure to perform together like a rigid box reinforced

concrete bands are provided which run continuously on all external and internal walls including fixed partition walls. One or more of the following bands may be necessary in a building. Plinth band, lintel band, roof band, and gable band are names used for the band depending on the level of the building where the band is provided.

4) Vertical reinforcement[6]
Vertical reinforcement should be provided at corners and junction of walls. It shall be passing through the lintel bands and floor slabs or floor level bands in all storeys. Earthquake doesnt kill people. It is the badly designed buildings that kill the people. So to prevent an earthquake hazard from becoming a disaster our buildings should be properly designed incorporating the earthquake

resistant design features into it.

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Pacific Ring Of Fire and Japan [7] [8] [9]

The Pacific Ring of Fire is an area where large numbers of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur in the basin of the Pacific Ocean. In a 40,000 km (25,000 mi) horseshoe shape, it is associated with a nearly continuous series of oceanic trenches, volcanic arcs, and volcanic belts and/or plate movements. The Ring of Fire has 452 volcanoes and is home to over 75% of the world's active and dormant volcanoes. It is sometimes called the circum-Pacific belt or the circum-Pacific seismic belt.
[7]

About 90% of the world's earthquakes and 80% of the world's largest earthquakes occur along the Ring of Fire. The next most seismic region (56% of earthquakes and 17% of the world's largest earthquakes) is the Alpide belt, which extends from Java to Sumatra through the Himalayas, the Mediterranean, and out into the Atlantic. The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is the third most prominent earthquake belt.[8]

Japan also sits in the unfamous Ring Of Fire ans ten percent of the world's active volcanoes are found in Japan, which lies in a zone of extreme crustal instability. They are formed by subduction of the Pacific Plate and the Philippine Sea Plate. As many as 1,500 earthquakes are recorded yearly, and magnitudes of four to six on the Richter scale are not uncommon. Minor tremors occur almost daily in one part of the country or another, causing slight shaking of buildings. Major earthquakes occur infrequently; the most famous in the twentieth century were: the Great Kant earthquake of 1923, in which 130,000 people died; and the Great Hanshin earthquake of 17 January 1995, in which 6,434 people died.

On March 11, 2011 a magnitude 9.0 Earthquake hit Japan, the country's biggest ever and the fifth largest on record, according to US Geological Survey data. expose the Japanese coastline to danger from tsunamis. In Japan regions near / off the shore of Hongshu, experience a lot of earthquakes frequently of average magnitudes of 5.0 on Richter Scale, this region experienced 19 earthqaukes in the month of july only.
[15] [9]

Undersea earthquakes also

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Japan Tsunami Report : March 11, 2011 [10]

All across more than Japan, they felt it, a violent 9.0 magnitude earthquake on March 11, 2011. It was centered about 80miles off the eastern coast and Tsunami Warning went up

immediately. In coastal cities people knew what to do next, run to higher ground.

In Casanuma people retreated to high rise roof-tops and could only watch in horror as the Tsunami waves inundated their city knocking building into rouble and mixing into a kind of Tsunami Soup filled with vehicles, building parts and trees. Some Tsunami waves reached as far as 3miles inland.

As the nation struggled with a rescue effort, it also faced the worst nuclear emergency since Chernobyl; explosions and leaks of radioactive gas took place in three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station that suffered partial meltdowns, while spent fuel rods at another reactor overheated and caught fire, releasing radioactive material directly into the atmosphere. Japanese officials turned to increasingly desperate measures, as traces of radiation were found in Tokyo's water and in water pouring from the reactors into the ocean. A month after the quake, nuclear officials put the crisis in the same category of severity as the Chernobyl disaster. In May, Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who had been criticized for showing a lack of leadership, said Japan would abandon plans to build new nuclear reactors, saying his country needed to start from scratch in creating a new energy policy that should include greater reliance on renewable energy and conservation.

Japan is the most seismological studied country in the world and with more then 1200 high precision GPS stations, a Geophysicist at University of Alaska used the data to create a visualization of the disaster which could be used to design far better detection systems.

As of April 25, the official death toll had been raised to 14,133, and more than 13,346 people were listed as missing, although there may be some overlap between the two groups. The final toll is expected to reach 20,000. More than 130,000 people remained housed in temporary shelters; tens of thousands of others evacuated their homes due to the nuclear crisis.

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The Fatal Flaw in Boiling Water Nuclear Reactors [11]

A boiling water reactor has an Achilles heel -- a fatal flaw -- that is invisible under normal operating conditions and most failure scenarios. The flaw has to do with the cooling system.

A boiling water reactor boils water: That's obvious and simple enough. It's a technology that goes back more than a century to the earliest steam engines. As the water boils, it creates a huge amount of pressure -- the pressure that will be used to spin the steam turbine. The boiling water also keeps the reactor core at a safe temperature. When it exits the steam turbine, the steam is cooled and condensed to be reused over and over again in a closed loop. The water is recirculated through the system with electric pumps.

The design's vulnerability comes into play if the electric pumps lose power. Without a fresh supply of water in the boiler, the water continues boiling off, and the water level starts falling. If enough water boils off, the fuel rods are exposed and they overheat. At some point, even with the control rods fully inserted, there is enough heat to melt the nuclear fuel. This is where the term meltdown comes from. Tons of melting uranium flows to the bottom of the pressure vessel. At that point, it's catastrophic. In the worst case, the molten fuel penetrates the pressure vessel gets released into the environment.

Because of this known vulnerability, there is huge redundancy around the pumps and their supply of electricity. There are several sets of redundant pumps, and there are redundant power supplies. Power can come from the power grid. If that fails, there are several layers of backup diesel generators. If they fail, there is a backup battery system. With all of this redundancy, it seems like the vulnerability is completely covered. There is no way for the fatal flaw to ever be exposed.

Unfortunately, shortly after the earthquake, the worst-case scenario unfolded.

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The Worst-case Scenario in Japan's Nuclear Crisis [11]

The nuclear power plants in Japan weathered the earthquake itself without difficulty. The four plants nearest the quake's epicenter shut down automatically, meaning that the control rods were fully inserted into their reactor cores and the plants stopped producing power. This is normal operating procedure for these plants, but it meant that the first source of electricity for the cooling pumps was gone. That isn't a problem because the plant could get power from the power grid to run the pumps.

However, the power grid became unstable and it shut down as well. The second source of electricity for the cooling pumps was gone. That brought the backup diesel generators into play. Diesel generators are a robust and time-tested way to generate electricity, so there were no worries.

But then the tsunami hit. And unfortunately, the tsunami was far larger than anyone had planned for. If the backup diesel generators had been higher off the ground, designed to run while submerged in water or protected from deep water in some way, the crisis could have been averted. Unfortunately, the unexpected water levels from the tsunami caused the generators to fail.

This left the last layer of redundancy -- batteries -- to operate the pumps. The batteries performed as expected, but they were sized to last for only a few hours. The assumption, apparently, was that electricity would become available from another source fairly quickly.

Although operators did truck in new generators, they could not be hooked up in time, and the coolant pumps ran out of electricity. The fatal flaw in the boiling water design -- thought to be impossible to uncover through so many layers of redundancy -- had nonetheless become exposed. With it exposed, the next step in the process led to catastrophe.

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Explosions at Japan's Nuclear Power Plants [12]

With the batteries dead, the coolant pumps failed. With no fresh coolant flowing into the reactor core, the water that kept it cool began boiling off. As the water boiled away, the tops of the fuel rods were exposed, and the metal tubes holding the uranium fuel pellets overheated and cracked. The cracks allowed water to enter the tubes and get to the fuel pellets, where it began generating hydrogen gas. The process is called thermolysis -- if you get water hot enough, it breaks down into its constituent hydrogen and oxygen atoms.

Hydrogen is a highly explosive gas -- recall the Hindenburg explosion, in which the Hindenburg was full of hydrogen gas. In Japan's nuclear plants, pressure from the hydrogen built up, and the gas had to be vented. Unfortunately, so much hydrogen vented so quickly that it exploded inside the reactor building. This same chain of events unfolded in several different reactors.

The explosions did not rupture the pressure vessels holding the nuclear cores, nor did they release any significant amounts of radiation. These were simple hydrogen explosions, not nuclear explosions. The explosions damaged the concrete and steel buildings surrounding the pressure vessels.

The explosions also indicated that things had gotten out of control. If water were to continue boiling off, a meltdown would be almost assured.

So operators decided to flood the reactors with seawater. This is a last-ditch effort to control the situation, since seawater completely ruins a reactor, but it's better than a meltdown. In addition, the seawater was mixed with boron to act something like a liquid version of the control rods. Boron absorbs neutrons and is one of the main constituents in the control rods.

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Next Steps in Japans Nuclear Disaster [12] [13]

The nuclear incidents in Japan are described as Level 6 INES events (International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale). Three Mile Island was a Level 5 event. Chernobyl was a Level 7 event, and that is the top of the event scale . Obviously, it's a serious situation.
[9]

Japan has lost a significant portion of its electrical generating capacity. Approximately a third of Japan's electricity comes from nuclear power plants, and about half of that capacity has been lost (approximately 20 percent of total generating capacity) .[10] That capacity will need to be replaced in some way.

At 40 years old, these reactors are nearing the end of their design lifespans anyway. One alternative is to simply rebuild the plants. The two problems with this approach are that it will be a very lengthy process -- possibly taking a decade or more -- and the general public in Japan may have no appetite for new nuclear reactors. It is still too early to tell.

There are a number of Mark 1 reactors in the United States. It is certain that they will be decommissioned or altered to take advantage of the lessons learned in Japan. Other reactors may also be altered as needed.

The nuclear industry was hoping for a renaissance of nuclear power in the United States now that more than three decades have elapsed since the Three Mile Island incident shut down new nuclear plant construction in the United States. The events in Japan may stop this renaissance. Or they may spur research in other, possibly safer, nuclear technologies.

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Af termaths

[14]

1. PM Naoto Kan sent 50,000 troops for the rescue and recovery efforts following Fridays
9.0 magnitude quake.

2. Police said between 200-300 bodies were found along the coast of Sendai, the biggest
city in the area near the quakes epicentre.

3. The damage at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant added to the worries where the two
reactors had lost cooling ability.

4. Residents in Miyagi prefecture, who spent night on top of a building, were rescued
Saturday morning, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported.

5. A second, magnitude 6.6 qauke struck central Japan along the northwest coast around
4 a.m. local time on Saturday, causing buildings to sway.

6. Japan declared states of emergency for five nuclear reactors at two power plants near
Onahama after the units lost cooling ability when the power went out.

7. The government ordered residents near one of the plants to evacuate because reactor
cooling systems failed and pressure inside was rising.

8. The Defence Ministry dispatched dozens of troops trained to deal with chemical disaster
to the plant in case of a radiation leak.

9. Train services in north-eastern Japan and in Tokyo, which normally serve 10 million
people a day, were also suspended. Tokyo's Narita airport was closed indefinitely.

10. In downtown Tokyo, large buildings shook violently and workers poured into the street
for safety. The tremor bent the upper tip of the iconic Tokyo Tower, a 1,093-foot steel structure inspired by the Eiffel Tower in Paris

11. Mobile phone lines were crammed, preventing nearly all calls and text messages. So
people formed lines at Tokyo's normally vacant public phone booths dotting the city.

12. A large fire erupted at an oil refinery in Ichihara city and burned out of control with 100foot-high flames whipping into the sky.

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Current Radiation Levels in Japan [16]

Radiation levels are measured in units called rems for "Roentgen equivalent man." The average background exposure that most people absorb simply by living on Earth is 130 to 150 millirems (mrem, or thousandths of a rem) per year. In S.I. Units we use Sieverts as the unit, 1 Sievert = 100 rems. Radiation levels at Japan Fukushima Nuclear Reactor 1 had spiked to 100 sieverts per hour following earthquake aftershock and tsunami. Exposure to this level of radiation will cause immediate death. According to the NIH radiation levels of 4 sieverts per hour will cause fatality in 50% of people and at 6 sieverts per hour death is almost certain. 100 sieverts per hour is far above the 100% lethal dosage amount of 6 sieverts per hour.

Chart 1. Radiation Levels in japan, as of 09.04.2011 The radiation spike of chart 1. came after an earthquake caused to reactors at a separate nuclear power plant to start leaking radiation. However, as we all know Japan has not been honest throughout this crisis. It should also be noted that The NY Times recently reported that the Fukushima reactors are very vulnerable to aftershocks at this point because the massive weight in the reactor pools caused by trying to inject more water to cool the reactors.

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Radiations in Japan may be worser then we thought [17] [18]

Japanese officials pleaded for calm presently, but for the first time they acknowledged that radiation levels near the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant are being recorded at levels that can be dangerous to humans. They also said radioactive material was being released into the air in plumes.

1. It could get worse.

The Fukushima Dai-ichi plant has already suffered a partial meltdown, but nuclear experts say there are warning signs that efforts to control the plant's reactors are failing. And in the case of a total nuclear meltdown, they say the amounts of radioactive material released into the atmosphere would be catastrophic. The detection of Cesium -137 near the crippled plant -- a highly radioactive material that has rendered wide swaths of land -- the red forest near the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl uninhabitable for hundreds of years to come -- was evidence that the situation was becoming increasingly critical.

2. It's unpredictable.
The radioactive plumes being released by the plant are undoubtedly dangerous, but predicting where they will travel is difficult. Today, winds blew the plumes toward Tokyo, raising radiation levels there, but prevailing winds are forecast to send them away from Japan and out into the Pacific. A lot will depend on the weather while experts don't agree about the threat the plumes pose to the western United States and Canada, they are careful to note that the ones created by the 1986 Chernobyl disaster -- although very much diluted and less dangerous -- were carried across the entire Northern Hemisphere only. The true impact of radiation from the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant may not be known for decades.

3. The radiation could enter the food chain.

The other problem we have here is that in addition to being exposed to these doses of radiation outright, is that some of the radioactive products that will fall out of the environment will then get put into the food chain. The major concern is iodine-131, or radioiodine, which is quickly absorbed into milk and other dairy products and causes Thyroid Cancer very easily, though Potassium Iodide capsules can be used as Thyroid blocking agents in radiations breakout.
[18]

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Karanth, Dr. Kamla Menon and Ms. A. Venkatachalam,Ms. Balaka Dey, Shri Hemang Karelia, Ms. Malini Narayanan" 2. National Geographic Article, "http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/04/070402tsunami.html" 3. CNN news, "http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/27/quake.facts/" 4. Facts about Tsunami, "http://www.dosomething.org/tipsandtools/11-facts-about-tsunamis" 5. Tsunami Detection Techniques, "http://web.mit.edu/12.000/www/m2009/teams/5/detection.html" 6. Guidelines For Improving Earthquake Resistance Of Housing BMTPC, "http://www.bmtpc.org/pubs/improving.htm" 7. Geography.about.com, "Ring of Fire - Pacific Ring of Fire", "http://geography.about.com/cs/earthquakes/a/ringoffire.htm" 8. U.S. Geological Survey Earthquakes FAQ, "http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/faq/#1" 9. Smh.com.au, "LIST: Japan quake seventh largest in history", "http://www.smh.com.au/environment/list-japan-quake-seventh-largest-in-history20110311-1brew.html" 10. Times News, 14 July 2011, "http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/japan/index.html" 11. HowStuffWorks, "http://science.howstuffworks.com/japan-nuclear-crisis2.htm" 12. Reuters. "UPDATE 1-French nuclear agency now rates Japan accident at 6", "http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/15/japan-quake-nuclear-franceidUSLDE72E2M920110315" 13. Izzo, Phil. "Economists React: If Worst Happens in Japan, All Bets Are Off" Wall Street Journal, "http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2011/03/15/economists-react-if-worst-happens-injapan-all-bets-are-off/ " references continued

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14.

Msnbc

News

Article,

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42023385/ns/world_news-

asia_pacific/t/vast-devastation-search-survivors-after-japan-quake/ 15. USGS Survey, http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/quakes_all.html 16. Radiation Blogs, http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2011/04/09/radiation-levels-japan-

fukushima-nuclear-reactor-1-shoot-100-sieverts-hour-15871/ 17. AOL News Report, "http://www.aolnews.com/2011/03/15/5-reasons-radiation-exposure-injapan-may-be-worse-than-you-thou/" 18. FDA Report, Use of Potassium Iodide to block thyroid in radioactive emergencies, http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Drugs/GuidanceComplianceRegulatoryInformation/Guidanc es/ucm080542.pdf

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