UPDATE: More information on the land movements at the power plant has come out. Based on Geospatial data the area where Fukushima Daiichi sits likely moved 220 to 250 centimeters to the east. Or in standard measurements 86-98 inches, 7.16 to 8.16 feet of horizontal movement, The known vertical movement of the land area is 50 centimeters, about 19.68 inches or about 1.64 feet. A shift of about 8 feet horizontal and over a foot and a half drop is significant enough to cause buildings or structures to sit out of proper vertical alignment. That much movement could easily break foundations, connections or damage equipment. Details of the data and calcuations can be found over at Ex-SKF Blog

I have also spoken with a number of professional photographers who felt based on the information available that this is not a distortion due to the camera.
A retired Navy photographer shared some of his thoughts on the building alignments.
*The tower adjacent to Reactor 3 is off from true vertical by 0.5 degrees; it appears to tilt to the right.
*Reactor 4 also appears to tilt to the right by a similar amount.  There aren't enough pixels to give a precise estimate.
*The tower adjacent to Reactor 4 is off from true vertical by 0.8 degrees; it appears to tilt to the right.
*Reactor 4 is also off from true vertical to a greater extent than the other three buildings.

He also notes that he did not want to make assumptions about the foundation of 4, that it may be level while the upper building is not, or the entire foundation may be tilted. His main point was that many things are not lining up to a normal vertical.

My re-analysis of various images of the plant found these issues mentioned. The combination of these mis-aligned buildings and towers along with the new data about ground movement make a plant wide slight skewing of the land and foundations highly likely. The upper building of #4 has a large number of known damage spots plus the knowledge that the explosion at 4 occured on all levels of the building add to the concern. 4 is having stability issues, the details of such are just not fully known. On a positive note TEPCO has been able to begin work shoring up the floor of the spent fuel pool at #4. One bit of bad news is that #3 is having more structural concerns. Workers have been warned about falling debris. If the building becomes more unstable it may become inaccessable to workers, further complicating the needed work at reactor 3.

---end update--

UPDATE: more analysis is forthcoming along with images of all the damage points on reactor 4. Still working through the data and doing some
consults so check back.

The web cam views of reactor 4's building has caused a minor controversy. Claims abound about what is really going on at reactor 4.

Is it really leaning?
Yes, depending on the photos seen it appears to be either heavily leaning (the upper portion of the building) or getting a bowed, caved in mis-alignment
going on. I received information from the technical crew running the camera, through a reliable source that the building is leaning and that there is no camera distortion causing the visual. I had also received reports from the workers that the stability of 4 is a major concern. Some of the construction work may have already began to shore up #4, and there were previous mentions in the media about the concerns of the stability of the SFP. Arnie Gundersen at Fairewinds is now citing that he has confirmation from TEPCO that the building is collapsing. It sounds like the upper levels are the worst and what is visibly seen on the TBS camera. What is unclear at this point is the status of the lower levels of the building and the internal structures. There is evidence the blast reached the ground floor of the building. Gundersen also states that the ground has dropped by about a foot at the power plant. He did not specify where or in what manner the ground has sunk.

Is it a camera lens optical illusion?
No, camera distortion does so in a more uniform manner. You will see equal distortion on either side of the center or focal point or distortion in an equal ongoing manner across in a direction on the view. There are a number of images that show items on either side of #4 at varying distances to be undistorted and upright. Your not going to have one object skewed to the right and everything else on either side totally normal. It also isn't explained by the fact that 4 is lower in height than #2 or that the camera is set up more to the north on the hill, making 2 more straight across. Again, you would have a scale of increasing distortion or skew, not just one unique spot with everything else normal. The camera does sometimes move, get slightly skewed at an angle etc. you have to look for and compensate for those. Even with removing those factors, oddities in the angles still exist.

For those interested in perspective or camera distortion:
Distortion (optics)
Perspective
Drawing perspective

 

Wide shot of 1-4 and their towers. The towers across the image are all vertical, they are not distorted along the lower portion or
at an angle. Items on the outer portions of the image are not distorted, nor is the center of the image. There is not a distortion that
begins on one side of the image and increase or decreases as you progress across the image. Reactor 3 right next to 4 does not
have any skew.

 


On the images of r2 you see the standard perspective of a building.
There is a slight above angle to the view.


Close up of reactor 4 and reactor 3 from May 9. Notice the black crane at the back of 4 (left side) it makes the angle of the lean
look worse when it appears in some video. It is not always in that location and the actual work it is doing is not known yet.
The crane removed it can be seen that the building still has a right side lean and the left corner has a curve to the wall.
This is not perspective. If it was perspective it would be vertical. A building can have an inward angle to the walls in a situation
like looking up at a skyscraper from the street and the top appears to be smaller as it goes upward. The angle of the camera
vs. the level of the building site is not an angle or steep enough to cause any of those visual illusions. The vertical wall posts
of the structure also skew at an irregular angle again showing it is not visual perspective or camera distortion. The horizontal
floor lines also do not run in a straight angle, they are irregular showing the wall is not plumb.

The right corner wall shows some of the outer material falling away as you look to the top of the wall. The angle of the concrete
grid is also leaning at an angle, again this is not a "perspective" visual. The far wall would be vertical or if there was an above - down
view it would actually be the opposite, smaller at top and wider at bottom.
The roof trussing also appears to be sagging in more than it was. The center section of roof trussing had been staying in place while
the front and back sections were falling in due to damage. Now it appears to all be sagging to an extent.

What is likely happening is without an north or south upper wall structure is these upper section of the outer wall grid are beginning to
weaken and lean over or buckle. What can not be seen in the web cam images is the situation of the ground level of the building.
The ground level did sustain considerable damage as can be seen in some of the late April images. A garage entry to the building had
the walls blasted out, indicating there was some of the blast on the ground level of the building. A second level wall panel is also blown
out and some other sections on the north and south walls are damaged down low. What we do not know is the stability or condition of
those lower level internal structures and those could be key to the extent of the building's collapse potential.

Some earlier images showing some of the damage of concern:


The missing north and south upper grid can be seen. damage to a number of grid sections


These images from late April show some of the ongoing damage to building 4.
In the left image notice the white blown out wall panels of the concrete garage stall. Some of the explosion at 4 went through the ground floor.
So that brings into question the stability of the inside and lower level portions of the structure.
The middle image shows the broken wall column, this leads off to the right to broken off roof edge.
The right image shows a missing section of horizontal concrete grid as it connects to the building corner on the South seaside corner.

Some of the bowing out and broken wall structure on the north side can be seen in this image of building 4.

South end of building 4, roof structure gone, damage to the lower wall that can be seen as getting worse on the TBS cam.




View of the North side of building 4, the top of the wall is caved in and the lower levels on the right are blown out
with some of the concrete grid broken with it.


This image is shot from a slight overhead angle. Even with the angle in consideration
the seaside (lower) wall is crooked and the section towards the right where the roof is missing
is leaning in. The left lower corner is bowing out slightly and can be seen as such in other images.
The pieces of the North wall that are pushed out are visible here. There is a theory that the destruction
of the top of the North wall came from the inside blast. We do know that #3's explosion did not
do the damage to the North wall. When all of the pieces are put together they do paint a concerning picture
on reactor 4. Evidence of ground floor blast damage, broken supporting grid, no North-South wall support at the top,
and a host of visible irregularites in the walls.


Earlier image of the power plant with vertical lines for reference.

 


May 9th image of the power plant with all towers for reference. There is a work crane near the north corner of building 4 that
compounds the angle. With the crane removed there is still a building angle.