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@Nancy I just got up... posted this late yesterday and don't know if it will help..............Key nuclear facilities may have been damaged before tsunami
TOKYO, May 15, Kyodo

Data taken at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on the night of March 11 showing a high level of radiation at a reactor building suggest the possibility that key facilities there may have been damaged by the quake itself that day rather than tsunami-caused power loss that failed the reactor's cooling function, a utility source said Saturday.

The revelation may call for a review of preparedness against quakes at various nuclear power stations in Japan as they have primarily focused on securing auxiliary power supplies and embankment enhancement against tsunami after the Fukushima plant crisis, assuming that reactor facilities at the plant were unscathed by trembling.

On March 11, the power plant was shut down automatically just past 2:46 p.m. following the magnitude-9 quake. Within an hour, it was hit by at least two rounds of tsunami waves. The external power supply was then shut down, disabling the emergency core cooling system from injecting water at 4:36 p.m. english.kyodonews.jp

@LM If anyone can find the long form of that Kyodo article that would be a valuable find.

Thanks!

@all. Thanks, I have harvested all these links recently posted, save and will email to Dean so he has a copy in hand. This is becoming a really big deal as those little bits of information come out. They are pieces to a big puzzle. As things come out it seems that both the plant was damaged by the quake causing failures and also the way things were designed may have played a role. So many things required other things to be working that look like they cascaded problems. One that really stuck out was that the emergency generators required a flowing water supply for cooling and an external power source to run the oil cooling and pumping feature. If this all pans out to be correct that many of the back up systems have faults that tie them to grid power or other easy to lose features the entire design of the Mark 1 is in question.

@Bobby1 - can you repost the link to the story below - I can't find it

@Nancy I expect it was. That's why the 'wrong sort of leads' story stuck in my mind

"According to Tepco, hyrogen produced in the overheating of the reactor core at Unit 3 flowed through a gas treatment line and entered Unit No. 4 due to a breakdown of valves. Hydrogen leaked from ducts in the second, third and fourth floors of the reactor building at Unit 4 and ignited a massive explosion." online.wsj.com

New TEPCO document admits fuel melted in early hours and has some data. 2 pdf's linked to the press release www.tepco.co.jp

@Bobby1 Thanks bobby!

@Bobby1 thanks. If that's the case then I'm still mystified by the pic that shows an undamaged roof on 4 after the explosion on 3 - unless it was taken during a very small time period

@ al' - the times of quake & 2 tsunami's were discussed here earlier today

@elainekirk I don't know can you check to see if it is in the doc?

@UKVal If anyone has the exact times of the main quake and this supposed second quake along with the multiple tsunami waves that would help. The documents I have saved only indicated the 1 quake and 1 tsunami wave about 1 hr later.

@Nancy I'll scroll back -I posted it earlier...

@elainekirk , well that pipe fell off on #4 side.

so backwash would be around 15.15? no water coming in to the intakes...

@UKVal, also that needs corrected. Only one generator worked until 15:41 according to tepco: www.tepco.co.jp

I posted a fairly good timeline of the first day in fukushimafaqs in the misc. section, fwiw

@Nancy The info on the stuck valve is in that post.

@Nancy yes -that nuke diver thought that the sudden cut off of water stopped the cooling, & as there was no cut off valve the sudden powerful waterflow from tsunami finished things off