Sendai NPP to take a direct hit from typhoon?

The typhoon is due to make landfall today

Record-breaking typhoon to make direct hit on Japan’s only restarted nuclear plant

• 159 mph gust last night, strongest ever measured at location
• Waves near 40 ft. high expected around island
• Gov’t alerts for landslides and floods
• Cracks and leaks already found at nuclear plant

ENENews,

24 August, 2015

Kyodo/Jiji, Aug 24, 2015 (emphasis added): Typhoon Goni… was poised to make a landfall on Kyushu on Tuesday morning… [JMA] alerted residents in… western Japan that there could be landslides and floods. Violent winds are expected in Kyushu from early Tuesday… Waves as high as 9 to 12 meters [39.3 feet] were forecast in seas around Kyushu.

PTI, Aug 24, 2015: Packing gusts up to 252 kilometres per hour [157 mph], Goni today was…  on course directly to hit Kyushu island tomorrow…

Jiji, Aug 24, 2015: Powerful Typhoon Goni slammed into… Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture Sunday night… The typhoon registered a maximum instantaneous wind speed of 71.0 meters per second [159 mph] on Ishigaki,the strongest on record there.

Mainichi, Aug 24, 2015: Powerful Typhoon Goni… is expected to… move close to the Kyushu region the following day while maintaining its strength, [JMA] has announced…. The Okinawa Prefecture city of Ishigaki [experienced] the strongest wind ever recorded since a local observatory began recordingwind speed at the site in 1941.

AOL, Aug 24, 2015: 159 MPH wind gust reported in Ryukyu Islands… This breaks the site’s all-time record wind gust of 157 mph (70.2 m/s) set July 31, 1977… Sustained winds at that same site have peaked at 107.1 mph (47.9 m/s) which breaks their all-time August record… According to the U.S. military’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center, Typhoon Goni… had maximum estimated sustained winds of 125 mph as of Monday morning, U.S. time.

Korea Times, Aug 24, 2015: [JMA said] the typhoon’s wind speed was 158.8 miles per hour(mph) at one location on one of the Ryukyu Islands, breaking the site’s all-time record…

NHK, Aug 24, 2015: Seawater leak found at Sendai nuclear plant — Sendai nuclear power plant in Kagoshima Prefecture [on Kyushu Island] says it found seawater used to cool steam has leaked… they found cracks in 5 pipes in one condenser… They are now checking the other tubes… The trouble occurred 9 days after the operator restarted the reactor… the first to go back online… The utility was due to raise the reactor’s power output to 100 percent… But the problems are expected to delay the scheduled work…

NHK transcript, Aug 24, 2015: Workers at an operating nuclear plant in Southwestern Japan have run into problems. They found cracks and leaks in pipes… The utility has been inspecting the pipes, finding cracks in five of them at one condenser. They say seawater had leaked from them. Workers stopped the flow of water by putting plugs into the five pipes. They’re now checking other ones. Officials with the plant operator say they’ll keep running the reactor.

From last week: Unprecedented volcano warning near Japan’s only restarted nuke plant — Mountain swelling — Large amounts of magma causing sudden crustal movement (VIDEO)

Watch NHK’s broadcast on the cracks and leaks here