According to our media there's been a 6.1 aftershock just now and there's been a big increase in radiation as the shifts to cool the reactors/used fuel rods down have been reduced to two minutes rather then 15.
Can anyone with a confirm this?
Needless to say, the Fukushima 50 are genuine heroes! As it's been said in this thread before, Japan is handling this disaster a whole lot better then any western country would ever do!
There'd be absolute chaos and mayhem if one of our fission plants where to have a meltdown...
Yea, it's amazing how awesome Japan is handling this situation, very calmly, serious and professional. And it's amazing how they feel like they need to take responsibility like Creation said. Those people working in the reactors trying to save the lives of all those people and keeping the place afloat, I do believe.. are heroes.
People train their whole lives for events like this. From kindergarten kids are put through mock evacuations. Offices are required to carry enough emergency kits for each employee, and train them once a year on evacuation procedures. During the quake, everyone was quite calm around me, even though I was on the street in the middle of Tokyo, and the street was moving meters while buildings swayed and jiggled.
Also Japan has the strictest building codes in the world. Not a single building fell in Tokyo during the magnitude 9 earthquake. Some older 2 storey buildings listed a bit in the north.
The Fukushima workers are called the "Fukushima 50" - they are all volunteers and 7 so far have died trying to fix the plant. In Japan they are seen as heroes.
So life continues to move on. The press outside Japan continue to whip up the stories (can't drink water because its 100bq/kg... bottled water is 50bq/kg - Japans limit for water is 300bq/kg but around the rest of the world it is 500bq/kg. I wish some common sense appears in the press soon.)
I've got my office up and running again, we submitted an app to iTunes yesterday. Working around blackouts, food shortages, panic buying and daily magnitude 5 quakes is interesting, but by no means impossible.
After all, this is an act of nature. Humans have to deal with that all the time. We're only tenants here along for the ride.
If you want to see a visual record of the amount earthquakes we've had since the 11th (more than 700) check out this site - make sure you wait for the M9 to hit then it gets interesting -
It annoys me when, just because one company/person/entity does something charitable. It's expected of others to do the same. Sure it's a great cause and any charity donations are good (to the right places). But Valve never wrote down in stone that they'd donate to anything, neither did any other company who have or have not donated or supported the efforts. I would almost expect games companies in Japan to do so, as they have. But Valve has no responsibility for it?
That's exactly how I see it. I was just posting that link to show any Polycounters who missed it and show the person who posted saying how they were disappointed in Valve.
The Fukushima workers are called the "Fukushima 50" - they are all volunteers and 7 so far have died trying to fix the plant. In Japan they are seen as heroes.
Be thankful that the people around you have a long history of pulling together and enduring. Not many other cultures have a track record of picking themselves up after huge disasters like the Japanese, it seems to have prepared everyone well. It's sad the rest of the world isn't that prepared or that willing to pull together when a crisis or disaster hits.
You're probably tired of reading this but... stay safe.
If you want to see a visual record of the amount earthquakes we've had since the 11th (more than 700) check out this site - make sure you wait for the M9 to hit then it gets interesting -
I dont play TF2... I was hoping for something physical. Not that you know they should or anything, but I saw Bungie do something (SOMETHING NOT SHIPPABLE OUTSIDE THE US GODDAMNIT!!!!!!!!!) and was surprised Valve hadnt. I don't need swag to donate, I've donated with istocks scheme and given my time collecting with the Japanese Society Im part of here in Dublin and given money to that too, I was just surprised that Bungie did something and not Valve, Valve normally really have their ears to the ground and are always doing cool shit that isn't finishing Episode 3 (zing)
Anybody who lives in Japan right now... should maybe consider leaving as soon as humanly possible.
The situation continues to get worse. The radiation continues to rise and spread, the reactors are still free to spew radiation, and the affects are already being shown hundreds and hundreds of miles from the nuclear plant.
having said that, they still report extremely high levels
In that same article:
Despite the mistake, the radiation spike at reactor 2 was still very high and enough to evacuate workers.
A spokesman for Japan's nuclear watchdog, Hidehiko Nishiyama, said the level of radiation in puddles near reactor 2 was confirmed at 1,000 millisieverts an hour.
"It is an extremely high figure," Mr Nishiyama said.
The radiation levels are so high, that emergency workers near the contaminated water would have received four times their maximum annual dose of radiation in just one hour.
To put that 1,000 millisieverts an hour figure into perspective, we get 1 millisievert a year from sources such as phones and wifi.
If the radiation is too high for workers to try to contain the situation, that means there is nothing they can do now. I hope it changes for the better.
Anybody who lives in Japan right now... should maybe consider leaving as soon as humanly possible.
The situation continues to get worse. The radiation continues to rise and spread, the reactors are still free to spew radiation, and the affects are already being shown hundreds and hundreds of miles from the nuclear plant.
This isn't fear mongering. This is legitimate, deep-hearted concern for the people who live on the island of Japan.
thanks, can we all move to your house?
Well folks,
Japan is bigger than Germany, Malaysia, New Zealand and the U.K., and is 1.7 times the size of North and South Korea combined and 10 times the size of Taiwan.
127 million people in Japan. Thats twice the population of the UK.
If there was a busted power station in Wisconsin, would we recommend evacuating the entire state? Put simply, Nuclear power just isn't that dangerous. Only 28 people have ever died from nuclear power station accidents, and that was in the 1980's, and a full melt down. It's not possible for Fukushima to melt down like that.
Radiation level is nothing to fear. The NEWS however, is deeply dangerous and I suggest people stop believing it knee-jerkedly.
Read this instead, an article on why the melt down isn't exactly good news, but hardly dangerous to human health, especially when you live hundreds of miles from a reactor: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12860842
Maybe people secretly WANT a huge epic explosion that sets humanity back years and brings on a world similar to that of The Road and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, you know, for tourism.
That aside, everyone struck by a disaster of natural causes will forever look completely amateur compared to how the Japanese have handled this so far, from what I've seen anyway. From store owners making food cheaper or giving it away and people willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good, to the seemingly complete lack of looting.
People can learn a lot.
Well, I'd gladly take 100 000 instead of 10 000 000 ... (related to Showster's post on previous page)
BTW itunes makes Red Cross donations pretty easy, just log in as usual and buy a donation just like you would buy an app, nice and simple. HLJ.com also gives a portion of their sales (+ a match) until april 1st.
Maybe people secretly WANT a huge epic explosion that sets humanity back years and brings on a world similar to that of The Road and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, you know, for tourism.
It's no secret, every newspaper in the UK has been acting like this for weeks.
Everyone loves a good old disaster. Heck even I watched it on TV.
Yer I agree that the news is mental and over hyped.
I'm a noob really when it comes to this stuff but it is a bit alarming when you see the differences between 30 deaths to a possible 500,000 deaths in regards to Chernobyl.
Both green activists and the power industry are going exaggerate somewhat the effects of this stuff but I can't believe that nuclear power is as harmless as some say it is.
Things are only getting worse. I agree that the media has blown things out of proportion, but with things only getting worse, and with Fukushima having 1,000 more tons of fuel rods than Chernobyl had (plus 5 more reactors, granted 2 out of the 6 reactors are being cooled properly and are fine), the current concerns are not unwarranted.
If they get this under control in the next couple of weeks and entomb the reactors, things will be fine.
However, if that doesn't happen and things continue to get worse, well.... you would be naive to think that a situation is under control as it continues to get worse week after week.
Things are only getting worse. I agree that the media has blown things out of proportion, but with things only getting worse, and with Fukushima having 1,000 more tons of fuel rods than Chernobyl had (plus 5 more reactors, granted 2 out of the 6 reactors are being cooled properly and are fine), the current concerns are not unwarranted.
If they get this under control in the next couple of weeks and entomb the reactors, things will be fine.
However, if that doesn't happen and things continue to get worse, well.... you would be naive to think that a situation is under control as it continues to get worse week after week.
so mastermind, whats the solution? Or are you just happy enough to re-gurgitate the bad news?
I pretty much stopped reading posts like that. Someone on another forum posted that the plant was staffed by underage kids with Jr. HS education getting paid 200 yen an hour.
I heard the plant is actually a black-hole generator run by molemen who set in motion the earthquake as an act of vengeance for a bad workplace, also the moon landing is involved.
It's odd how many people look for the worse parts of a bad situation, as if making something seem worse will make it better.. or.. something. I guess they're just very bored with life, this is how conspiracy theories are born.
so mastermind, whats the solution? Or are you just happy enough to re-gurgitate the bad news?
The solution is to follow the situation and make your own judgments. Follow the situation from all sources, find the truth and lies about what is going on, and make an informed decision from that point about what to do... instead of blindly believing everything you want to be the truth.
The situation is progressively getting worse and everybody's naive stance on the situation is not a good thing.
Plutonium is now leaking into the ocean and into the soil. One drop of plutonium can kill somebody within an hour. It can also never be cleaned up.
This isn't fear mongering or any of that crap you like to say to make yourself feel better. This is me and others being concerned for the well being of those who live in Japan.
I pretty much stopped reading posts like that. Someone on another forum posted that the plant was staffed by underage kids with Jr. HS education getting paid 200 yen an hour.
It doesn't matter how good someone is at their job when they are dealing with materials that humans ultimately don't have the ability to contain in the first place.
I heard the plant is actually a black-hole generator run by molemen who set in motion the earthquake as an act of vengeance for a bad workplace, also the moon landing is involved.
It's odd how many people look for the worse parts of a bad situation, as if making something seem worse will make it better.. or.. something. I guess they're just very bored with life, this is how conspiracy theories are born.
I hate it when people don't stop to think before they post something.
Being passive about this situation will get people killed... just like being passive with any life-threatening situation.
Plutonium is now leaking into the ocean and into the soil. One drop of plutonium can kill somebody within an hour. It can also never be cleaned up.
Roughly...what, 10-12 milligrams of plutonium can be lethal to a person? We don't know exactly how much plutonium was in the surrounding soil. From what I've read, it wasn't a very dangerous amount, and it's very localized. Also, radiation from plutonium doesn't just blast through your flesh because you're within 20 miles of it. I don't even think radiation from Pu can go through your skin on its own, can it? It has to be inhaled or ingested for real damage to occur.
Similar to rooster, I can't find any reports of it leaking into the sea. Even if it did, depending on the amount, it would quickly be diluted by the ocean. Even if a few milligrams did contaminate surrounding soil, since we don't have reports of plutonium littering the shit out of the atmosphere in billows of smoke, the people of Japan (right now) don't have to run in circles or lay down with bags of their heads. And unless you plan on growing your crops in the plutonium affected soil (which from what I can find, again, isn't at dangerous levels as of yet), there's no need to go around bolding letters about how dangerous plutonium is.
Follow the situation from all sources, find the truth and lies about what is going on, and make an informed decision from that point about what to do... instead of blindly believing everything you want to be the truth.
All sources tell us right now, is that the situation is not great, but it's not a catastrophe. We don't know the specifics, we don't know how much plutonium was found exactly (at least, I don't, and couldn't find any real specifics anywhere - not sure if the locals know?), we don't know yet what if any sea life will be affected by the raised radiation at sea.
I can understand caring for our buddies over the pacific, but the way you phrased things and the articles you're linking to (which are running off of the same information as other places with no real specifics, and jumping to the worst case scenario which hasn't happened yet) makes it sound like you're posting for the single purpose of shouting "OMG JAPAN IS SO MESSED UP LOOK AT THIS - IT SAYS PLUTONIUM!"
there's other areas of the world where drinking tap water ain't very healthy - here in China almost everyone has water coolers at home. Problem in Tokyo is that you just cannot clean the water easily. You'd have to get it from somewhere else.
I guess what people fear is uncertainty. Even if you do nothing wrong and the stuff is in the air you can be affected...versus going out on the street where you know for certain about the risks of road traffic, which is statistically much more lethal.
I like how the people living in Japan like Hawken, Lamont and Rasmus are the calm, cool collective, not freaking out about a situation being over inflamed by the American media.
And the people who are freaking out and the ones living in America...
How many of these "news" articles would you have read if the American fear mongering media wasn't blasting out how everyone is fucked and were all going to die? None. You are falling into there trap of generating a lot of foot traffic which is exactly what they want.
Where ever this train stops, is where I am getting off. No amount of worrying/posting "awareness"/e-activism is going to change what will happen. Worry and panic doesn't help anything.
The fact that nobody can drink the tap water in Tokyo is quite concerning too....
*posts video of himself drinking the tap water*
That was for ... one day! It was unsafe for infants under 1 years old (100bq/kg) Please read my earlier post on the subject, bottled water is 50bq/kg ... Several places in Europe it's 300bq/kg - just Japan has very strict laws on this, so they need to tell the populace when it goes over 100bq/kg, let me remind you that was for all of ONE day.
man oh man.
I'll stop reading this thread now. RexM go read some of my posts.
But of course everyone in the US is freaking out about Nuclear. Of course Coal barons own too many seats in congress and too many news stations, to even bother trying to slow the growth of the Coal industry or even pause to think about what its doing to people.
It's sad that instead of taking the lessons learned and designing safer reactors that can take a lot more damage and keep on going, we'll probably just rely more on coal and continue giving people cancer, killing thousands in mining accidents every year, polluting the air and fucking up the environment.
If you're worried about heavy metals being released into the environment, go freak about about coal. At every step it releases something that is horrifically bad...
This earthquake was huge so was the tsunami, short of aliens attacking or purposeful destruction aimed at killing millions, this is about as bad as a nuclear disaster can get and still, people are safe.
Even with Chernobyl most people that became sick where little kids in areas that where evacuated way too late. They got it from drinking milk from cows that where eating grass that was laced with fallout which was spread because of the massive explosion and uncontrollable fire, nothing on that scale has even happened in Japan or shows signs of ever happening.
If there is even going to be a death toll form the Fukushima disaster it will be in the people working to contain the problem, not the Japanese public and certainly not outside of Japan. So please clam the fuck down and start thinking rationally and logically, I really wish modern media would go back to reporting facts and not frothing at the mouth, "chicken little" reporting that relies on raw emotion extracted from giant piles of bullshit.
I like how the people living in Japan like Hawken, Lamont and Rasmus are the calm, cool collective, not freaking out about a situation being over inflamed by the American media.
And the people who are freaking out and the ones living in America...
How many of these "news" articles would you have read if the American fear mongering media wasn't blasting out how everyone is fucked and were all going to die? None. You are falling into there trap of generating a lot of foot traffic which is exactly what they want.
Just a funny thought, the guy who keeps ranting about plutonium levels is consistently posting links from.... the bbc.... I'm curious where in the US the BBC is located? =P
I really wish modern media would go back to reporting facts and not frothing at the mouth, "chicken little" reporting that relies on raw emotion extracted from giant piles of bullshit.
I get my news from WBUR - my local NPR station and it's pretty level headed and factual. Alot of the reporting on Japan has been about the rescue efforts and how the disaster is going to effect Japan's economy - and debunking the OMG radiation freakouts going on.
The sensationalist news here is also responsible for the image that Japanese are calm during a disaster but Americans freak out. Most studies show that Humans are generally calm and band together during disasters.
Yea same here, sadly there will be a lot less level headed reporting if the GOP gets their way.
Cut funding for public broadcasting, but continue to increase military spending, subsidies for oil, pharmaceuticals and agriculture all industries that don't need the money but are happy to take it...
Yea same here, sadly there will be a lot less level headed reporting if the GOP gets their way.
Cut funding for public broadcasting, but continue to increase military spending, subsidies for oil, pharmaceuticals and agriculture all industries that don't need the money but are happy to take it...
oh boy, lets not open that can of worms in here.
Having been through a few natural disasters myself (nothing on the scale of what hit Japan) I've always been really shocked by how reliant we are on electricity & gas.
1 day without power and the whole infrastructure shuts down, people make gas runs to power generators and that runs out pretty fast as well.
I can't remember the exact number, but I read somewhere where someone had calculated the amount of tons of dirt you had to eat to ingest a lethal amount of plutonium from the amount that had been measured in fukushima region.
New information on the severity of the Chernobyl disaster was released years after it happened. While it happened, the seriousness of the situation was covered-up until the last minute.
That was for ... one day! It was unsafe for infants under 1 years old (100bq/kg) Please read my earlier post on the subject, bottled water is 50bq/kg ... Several places in Europe it's 300bq/kg - just Japan has very strict laws on this, so they need to tell the populace when it goes over 100bq/kg, let me remind you that was for all of ONE day.
man oh man.
I'll stop reading this thread now. RexM go read some of my posts.
Just talked to a girl I know who lives in Tokyo, and she said that nobody can drink the water now, and everybody has been buying bottled water. They have a vacation home in Hawaii, and they're going to go there for a while.
PBS/Nova just aired a fascinating near hour long documentary on the Tsunami. I feel that's worth viewing if only to gain a better perspective on the science behind the disaster.
Replies
Can anyone with a confirm this?
Needless to say, the Fukushima 50 are genuine heroes! As it's been said in this thread before, Japan is handling this disaster a whole lot better then any western country would ever do!
There'd be absolute chaos and mayhem if one of our fission plants where to have a meltdown...
People train their whole lives for events like this. From kindergarten kids are put through mock evacuations. Offices are required to carry enough emergency kits for each employee, and train them once a year on evacuation procedures. During the quake, everyone was quite calm around me, even though I was on the street in the middle of Tokyo, and the street was moving meters while buildings swayed and jiggled.
Also Japan has the strictest building codes in the world. Not a single building fell in Tokyo during the magnitude 9 earthquake. Some older 2 storey buildings listed a bit in the north.
The Fukushima workers are called the "Fukushima 50" - they are all volunteers and 7 so far have died trying to fix the plant. In Japan they are seen as heroes.
So life continues to move on. The press outside Japan continue to whip up the stories (can't drink water because its 100bq/kg... bottled water is 50bq/kg - Japans limit for water is 300bq/kg but around the rest of the world it is 500bq/kg. I wish some common sense appears in the press soon.)
I've got my office up and running again, we submitted an app to iTunes yesterday. Working around blackouts, food shortages, panic buying and daily magnitude 5 quakes is interesting, but by no means impossible.
After all, this is an act of nature. Humans have to deal with that all the time. We're only tenants here along for the ride.
http://www.japanquakemap.com/
That's exactly how I see it. I was just posting that link to show any Polycounters who missed it and show the person who posted saying how they were disappointed in Valve.
When all is said and done there should be some huge monuments created.
And its not just the 50 workers at the plant, its the way everyone in Japan has responded.
http://www.thetrumpet.com/?q=8099.6738.0.0
Be thankful that the people around you have a long history of pulling together and enduring. Not many other cultures have a track record of picking themselves up after huge disasters like the Japanese, it seems to have prepared everyone well. It's sad the rest of the world isn't that prepared or that willing to pull together when a crisis or disaster hits.
You're probably tired of reading this but... stay safe.
/facepalm
crazy
I dont play TF2... I was hoping for something physical. Not that you know they should or anything, but I saw Bungie do something (SOMETHING NOT SHIPPABLE OUTSIDE THE US GODDAMNIT!!!!!!!!!) and was surprised Valve hadnt. I don't need swag to donate, I've donated with istocks scheme and given my time collecting with the Japanese Society Im part of here in Dublin and given money to that too, I was just surprised that Bungie did something and not Valve, Valve normally really have their ears to the ground and are always doing cool shit that isn't finishing Episode 3 (zing)
The situation continues to get worse. The radiation continues to rise and spread, the reactors are still free to spew radiation, and the affects are already being shown hundreds and hundreds of miles from the nuclear plant.
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110327002727.htm
This isn't fear mongering. This is legitimate, deep-hearted concern for the people who live on the island of Japan.
Earthquake just hit.na 5
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12875327
having said that, they still report extremely high levels
In that same article:
To put that 1,000 millisieverts an hour figure into perspective, we get 1 millisievert a year from sources such as phones and wifi.
If the radiation is too high for workers to try to contain the situation, that means there is nothing they can do now. I hope it changes for the better.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12877198
The Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) had said radiation levels were 10m times higher than normal before correcting the figure to 100,000 times.
http://e.nikkei.com/e/fr/tnks/Nni20110328D28JF201.htm
thanks, can we all move to your house?
Well folks,
Japan is bigger than Germany, Malaysia, New Zealand and the U.K., and is 1.7 times the size of North and South Korea combined and 10 times the size of Taiwan.
127 million people in Japan. Thats twice the population of the UK.
If there was a busted power station in Wisconsin, would we recommend evacuating the entire state? Put simply, Nuclear power just isn't that dangerous. Only 28 people have ever died from nuclear power station accidents, and that was in the 1980's, and a full melt down. It's not possible for Fukushima to melt down like that.
Radiation level is nothing to fear. The NEWS however, is deeply dangerous and I suggest people stop believing it knee-jerkedly.
Read this instead, an article on why the melt down isn't exactly good news, but hardly dangerous to human health, especially when you live hundreds of miles from a reactor: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12860842
That aside, everyone struck by a disaster of natural causes will forever look completely amateur compared to how the Japanese have handled this so far, from what I've seen anyway. From store owners making food cheaper or giving it away and people willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good, to the seemingly complete lack of looting.
People can learn a lot.
BTW itunes makes Red Cross donations pretty easy, just log in as usual and buy a donation just like you would buy an app, nice and simple. HLJ.com also gives a portion of their sales (+ a match) until april 1st.
It's no secret, every newspaper in the UK has been acting like this for weeks.
Everyone loves a good old disaster. Heck even I watched it on TV.
http://joeisjapanese.com/manga/kogaquake/1/
I'm a noob really when it comes to this stuff but it is a bit alarming when you see the differences between 30 deaths to a possible 500,000 deaths in regards to Chernobyl.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/10/chernobyl-nuclear-deaths-cancers-dispute
Both green activists and the power industry are going exaggerate somewhat the effects of this stuff but I can't believe that nuclear power is as harmless as some say it is.
Things are only getting worse. I agree that the media has blown things out of proportion, but with things only getting worse, and with Fukushima having 1,000 more tons of fuel rods than Chernobyl had (plus 5 more reactors, granted 2 out of the 6 reactors are being cooled properly and are fine), the current concerns are not unwarranted.
If they get this under control in the next couple of weeks and entomb the reactors, things will be fine.
However, if that doesn't happen and things continue to get worse, well.... you would be naive to think that a situation is under control as it continues to get worse week after week.
so mastermind, whats the solution? Or are you just happy enough to re-gurgitate the bad news?
It's odd how many people look for the worse parts of a bad situation, as if making something seem worse will make it better.. or.. something. I guess they're just very bored with life, this is how conspiracy theories are born.
The solution is to follow the situation and make your own judgments. Follow the situation from all sources, find the truth and lies about what is going on, and make an informed decision from that point about what to do... instead of blindly believing everything you want to be the truth.
The situation is progressively getting worse and everybody's naive stance on the situation is not a good thing.
Plutonium is now leaking into the ocean and into the soil. One drop of plutonium can kill somebody within an hour. It can also never be cleaned up.
http://real-agenda.com/2011/03/25/mox-plutonium-leaking-from-japanese-reactor/Still think there is nothing to worry about? Still think that they have things 'under control?'
This isn't fear mongering or any of that crap you like to say to make yourself feel better. This is me and others being concerned for the well being of those who live in Japan.
It doesn't matter how good someone is at their job when they are dealing with materials that humans ultimately don't have the ability to contain in the first place.
I hate it when people don't stop to think before they post something.
Being passive about this situation will get people killed... just like being passive with any life-threatening situation.
Do your own research.
I'm looking for the news that plutonium has leaked into the sea, where is the report? this would be a pretty big deal wouldn't it?
Roughly...what, 10-12 milligrams of plutonium can be lethal to a person? We don't know exactly how much plutonium was in the surrounding soil. From what I've read, it wasn't a very dangerous amount, and it's very localized. Also, radiation from plutonium doesn't just blast through your flesh because you're within 20 miles of it. I don't even think radiation from Pu can go through your skin on its own, can it? It has to be inhaled or ingested for real damage to occur.
Similar to rooster, I can't find any reports of it leaking into the sea. Even if it did, depending on the amount, it would quickly be diluted by the ocean. Even if a few milligrams did contaminate surrounding soil, since we don't have reports of plutonium littering the shit out of the atmosphere in billows of smoke, the people of Japan (right now) don't have to run in circles or lay down with bags of their heads. And unless you plan on growing your crops in the plutonium affected soil (which from what I can find, again, isn't at dangerous levels as of yet), there's no need to go around bolding letters about how dangerous plutonium is.
All sources tell us right now, is that the situation is not great, but it's not a catastrophe. We don't know the specifics, we don't know how much plutonium was found exactly (at least, I don't, and couldn't find any real specifics anywhere - not sure if the locals know?), we don't know yet what if any sea life will be affected by the raised radiation at sea.
I can understand caring for our buddies over the pacific, but the way you phrased things and the articles you're linking to (which are running off of the same information as other places with no real specifics, and jumping to the worst case scenario which hasn't happened yet) makes it sound like you're posting for the single purpose of shouting "OMG JAPAN IS SO MESSED UP LOOK AT THIS - IT SAYS PLUTONIUM!"
Which isn't helping anything.
There has to be a breaking point when you're dealing with materials that volatile.
The fact that nobody can drink the tap water in Tokyo is quite concerning too....
I guess what people fear is uncertainty. Even if you do nothing wrong and the stuff is in the air you can be affected...versus going out on the street where you know for certain about the risks of road traffic, which is statistically much more lethal.
Well, read and decide for yourself.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12889541
Soruce is the Japanese Prime Minister.
[ame]
And the people who are freaking out and the ones living in America...
How many of these "news" articles would you have read if the American fear mongering media wasn't blasting out how everyone is fucked and were all going to die? None. You are falling into there trap of generating a lot of foot traffic which is exactly what they want.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12889541
*posts video of himself drinking the tap water*
That was for ... one day! It was unsafe for infants under 1 years old (100bq/kg) Please read my earlier post on the subject, bottled water is 50bq/kg ... Several places in Europe it's 300bq/kg - just Japan has very strict laws on this, so they need to tell the populace when it goes over 100bq/kg, let me remind you that was for all of ONE day.
man oh man.
I'll stop reading this thread now. RexM go read some of my posts.
Yes, please stay. Your posts are literally a million times more informative than the resident fox news reporter.
Here is an interesting take on Nuclear power vs Coal, I have to say the guy makes sense.
http://www.npr.org/2011/03/29/134960843/Environmentalist-Monbiot-Supports-Nuclear-Power
But of course everyone in the US is freaking out about Nuclear. Of course Coal barons own too many seats in congress and too many news stations, to even bother trying to slow the growth of the Coal industry or even pause to think about what its doing to people.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdHuB7Ovl2o
It's sad that instead of taking the lessons learned and designing safer reactors that can take a lot more damage and keep on going, we'll probably just rely more on coal and continue giving people cancer, killing thousands in mining accidents every year, polluting the air and fucking up the environment.
If you're worried about heavy metals being released into the environment, go freak about about coal. At every step it releases something that is horrifically bad...
This earthquake was huge so was the tsunami, short of aliens attacking or purposeful destruction aimed at killing millions, this is about as bad as a nuclear disaster can get and still, people are safe.
Even with Chernobyl most people that became sick where little kids in areas that where evacuated way too late. They got it from drinking milk from cows that where eating grass that was laced with fallout which was spread because of the massive explosion and uncontrollable fire, nothing on that scale has even happened in Japan or shows signs of ever happening.
If there is even going to be a death toll form the Fukushima disaster it will be in the people working to contain the problem, not the Japanese public and certainly not outside of Japan. So please clam the fuck down and start thinking rationally and logically, I really wish modern media would go back to reporting facts and not frothing at the mouth, "chicken little" reporting that relies on raw emotion extracted from giant piles of bullshit.
Just a funny thought, the guy who keeps ranting about plutonium levels is consistently posting links from.... the bbc.... I'm curious where in the US the BBC is located? =P
I get my news from WBUR - my local NPR station and it's pretty level headed and factual. Alot of the reporting on Japan has been about the rescue efforts and how the disaster is going to effect Japan's economy - and debunking the OMG radiation freakouts going on.
The sensationalist news here is also responsible for the image that Japanese are calm during a disaster but Americans freak out. Most studies show that Humans are generally calm and band together during disasters.
Cut funding for public broadcasting, but continue to increase military spending, subsidies for oil, pharmaceuticals and agriculture all industries that don't need the money but are happy to take it...
oh boy, lets not open that can of worms in here.
Having been through a few natural disasters myself (nothing on the scale of what hit Japan) I've always been really shocked by how reliant we are on electricity & gas.
1 day without power and the whole infrastructure shuts down, people make gas runs to power generators and that runs out pretty fast as well.
New information on the severity of the Chernobyl disaster was released years after it happened. While it happened, the seriousness of the situation was covered-up until the last minute.
Same with the latest big oil spill we had.
Latest:
Read / watch and make your own decisions.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12889541
Also, didn't know BBC was an American news source?? Must've missed something there..
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haBovPouOU8
Just talked to a girl I know who lives in Tokyo, and she said that nobody can drink the water now, and everybody has been buying bottled water. They have a vacation home in Hawaii, and they're going to go there for a while.
So.... please tell me where I used Fox news as a source?
Anyways, I am just posting the latest news on the situation. Don't paint me as the bad guy.
If anyone of you guys know someone in japan that want to contact just send me a pm and i will try to contact your friends here
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Here's the link: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/earth/japan-killer-quake.html