N1cky

It certainly does, and the poor bastards must know they are virtually committing suicide but everyone is relying on them to stop a national disaster happening. I should imagine they feel they don't have a choice, its in their hands. These guys are real heroes, I hope they get the recognition they deserve.

SultanOfSwing

They haven't murdered anyone in the name of 'freedom' so they probably won't . . .

sime303

I second that.

Michael

I agree.

Foreign bankers are fleeing Tokyo as Japan's nuclear crisis worsens, scrambling for commercial and charter flights out of the country and into other major cities in the region.

BNP Paribas , Standard Chartered and Morgan Stanley were among the banks whose staff have left since Friday's earthquake and tsunami, and now a nuclear plant disaster, according to industry sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/busine...,3981394.story

Fox's favorite expert from the Heartland Institute was again on Fox News this morning to defend what he said on Saturday. He again said people are worrying about nothing. In fact there were only 50 deaths from the Chernobyl disaster and all those deaths that experts claimed were going to happen from cancer, didn't occur.

Michael

Last night and just recently CNN claimed that the Japanese government is evacuating a 10 km radius around the Fukushima Daini plant (a plant south of the Fukushima Daichi plant). I don't know how accurate the information is (may have confused the name from a news wire) since the following is the only information on the internet about the evacuation. There were earlier reports of higher than normal radiation levels at the plant but the higher levels were assumed to be caused by the Fukushima Daichi plant.

[3:07 a.m. ET Wednesday, 4:07 p.m. Wednesday in Tokyo] As a safety precaution, the Japanese government is now telling people living within a 10-kilometer radius of the Daini plant, the second nuclear power plant in Fukushima, to evacuate.

The Daini plant, which has four reactors, has reported fluctuating temperatures at its suppression pools. The Daini plant's reactors have been stopped, and there has been no radioactivity leakage so far.

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/16...ch-more-areas/

The following are the names and locations of all nuclear power plants in Japan.

http://www.japannuclear.com/nuclearp.../location.html

randomgirl

Well, so far things in Japan don't seem to be improving. Even though most news sources are saying the risk of harmful radiation reaching the US is low, I for one am still concerned. It certainly sounds as though we might be at risk if the situation deteriorates further.

N1cky

I find this statement very selfish, for radiation levels to hit such a high level that it affects us in the USA will firstly have a devastating effect on people living in Japan. I'm far more concerned about them than I am about us here. A little perspective is in order here I think.

robin1234

My family and I lived in the United Kingdom at the time of the Chernobyl disaster. I believe the harmful effects of Chernobyl in Britain were far, far worse than likely radiation effects of the current Japanese emergency in the US.. but I'm just guessing.

SultanOfSwing

I was looking for a way to phrase a response to that, and you have done it perfectly here. Perspective is indeed in order. While the winds do exist to carry radiation in our direction, the chances of a harmful dose reaching us are very low. And you are quite right to point out that it would, of course, have to be carried over Japan first. Again, not to labour the point but the Japanese are handling this information and dealing with it way better when it is in their back yard than some people do here, 5,000 miles away.

Not to belittle anyone's concerns, of course a full blown nuclear meltdown is a dangerous prospect but that has yet to occurr. Until it does, wouldn't we be better off worrying a little less about the 'what ifs'?

I think it is in poor taste anyway, especially given the fact that 'we' (again those inverted commas ) actually carried over a dose of harmful radiation to Japan and dropped it on their heads ffs.

ETA - Good point, Robin. I was in the UK at that time. Ukraine is considerably closer to the UK than Japan is to the US, and I do not believe I or any of my contemporaries suffered a harmful dose of radiation. I am loath to use comparisons to Chernobyl if it can be avoided, but I think your was warranted here

randomgirl

Of course it would be much worse in Japan, I didn't mean to belittle what they're going through - nobody could imagine anything worse than what they're going through at the moment. I simply meant it could end up being a concern here too.

SultanOfSwing

See Robin's post above. If you lived in the UK in 1986, you were at a higher risk than you are now. It's understandable to worry, but at this point in time there is no high risk of exposure to high does of radiation from Japan in the US. Why think otherwise until there is any reason to?

Bob

Though they would need to blow the radiation something like 30K feet up to carry when worst case projects are showing it won't get higher than 5K.

Which won't be good for the surrounding area, but won't travel much further.

Also, the high radiation leaks seem to have a very short shelf life, so by the time they're reached the nuclear plant fence, they're pretty harmless and at the levels of eating a banana.

Michael

Even since the nuclear problems have started, the winds have blown from the west pushing most of the radiation out to sea but a little has reached Tokyo.

A possibly higher risk of radiation contamination will likely occur starting Saturday when a low pressure area is supposed to move in and the winds will start blowing from the east possibly endangering larger areas of Japan, China, Korea, and possibly Russia.

Sally Redux

The problem is that everyone's just guessing, even the 'experts'.

Bob

Yeah, the possibility of things getting hairy is there, but the media is certainly mincing facts and the scare mongering is doing far more damage than anything.

Speaking to a friend out in Tokyo, saying they have had so many after shocks, about 20 of them that are on par with decent sized earthquakes that the nerves are on edge, but pretty much anything that can fall and break has fallen and broken at home at this point so fairly safe. It's just a matter of not knowing what to do, pretty pointless getting to work because the commute times are so long and even if got into the office, everyone is just on edge and watching the news/internets and getting freaked by how much worse things are being made to sound in the western news.