I was wondering what on earth they were meant to achieve.

It is way too early for any visible symptoms, and I have been exposed and
lived through it. When I had radiation treatment for cancer, it lasted nearly a month and for the first several sessions it was like are we done yet? Few weeks in, the shitty feeling caught up and lasted for two months after the course was done. We have not seen nothin' yet from these explosions.

I doubt anybody is stupid enough to think those little paper masks protect against radiation. A lot of Japanese seem to be germaphobes and wear them whenever; certainly saw a lot living in Asia and see a lot when I'm travelling.

I fear you are correct, NJ. My thoughts are with those working at the plants, trying to prevent a wide-scale disaster - only time will tell what they've sacrificed.

+1 - . They arent wearing them to get protection from nuculars. Believe it or not since SARS a lot of asian people are considerate enough that if they themselves have a cold or bug they will wear a mask - its more about stopping other people getting what you've got than the other way around.

It may also be as dusty as all hell where they are given the debris and devastation, I'd want a mask to breathe through with all that crap in the air.

Maybe you'd like to expand on that slightly.

From my understanding, a proper N95 mask should go a fair way towards preventing the inhalation of alpha emitter particles into the lungs. Not much use if you are standing next to an exposed core, but potentially useful if you are 100 miles downwind of a leak.

PS my understanding is they admitted the containment on reactor #2 was breached:
eg http://www.bellona.org/articles/arti...pparent_breach

that sounds markedly worse than before, although with no widescale release as yet.

I was wondering that. I would have thought that they would stop you inhaling or ingesting some contaminated material. (And by some I do not mean all.)

I want to know how much we're not being told about this disgusting, unnecessary, man-made, disaster?

My observation is that our fearless PM is relatively voiceless whilst the man who should still be our PM is looking quite worried... and spending a lot of time trying to, diplomatically, extract the facts... despite the Japan government propaganda.

In my view, Australia is no better than a drug dealer with its continued mining and sale of uranium.

I am concerned the information in the attached link from the World Nuclear Association is true.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf48.html

Who else shares my view that Australia's uranium mining policies are a major contributor to the nightmare millions of people are now enduring?

That is correct.

no you are nuts. it pays for lots of things and its very safe. Unless there is a earthquake, tsunami, both at same time.
'
what are you "afraid" is true in the article? that Australia is exporting uranium? or that Canada and Kazakhstan are the other top 2. The article doesnt say that uranium will come and steal your children ,its a factual description of how much is mined.

I second that emotion.

Oh no! Aus is a uranium drug baron.

You're calling me nuts ... and at the same time saying how "safe" nuclear energy is!!!!! In the current climate you might wish to say Sayonara to whatever credibility you thought you had.

Agree. Better than nothing. You can get different types of "paper masks" with different types of filtering ability. They must be the moulded type & fitted properly to get max benefit, but ideally you'd want some form of proper full face mask with air supply when you are dealing with unknowns.

& agree with Vegemite Kids about how the incident is progressing. These plants have to have many practice demonstrations each yedar of how they would act in incidents as a condition of their operating licence, from something relatively minor like a person falling over in a radiation area to the big stuff. To be fair they probably haven't done one that is an earthquake followed by a tsunami! But they will have done major site excercises. There are also national & international nuclear/radiation incident exercises co-ordinated by the International Atomic Energey Authority so plans do exist - they are not just running about panicking like the media seem to portray!

One problem I have with Aus's mining industry is if they are mining it here why don't they use it here? I was not happy when we had 40+C temps for a week recently with the threat of power blackouts.

Do those of you who support nuclear energy really not get it?

There are, safe, alternatives.

You can't blame nature for earthquakes and tsunamis... but you can hold man accountable for making the nuclear monster that is crippling Japan.

Nuclear energy may be cheap, but that doesn't make it good.