The Japan Earthquake and Tsunami

[wandrider]

Originally Posted by SSJ_Jup81

That's a scary thought, their not being able to get it under control. I sometimes wish I could just selfishly leave.

Hi, how are you doing there? Is most everyone in your area calm & not worried about the nuclear accidents?

At least you are more than 50 miles away, correct?

Let us know how you are doing in your area.

Thanks, and stay safe & be well.

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I don't think TEPCO has -any- excuse for doing this:

(There are plenty of undamaged Nuclear Power Plants in Japan to get supplies from.)

Radiation monitors not given to each worker...

NHK has learned that Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, has not provided every worker at the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant with radiation monitors, breaking government rules.

High levels of contamination have been detected at the Daiichi power complex following a series of hydrogen explosions that have scattered radioactive substances.

TEPCO says the quake destroyed many radiation monitors, so in some work groups only leaders have them, leaving others struggling to manage exposure.

The government requires companies to provide each individual worker with a radiation monitor when working under such conditions.

[SSJ_Jup81]

Okay, just checking in to let you know that I'm okay. I had to move out of my apartment on March 30, which is why I haven't been around. I had an April 4 flight, but I missed my plane last night. I'll have to catch the next one out this evening, so I'm technically "stuck" in Tokyo. I had to stay overnight in Narita Airport.

I will be stateside early Wednesday morning (as opposed to early Tuesday morning). I'm going to be very busy. I had already planned to leave here April 4, then I found out that my sick uncle passed away Friday. The funeral is Thursday. I'll fly to DC, then rent a car to drive home to Richmond, VA, and then rest for maybe an hour or so from the drive, and then have to head back to the airport (in Richmond) to go straight to Florida. Instead of that one day of rest, I'll only get about an hour. Crazy situation, and who knows how long I'll be down there. My father and I are my uncle's next of kin and I was his only niece by blood.

I left Yamagata yesterday (Monday) morning. Anywho, on Saturday, we were getting south winds, which were coming from Fukushima, but nothing bad occurred. They were doing a deathtoll thing, and it's sad. If my Japanese is right, it's near 30,000.

[gertiekeddle]

Glad to hear you're fine, but woah, it's no easy time for you right now. Take care!

Yesterday some reports said this nuclear cloud was supposed to reach Tokyo this day, but since reports never mentioned it today, it gladly seems to have vanished overseas again.
Most worrying on the Fukushima situation seems to be the ocean contamination these days since Tepco had to manually lead radiated water into the Pacific to get the cooling machines back to work. Three attempts to fix the holes in reactor #2 (I think, I'm getting confused with those in the meantime) unfortunately failed. As crazy as still cruel situation.

I believe you're right with the death toll of the tsunami and earthquake victims. They're currently counting over 13000 dead people and still over 16000 which are missed.

[wandrider]

Originally Posted by wandrider

It seems there is now a stalemate on clean-up & cooling efforts. The more water sprayed to cool causes more radiation to spread & leak. Now, with the levels of dangerous radiation noted above spreading & contaminating the work areas it may become impossible to control the cooling with water. Stalemate!

This situation may not lead to any improvements in reducing dangerous radiation leaks & may just be delaying either a further meltdown & even worse radiation leaks, OR TEPCO or Japanese government will have to do something else to solve this stalemate!

I don't think the current efforts are working anymore, and this is like a time-bomb for an even bigger disaster in the making.

Any thoughts or ideas?

Japan's nuclear safety agency has raised the crisis level at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to 7, from the current 5.

The agency told reporters on Tuesday that large volumes of radioactive substances that could affect human health and the environment are being released in a wide area.

Level 7 is the highest rank on an international standard and equivalent to the severity recorded after the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.

But the agency said the volume of radiation from Fukushima is one-tenth that at Chernobyl.

[Moriath]

This step has been widely criticised by various experts as an overreaction. It is by no means clear whether it deserves the 7 rating.

[gertiekeddle]

Probably that 'non-controll' part: while it's still a different matter than Chernobyl what we have as only other 7 rated accident yet, it still fits the description in being not controllable. Some international nuclear organisations (not: anti-nuclear organisations) actually asked for the 7-rating for weeks, but Japan only added it today. The other opinion is to wait until the major accident which yet didn't happen, does happen. I believe at this point it's not related to amounts of radiation which leaked.

However, by now Japan officials have been very transparent in their actions and very eager to avoid any panic I think. I don't quite see why this should have changed in the fifth week radiation is leaking when there was no reason to raise the level.

[Mundungus Fletc]

I found an excellent Blog which says what is actually going on. It has a very interesting section on the difficulties of translating from Japanese

[gertiekeddle]

That's indeed a good blog - although I believe many (serious) Western news actually come to the exact same conclusions, but don't follow the CNN-lead of 'posting first, trying to understand later. "What has actually happened so far is of course extremely serious, and something more serious could happen from now... [here's the bit where the author asks for Japanese knowledge before publishing news of Tepco]" is quite the main message I see in my news media too. On one of our main TV news channels we also have some news special since first week which keeps explaining the difficulties of transfering the Japanese language in Fukushima news.

I've to admit I had to smile about the information ways, because in the information given about the accident daily scheme of events and background information given about what radiation actually is, this blog imo doesn't even differ from biased sources like Greenpeace. What's on the other hand I think a sign of how good the work of these lobby organisations currently is.

(Mind you, I don't think they will stay that calm, there will be a feast of nuclear blaming once the radiation leaks are closed and other tsunami and earthquake damages got first air - but since I cross-read different sources since the radiation began to leak, I got the impression that for particular Greenpeace among the anti-atom organisations keeps informing reasonably; it's of course another issue how one judges on their campaigns against nuclear power in Europe while Fukushima catastrophe still is running).

[wandrider]

Originally Posted by Mundungus Fletc

I found an excellent Blog which says what is actually going on. It has a very interesting section on the difficulties of translating from Japanese

For those looking for timely news & excellent English translation I found "the best" news site for accurately reporting the Fukushima Nuclear Power Disaster in concise words & high quality streaming video here:

NHK World News in Japan