The Japanese government is turning to hotels to house evacuees from the ongoing nuclear disaster.
People living within 20km of the Fukushima Daiichi plant were ordered to evacuate. Many people discovered that the shelters they were supposed to report to were already full of quake/tsunami survivors.
A Japanese doctor, who specializes in radiation sickness, says microsievert is OK (in general). Millisievert is bad, because it is 1,000 times more than microsievert.
Japanese officials have given radiation levels in both sieverts, sometimes correcting each other during the press conferences. This is causing confusion, and adding to people’s mistrust of officials.
One official reading […] Continue Reading…
Dr Thomas Neff, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said “This is a slow-moving nightmare.”
Fukushima Daiichi reactors 3 & 4 are priorities. Reactor 4 has a large amount of spent fuel rods on fire. Reactor 3 is the only reactor at the plant that uses plutonium. Plutonium is the most deadly of the fuels […] Continue Reading…
Guenther Oettinger, European Union’s energy chief, said the Fukushima Daiichi plant was “…effectively out of control”.
Japanese fire trucks, police water cannon trucks, as well as water trucks from the U.S. military, are heading towards the pant. This is because the helicopter water drops stopped due to high radiation levels. Official radiation reports for the […] Continue Reading…
The Japanese government is pleading with private companies to help supply people evacuated from around the Fukushima nuclear plant, with food, water and other supplies.
This is a clear indicator that the Japanese government is not prepared for such an emergency, despite the international perception of Japan’s high level of disaster readiness.
TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) is asking the JSDF to make another try at dropping water on the Fukushima Daiichi plant.
The Japanese Self Defense Forces stopped after radiation levels, above the plant, got too high.
Plant workers are trying to prevent a massive melt down of fuel rods (1,000+), which have overheated and caught fire.
There are more than 1,000 spent fuel rods at Fukushima Daiichi plant. So far attempts to cool the rods down with water is failing.
To show how hard it is to cool down spent fuel rods: It takes 3 to 4 years under normal conditions.
The large amount of spent fuel rods, at the plant, means […] Continue Reading…
The United States military is issuing Potassium Iodide pills to helicopter crews flying operations in Japan. The crews take the pills before their missions.
U.S. nuclear experts now in Japan will start taking their own radiation readings. Officially this is to “help” Japan with the Fukushima nuclear disaster, but I think it’s because U.S. officials […] Continue Reading…
An NHK interview has revealed failures in Japan’s emergency plans. Possibly lack of planning, or implementation.
Survivors are being stressed by confusing reports, lack of reliable information, and due to being forced to move from one shelter to another.
Many survivors from smaller cities and towns say no emergency drills were ever practiced where they lived. […] Continue Reading…
In an NHK interview, an official said that using water on the Fukushima fuel rods is meant to buy time, until other alternatives to cooling the rods could be figured out.
Plant officials say they’re going to attempt to use boric acid. They’ve received a sample from Korea. If the test is successful South Korean […] Continue Reading…