Thousands evacuate as Fukishima nuclear emergency is declared

[Peter Lemkin]

AIEA has suggested the exclusion zone [where no one lives] should be expanded by at least another 10 Km as radioactive cesium was found at one town outside the exclusion zone at dangerous levels. It is a very dangerous radioactive product and persistent [half-life of 30 years]. Japanese Govt. has said they don't think it 'is dangerous enough' to expand zone. If they don't start covering those reactors with barium cement [which will take months and months!], the exclusion zone will soon extend over most of Japan...

[Peter Lemkin]

The iodine levels [radioactive isotope] in the seawater near the plant has steadily been going up....but it had not been [in my opinion] worthy of mention until now. The last recording, taken 300 m from the outlet, was 10,000X the safe limit...and yesterday it was about 500X....so you can guess about tomorrow and after.... Now, it is a big ocean, BUT this is not just going into the ocean and anyway, Japanese and others eat what is in the ocean and those creatures in it are entitled not to be irradiated...as are the people of Japan! That Plant needs to be entombed ASAP. I knew it from day two and they haven't even started to plan for what will be a six month to 12 month operation, at BEST!...and quite an engineering feat!.....

[Peter Lemkin]

Since the company that owns the nuclear plant and the Japanese Govt. have been playing ostrich, Greenpeace has taken it upon themselves to do some radiation monitoring. They've just started. At one town NW of the nuclear plant and 50Km distant they found unsafe levels of Cesium [half-life of 30 years!], meaning that town likely should be evacuated [almost surely many others, as well] and they won't be safe to return to for many decades! A very sad scenario to an already suffering Japanese population! When the Japanese People realize how they are being lied to by silence over the nuclear plant, I hope they get angry....there is NO excuse for the playing down how dangerous the situation is and has been from the first day!

[Peter Lemkin]

Tepco, the company that owns the nuclear plant has just been caught breaking Japanese law, by NOT having most of the workers in the DAMAGED nuclear plant wearing personal dosimeters [which show the current and cumulative radiation dosages], which are required by law; the only way to know when someone should be relieved from work on health grounds; and even contain alarms, if the invisible radiation level gets too high. Talk about profits over people! Such dosimeters cost only $50-$200 each for the best ones. Wait until Tepco's investors see what cost the concrete sarcophagus will cost. I'd guess half of the price of building the plant!

[Magda Hassan]

Peter, Peter, Peter, your thinking far too much like a compassionate law abiding person. For a corporation that $50-200 dosimeter is money wasted when it could be used towards a share dividend or management bonus. These disposable workers are not long for this world and money spent on a dosimeter is a bad investment. mallprint:

[Jan Klimkowski]

How much does a seppuku sword cost?

Yukio Mishima's spectre hovers in the Fukushima wasteland....

[Magda Hassan]

It seems that seppuku is a lost Japanese tradition. I cannot think of a better opportunity for it though.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Graphic new photos of Fukushima and analysis here.

An excerpt from the conclusion of the article:

The efforts at Fukushima are probably weeks away from even basic stabilization and we are years away from any sort of a final resolution. This crisis is going to be with all of us for a very long time. Radiation will continue to escape from the complex into the environment for weeks at best, months or years at worst.

The chief concern here is that things might still take a turn for the worse whereby radiation spikes to levels that prevent humans from getting close enough to perform meaningful operations and work on the site. If the radiation spikes high enough it will force an evacuation from the vicinity complicating every part of what has to happen next from monitoring to remediation.

The general lack of staged materials anywhere in the vicinity indicates that authorities have not yet decided on a plan of action, feeding our assessment that they are still in 'react mode' and that we are weeks away from nominal stabilization.

On Thursday we learned from the Wall Street Journal that TEPCO only had one stretcher, a satellite phone, 50 protective suits, and only enough dosimeters to give a single one to each worker group. Given this woeful level of preparation it is not surprising to see that regular fire trucks, cement trucks, and a lack of staged materials comprise much of the current damage control mix.

We don't yet know enough to conclude how much fission has spontaneously re-occurred, but we have strong suspicions that the number is higher than zero. Here we make our call for the release of more complete and timely radiation readouts and sampling results by TEPCO and Japan so that we can assess what the true risks are. The situation remains fluid and quite a lot depends now on chance and which way the wind blows.

[Magda Hassan]

The worlds largest cement making machine is on its way to Japan from the US so it looks like they've decided on something.

[Bernice Moore]

4 damaged Japan reactors to be scrapped

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/4-damaged-japan...5-871.html