Disaster in Japan

Last night, a 8.9 quake and tsunami hit Japan. Tsunami waves have hit Hawaii and are now hitting Washington state.  The worst damage is in the northern sections of Japan.  There is a worse danger looming that I wanted to mention here if you haven’t heard.  The Japan earthquake has shut down two nuclear plants and the core is not cooling in one.  This is a potentially dangerous situation. The U.S. is now rushing coolant to Japan at the request of the Japanese government.

Yet even light was on short supply, with nuclear power plants shutting down after fires broke out at some of the facilities and raised concerns of potential radiation leaks. Millions of buildings around Tokyo were reported without power.

The 8.9-magnitude earthquake struck northeast Japan at 2:45 p.m. local time, collapsing buildings 240 miles away in Tokyo, triggering a 30-foot tsunami that swept away everything in its path, and killing at least 300 people already. Hundreds more remain missing, including 100 crew on a lost fishing boat.

The plant experienced a fire.  People in the area are being evacuated. No leaks have been reported so far but again, CNN said that the core is not cooling so they are preparing for the worst.

About 5,800 residents near a Tokyo Electric Power Co. atomic plant were ordered to evacuate because of a possible radiation leak and the failure of the cooling system after Japan was struck by a powerful earthquake.

People within 3 kilometers (2 miles) of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant were told to evacuate, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said in Tokyo today. Residents within 10 kilometers were told to stay indoors, said Ryohei Shiomi, a spokesman at the Emergency Information Center of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.

Emergency power supply at the 4,696-megawatt plant 210 kilometers north of Tokyo failed after the quake triggered automatic shutdowns of the reactors, officials at the trade ministry’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency told reporters without identifying themselves. Power is needed to keep cooling the reactor to prevent rising pressure and damage, they said.

A battery, which can last about eight hours, is being used to cool the reactor for now, the agency officials said. Another six batteries have been secured, and the government may use military helicopters to fly them in, they said.

CNN has just reported that radiation is rising in the Fukushima Daiichi plant. A refinery has also exploded.

Natural Gas prices are already on the rise in UK.

U.K. natural gas prices soared Friday after a major earthquake and tsunami hit Japan, shutting down nuclear plants and raising expectations that the country will import more liquefied natural gas as a replacement power source.

But with the global gas market so well-supplied, and the length of the nuclear plant outages unknown, the gains could prove short-lived, traders said.

Winter gas contract prices had risen to 68.8 pence per therm by 1420 GMT, around 4% higher from Thursday.

At least two nuclear power plants on Japan’s Pacific coast shut down following the 8.9 magnitude quake that hit the country Friday morning, leaving market watchers wondering as to the extent of the damage.

“The problem is there are a whole bunch of nuclear outages, which I’d think would be out for at least three to four weeks,” said a London-based trader.

Japan’s last major earthquake in 2007 caused an extended shutdown of the country’s largest nuclear power plant, sending the country scrabbling for LNG suplies as it sought alternative means of power generation.

However, the current rally in the natural gas market may be premature. The extent of the damage to nuclear facilities is still unknown and the market is better-supplied than it was a few years ago.

Unlike in 2007, the market today is oversupplied, said Noel Tomnay, head of global gas at Wood Mackenzie.

Japan quake area map from the BBC

Casualties from this quake/tsunami now number in the hundreds and may rise.  Japan has requested help from the US.  The navy is sending ships there now.

There are some amazing images at The Atlantic.  Videotapes of the moments during the quake and tsunami can be found at the NYT at the Lede Blog.