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Japan suspends work at stricken nuclear plant

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Re: Japan suspends work at stricken nuclear plant

#51

Post by patio11 »

mrshoe wrote: post #17

I'm having a hard time reconciling patio11's article with more recent reports of people walking 60km to get home, all food being gone from all stores, people living in Apple stores, and the government ordering a 30km evacuation zone around nuclear power plants. Maybe his point was "it could have been a lot worse", but I read it more like "everything went as planned and life went on without missing more than a few bea…

Outside of the immediate disaster zones, I think "everything went as planned and life went on without missing more than a few beats" is substantially accurate. The context for my post was originally I got literally in excess of a hundred people who thought I might be dead trying to reach me because of the reporting, despite me being several hundred miles away. I have been talking to news reporters the last few days (whose Rolodex of English-speaking Japanese people is apparently non-existent, so I'm the next best thing) and its like we're living on two different planets: "Can you comment on the food shortages you're experiencing in Fugu?" "Fugu is a poisonous fish. I live in Gifu. There is no food shortage here. I just got a pizza delivered despite there being an earthquake in the middle of the delivery." "I thought the quake was days ago?" "Not that earthquake, the Shizuoka earthquake, at 10:30 PM last night." "Shizuoka... is that by the nuclear power plants??" I nearly exploded. Halfway between Tokyo and Nagoya, cut off power to a lot of people, and would have been virtually unremarkable except that it happened this week.

This is a disaster localized to a small portion of a big country. That was certainly not a given: Tokyo could be burning right now, and the situation at the nuclear plant which literally had a tsunami hit it could be the situation at every nuclear and chemical plant in the country. (Or the plant could have suffered immediate, catastrophic failure, rather than immediate work-as-designed followed by a deterioration which gave us enough time to evacuate everyone.

Food distribution and trains got a hiccup in Tokyo -- they're now operating normally. (They're decidedly not normal in the towns destroyed in Miyagi, obviously. 500,000 people were displaced at least temporarily.)

People do not live in Apple stores. They stayed there one night while waiting for train service to be restored. If you're worried about displaced folks, look to the evacuation sites like e.g. schools in Miyagi, which is where folks who don't have a home to go back to are staying temporarily.

Re: Japan suspends work at stricken nuclear plant

#52

Post by jedsmith »

pauldino wrote: post #49
jedsmith wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would certainly explain the evacuation. Edano said "1,000 milli-Sieverts" had been measured last night, but that it was down to under 800 now, and that at the gate the measurements were now in the milli- range as well (hence the evacuation). TEPCO is not exactly being forthcoming about Dai-ichi, but they're being really proactive in telling us the same exact thing about Daini every hour: http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/…

Actually the BBC does seem wrong in that it is reporting 1000 millisieverts rather than microsieverts.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12755739

^ 1:20 in the video. Milli. Not micro.

Those are Edano's words, not the BBC's. I was told above that he was corrected by another person and that various translations have it as a different figure, but that isn't in the linked video.

Re: Japan suspends work at stricken nuclear plant

#54

Post by hartror »

afterburner wrote: post #36
hartror wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is exactly what I refered to in my post. sigh

I think everyone (including myself) was reacting to your claim it was a false attention grabbing title. Regardless of that, looks like broken telephone, best source might be to watch NHK broadcasts directly as you did (CNN seems to be translating it live?). The HTML-news sources didn't note the further detail then, maybe they have now. EDIT: Ah, NHK is providing the translation and stream. http://www.ustream.tv/chann…

"2:53 PM - Workers ordered to leave the Fukushima plant have been allowed back after radiation levels fell, the Japan nuclear agency said.

Pumping of seawater at reactors at No. 1, 2 and 3 was proceeding smoothly, it said.

(Reuters)"

http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/japan-quake-2011/#entry-6a...

Re: Japan suspends work at stricken nuclear plant

#55

Post by cookiecaper »

patio11 wrote: post #51
mrshoe wrote: post #17

I'm having a hard time reconciling patio11's article with more recent reports of people walking 60km to get home, all food being gone from all stores, people living in Apple stores, and the government ordering a 30km evacuation zone around nuclear power plants. Maybe his point was "it could have been a lot worse", but I read it more like "everything went as planned and life went on without missing more than a few bea…

Outside of the immediate disaster zones, I think "everything went as planned and life went on without missing more than a few beats" is substantially accurate. The context for my post was originally I got literally in excess of a hundred people who thought I might be dead trying to reach me because of the reporting, despite me being several hundred miles away. I have been talking to news reporters the last few days (…

My impression is simply that people don't know Japanese geography, which isn't all together too surprising. There's no reason a person should know the geography of Japan any better than the geography of Uzbekistan if he or she doesn't have a specific tie to either country. They just hear "earthquake in Japan" and ask the people who live in Japan if they're doing alright.

My brother lives in Auckland. We had a lot of people asking if he was OK after the quake in Christchurch. They are ~700 miles away on different islands, so he wasn't affected at all by the quake there, but we patiently explained this. It seems silly to get so haughty when people are expressing genuine concern for your well-being.

Re: Japan suspends work at stricken nuclear plant

#56

Post by reneherse »

mrshoe wrote: post #17

I'm having a hard time reconciling patio11's article with more recent reports of people walking 60km to get home, all food being gone from all stores, people living in Apple stores, and the government ordering a 30km evacuation zone around nuclear power plants. Maybe his point was "it could have been a lot worse", but I read it more like "everything went as planned and life went on without missing more than a few bea…

Patio11's post both shed light on facts that were receiving little to no news coverage shortly after the main disaster and gave a valuable personal perspective on the unique ethos and role of preparedness and engineering in Japanese society.

Sometimes when people write from a contrarian or polemical viewpoint, overstatement occurs in the effort to create balance. I can certainly understand if Patrick's case was slightly overstated. The situation has evolved since his article was posted, but his overall point of the success of Japan's preparedness remains true and still under-reported.

Remember, this earthquake was one of the most powerful in history[1]. I think for many it's difficult to imagine just how much worse the devastation could have been from this compound disaster. I shudder to think of the physical destruction and social chaos that would ensue should such an earthquake and tsunami strike my beloved Bay Area; compared to Japan in this context our social fabric is a very loose weave.

[1] http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_earthquakes

Re: Japan suspends work at stricken nuclear plant

#58

Post by jonah »

mrshoe wrote: post #17

I'm having a hard time reconciling patio11's article with more recent reports of people walking 60km to get home, all food being gone from all stores, people living in Apple stores, and the government ordering a 30km evacuation zone around nuclear power plants. Maybe his point was "it could have been a lot worse", but I read it more like "everything went as planned and life went on without missing more than a few bea…

This piece gives some perspective on the tsunami's effects in small coastal villages: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/world/asia/16scene.html

Re: Japan suspends work at stricken nuclear plant

#59

Post by rmah »

Duff wrote: post #29
ubernostrum wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem people seem to have is that "abandon" implies "everyone has left and no-one will ever come back", and that the plant will be left, unattended, to its fate. While various articles seem to actually be saying "people left temporarily, but will be coming back" and that efforts will continue to deal with the problem.

I'd argue that is splitting hairs. What will magically lower the radiation when the workers leave? They can't drop boric acid and water on the half-melted reactors from helicopters for fear of rupturing them further, the control systems are no longer effective, and pumping in seawater hasn't worked too well so far.

What will magically lower the radiation when the workers leave?

Time.

Re: Japan suspends work at stricken nuclear plant

#60

Post by pero »

jedsmith wrote: post #38
pessimist wrote: post #14

Headline is false (possibly mistranslation). According to http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/latest-updates-o... : 11:13 P.M. (EST) Core Group of Workers Remain at Plant The Times’s Hiroko Tabuchi reports that a small group of workers remains at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, contrary to what an English translation of the chief cabinet secretary’s remarks had implied. Edit: http://live.reuters.com/Event/Japan_…

I waited a while to get a feel from multiple media outlets before replying to you, and CNN aired the video of the remarks in question in that time...based upon waiting, it would appear that the headline is in fact true. BBC, AP, and CNN have all reported that operations have been suspended due to high radiation levels, as high as 1,000 mSv at their peak, which is enough to justify complete evacuation as I understand…

That was 600-800 uSv.
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