What's happening in Japan - Report II

I am in northern California with four of my wrestlers, attending one of the most important tournaments in the state at the middle school level -- the Nor Cal Tournament of Champions.

I, like so many, am following the tragedy in Japan. I cannot run a live update, as I often try to do, because of the demands of the tournament. It is scheduled to start about 3 hours from now.

Here are some facts and observations that I find noteworthy. There is plenty of news coverage, so I will leave that scope of coverage to others.

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First, I woke up to the news that 9,400 people are unaccounted for in a city named Nagano. Terrible.

Four trains are missing.

Understand that a huge wave swept 6 miles into the heartland of the island nation. Reports have that wave between 23 and 33 feet high.

The map to the left, documents the quake activity off the shores of Japan. 8.9 was the highest magnitude recorded, with a 7.4 and 6.4 in subsequent quakes. The nation is experiencing a + 3 quake every ten minutes or so.

Something like 56 nuclear plants supply 30% of the nation's energy, 11 of which have been shut down and 5 plants have been seriously "compromised - at least one may in the first stages of a meltdown. 12,000 have been moved from the surrounding community.

Potassium iodine in pill form has been issued. The thyroid is our most sensitive organ to radiation and potassim iodine is most effective in countering the radiation effecting that organ -- a lesson learned from the Russian disaster of years ago.

It is nearly 6 am, pst. The official death toll, a dynamic count, is currently under 1000 people. There really is little point in attempting nail down a death total. No doubt the total will be in the "thousands."

update:

A quarter million Japanese are in shelters. 6 million homes are without electricity.

There has been a report of an explosion at one of Japan's nuclear plant. Apparently, a pumping station has exploded, not the plant itself.

But the one plant is in serious danger of meltdown. One nuclear scientist interviewed by FOX told those reporters that the plants in danger of meltdown are "vintage" plants with diesel engines. The morning report tells us that the Japanese are planning on cooling these plants with sea water, which means -- according to the FOX scientist -- that the diesel engines within the plant have been flooded out and cannot be restarted . . . . "very bad news" was the scientist's response.

Sunday update:

It is being reported that more than 10,000 people will be counted as fatalities, before this thing is over. In fact, that could actually be closer to 20,000. There is fear, for example, that one city of 17,000 is missing 10,000 of its residents. Another town of 9,400 people has apparently been washed away. Who knows the size of this disaster? For all measure, this is proving to be the worst humanitarian crisis of our life time -- not counting wars and rumors of war.

Secondly, there have been over 300 aftershocks, most of which have been above 3.0 on the Richter Scale or higher.