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Comment by drzaiusapelord | Hacker News Reader

If one of the worst earthquakes on record can't break the containment vessel in these old plants, then I think we're actually doing very well.

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it is not clear at this moment if the containment vessel is damaged or not. the spike in radiation levels that was measured lately does indicate that it is broken.

Edit: If you want to read up on the radiation levels: http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110315-red-alert-radiatio...

... Which would mean an explosion damaged the containment vessel. The earthquake did remarkably little damage to the plant.

You do realize that everything that has happened at the plant since the earthquake, including that explosion, is a direct result of the earthquake, right? That's like saying the airliners didn't take down the World Trade Center, the fire did. There wouldn't have been a fire if it weren't for the airliners.

The earthquake and subsequent effects of the earthquake destroyed these reactors. It's a pointless distinction to say otherwise, designed to soften the blow to nuclear power's reputation.

Of course, but I find your analogy quite poor. All I meant was that the plant [apparently] suffered no damage from the earthquake (which was quite a bit stronger than it had been designed to withstand). It was the tsunami--also larger than the sea wall was designed to withstand--knocking out power that got the plant into its current state. A cache of compatible backup generators that were kept high enough or remotely enough could have prevented this disaster.

The news ticker at heute.de was pretty sure about it, saying there are two holes each eight square meters in size in reactor 4. Of course I can't say how much truth lies in that statement.

That's talking about the reactor building (i.e. the outer walls). It's not 100% clear but they were at one point demolishing those walls to help vent hydrogen from the building. But I saw anbother source saying an explosion in that building caused the holes.

(Unit 4, BTW, is shut down & stable, but it is the building with the fire in the spent fuel pond)

The Brazillian news was claiming that a huge nuclear fallout cloud was heading their way and that everyone should stock up on iodine. The Austrian news was claiming that the meltdown was fully under way and that hell on earth was about to be unleashed.

I'd wait until we have clear news about what's going on before making an opinion.

AFAIK the radiations might come from the fire in rector 4.

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