[HUB PAGE] Japan earthquake Info in English and other languages

Edit: For English: http://togetter.com/li/111457

Might be easier to just use #jishin_e hashtag on Twitter if the page takes too long to load.

http://globalvoicesonline.org/2011/03/14...und-again/ - Translations of Twitter posts about the warning system(s).

Do they have something similar (mobile/iOS) for tsunami warnings? I found this: http://sketchstudios.net/wordpress/2010/...ification/

Edit: Looks like that LetMeKnow app no longer exists. I did find: http://itunes.apple.com/jp/app/disaster-...89235?mt=8

Edit 2: Doesn't look like Disaster Alert has push notifications. Other apps such as iTsunami and Earth Watch don't seem to work since December 2010 for some reason (according to reviews).

yokoso news is back on, live translating nhk

http://www.ustream.tv/channel-popup/yokosonews

Reactor #4 is now on fire.

It just keeps getting worse. The prime minister announced that residents within the 20 to 30 km zone had to stay indoors. 120 000 viewers on the nhk stream.

IceCream Wrote:It does make me wonder what they'd say if they saw the BBC though. I've been really disappointed and even disgusted by their coverage at various points through all this. Even after the collective opinions of many nuclear experts that the nuclear situation is not the end of the world right now, they seemed intent on scaremongering and spreading the opposite opinion. And one of their reporters at the scene of some of the places worst hit by the tsunami seemed positively delighted by the destruction and devastation of the place. I couldn't stand to watch him. They seem more interested in "making news" than good, honest reporting.

I couldn't agree more about the BBC, Ice Cream, I also couldn't bear to watch that reporter, he seemed to be positively enjoying the situation. The interview earlier with the nuclear expert was awful too, he was offering reassurance, and the reporter kept on trying to get him to say the situation was more serious. The state of their coverage has been disgusting, and I'm rarely moved to feel that way, I may make a complaint. Of course, if the current nuclear situation, which isn't sounding good at all, gets worse, then they'll be able to insist they were right all along. Urgh.

Eikyu Wrote:It wouldn't be much better if they were shouting: "OMG, this is so bad, everything is going to blow up!"

I agree, in fact I feel it's better to underplay it, even if the situation were more dangerous, as the last thing that is needed is for people to panic. Although, it seems it takes an awful lot for the Japanese people to panic, I've been full of admiration for the way they are handling this. They've truly set an example to the rest of the world.

I really hope things are Ok, it is sounding quite worrying at the moment.

I've been watching NHK since Friday, and I'm struck by the calm tone and manner of the anchors (in both Japanese and English versions). It's a marked contrast to the shrill tone of mainstream US media (the larger ones).

I also am also disappointed by BBC's coverage of this.

Seamoby Wrote:I've been watching NHK since Friday, and I'm struck by the calm tone and manner of the anchors (in both Japanese and English versions). It's a marked contrast to the shrill tone of mainstream US media (the larger ones).

I also am also disappointed by BBC's coverage of this.

I did watch NHK and Katz stream mostly, he really makes it to calm folks everywhere. While the doomsayers of German / Austrian / US and other media is scaremongering. One thing is still incredible, how the people can remain so calm, now really this is amazing. I just hope that the situation in the reactors can be resolved once and for good. Fire in No°4 is out, which is good news, so let's hope for those in Japan.

Right now, the GOJ “officials have yet to confirm a meltdown because IT IS TOO HOT INSIDE THE TO CHECK.” (cnn.com) So, do they expect the reactor to cool down so they can check and confirm that the rods are actually melting? Noriyuki Shikata, a spokesman for Japan’s prime minister, said Sunday the situation was “under control.” (cnn.com). Under control? You can’t confirm if the rods are melting because it’s too hot to check, but everything is under control?

-Arudou Debito

Very valid points

Some useful knowledge... the rem has been replaced by the Sievert... so 10 microSieverts = 1 mrem.

The rad has been replaced by the gray, but that's not really applicable here, yet.

Useful for reading this page on Radiation and Risk:
http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/risk.htm

If the plant is dumping around 8200 microSv, according to the Kyodo News article, that's 820 mrem, a little over 2 times the usual dose of background radiation you get in a year. (Average Dose to US public from All sources = 360 mrem / year, or 3600 microSv.)

So it's bad, but it's no where close to LD50, which is around 300,000-500,000 mrem, or 3-5,000,000 microsievert.

It's an interesting page to read.

EDIT: But still-- hanging around that reactor will give you a dose equal to a little over 2 years' worth of background radiation, and the attendant risks that that entails.

So people have a right to be a bit shrill about it, especially when we don't even know if they're coming clean about it or not.

http://www.timelordcardiff.com/1440/index1440.html - A half dozen or so video feeds such as Yokoso, NHK World, TBS, etc., with multiple clocks.


---

From highly speculative non-Japanese news, which doesn't have any different information—except often second-hand—from the Japanese news, I get the impression, especially from the experts crawling from the woodwork, that Japan is soon to become a nuclear wasteland. On the other hand, from the decidedly non-speculative Japanese sources, I get an ambiguous feeling resulting from numerous tidbits of information of a sort of creeping breakdown that could be resolved with hard work before things get out of hand.

We'll get news that there's been an explosion at a reactor that, while circulating through non-Japanese channels as-is, comes through Japanese feeds with caveats such as it being another hydrogen explosion or that the reactor had been shut down prior to the tsunami.

Meanwhile there's this fragmented sense of time occurring via the word-of-mouth Twitter dissemination which reiterates and trickles into MSM news articles seemingly written purely to have something to write, repeating the same information such as the potential 10,000 deaths via Minami Sanriku's tragedy, but with slight rhetorical twists and slightly different compilations of Twitter feeds. Even many of the pictures stem from microblog photo sources such as yfrog or twitpic, often cited incorrectly or not at all.

Plus, with the ‘brand name’ non-Japanese news networks, very often I see clips I'd seen hours or days earlier at NHK or from YouTube, encapsulated by misleading or vague ‘reporting’ to describe it.

Yonosa Wrote:Right now, the GOJ “officials have yet to confirm a meltdown because IT IS TOO HOT INSIDE THE TO CHECK.” (cnn.com) So, do they expect the reactor to cool down so they can check and confirm that the rods are actually melting? Noriyuki Shikata, a spokesman for Japan’s prime minister, said Sunday the situation was “under control.” (cnn.com). Under control? You can’t confirm if the rods are melting because it’s too hot to check, but everything is under control?

-Arudou Debito

Very valid points

Are those valid points? That's just how nuclear reactors work. Of course you can't look in a nuclear reactor, why the hell would you be able to? The way they work is by releasing HUGE amounts of heat to make steam.

They know that if the rods are not in water for long enough they will melt, but when they are exposed for just a short time, and they're not sure exactly how long/exactly what temperature, of course they can't tell to what extent they melted.

In the event of a meltdown reactors are built to contain the radioactive material. They are not built for you to be able to peak inside.

So far, NBC has been the worst. Positively ghoulish. "Look! Bodies!" Ugh. Parachute journalism at its ugliest.

CNN keeps running the same clips over and over and over again. Anderson Cooper chickened out of his second hour... I guess because of the radiation scare? They just reran the first hour. Weird. Either that, or they didn't have anything new to report.

It looks like every major US news organization (and the BBC) is camped out in 南三陸. I would wager it's a zoo there now. I've watched a few different channels, and just about everyone has done a story there. I feel bad for the residents there. The last thing you want after losing your home and friends and loved ones is to have some asshat who's just parachuted in shove a microphone and camera in your face and ask you, "How does it make you FEEL?" Ugh.

CNN was pretty bad too, though.

"Chernobyl this, Chernobyl that, Explosion? Chernobyl"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensationalism

Wikipedia Wrote:One presumed goal of sensational reporting is increased (or sustained) viewership or readership, which can be sold to advertisers, the result being a lesser focus on proper journalism and a greater focus on the "juicy" aspects of a story that pull in a larger share of audience.

A scary headline gets more attention.

TL;DR version:

"If it bleeds, it leads."

EDIT: Interesting: Anderson Cooper and his CNN crew bugged out of Sendai halfway through their broadcast this evening. Here's his tweet:

"Due to safety concerns we are leaving this area an therefore not live for the second hour"

They left right after news that reactor #2 may/may not have have been breached... but radiation levels are elevated.

Considering that Sendai is 60Km away from Fukushima 第一, and supposedly in the "safe zone," (safe-ish zone?) my guess is that they're probably feeling twitchy. (Unless they have a geiger counter on them?)

Seems like a lot of people bugging out. Two of my friends in Tochigi-ken, quite far away, were told to wear masks at their school because radiation levels have been detected as higher than usual (though still at very low levels--classic freaking out for no reason).

Nonetheless, I think they're both going to come visit me in Kyoto until this all blows over. Which I welcome because they're awesome.

YAY!!! My friends in tomiya, miyagi finally emailed me back. They're okay.

They told me that water was actually all the way to their elementary school... it's crazy.

Good to hear it!

I stayed at this hostel for three months in 2007. It was 800yen per night for a tatami mat bunk-bed then including showers, coffee and internet. Otherwise, internet cafes are fun places to crash if people want to escape to a safer city for a while.
Kyoto's Cheapest Inn

You're in Kyoto too, aren't you bodhisamaya? I'm glad to be so far away. I wasn't so worried about this until today, but now it seems like things could get pretty bad.

But maybe I need an unexpected vacation to Kyushu just to be safe!

Kyoto is safe from almost all natural disasters. Hmmm... Radiation is not a natural disaster I suppose, but the wind does not blow this direction. Though, this could hurt the economy short-term. I would put off coming to Japan to work for the time being if anyone is planning on that. The feared aftershock in Tokyo seems to have not happened, so that helps a lot.

Every day this week that I have gotten back from work, I check the status on the plant, and so far everyday I have come back to find out the thing is practically falling apart at the nuts and bolts. Regardless, I will say this recent article on Asahi that I read has a crappy tone. It is all 可能性 this 可能性 that. I don't know if this typical Japanese in directness or if officials are simply trying to save-ass so if shit really does hit the fan no one can call them on it, but I will say if anyone in US were to be like "Well, the pressure control is probably damaged, and the lock up mechanism for the radioactive material is probably broke." That just has the air of incompetence and doesn't provide much security in the running of nuclear power plants.

That said, the information about Reactor 4 has me a little confused because they make it sound like reactor 4 is really a storage facility for used up fuel, however if you look at Wikipedia it claims reactor 4 generates power. They claim there was a breach in the container of the used fuel at reactor 4 though and the fuel that spilt out or came uncovered, or something and caused a fire. Again, reading the article on it, they mention that usually the spent fuel is put in a pull and water is circulated and kept at a good low temp, but the power was lost so the water didn't circulate; ok fine. However the temp rose and the water evaporated and that started the fire. My question is, no one realized the water wasn't flowing? No one wasn't checking it often to see if the temp was rising? No one was seeing if the water wasn't going down? For that matter, I have heard nothing about reactors 5 and 6 which also apparently exist at Plant 1. Which I guess no news is good news so they probably have that under control.

I too agree on NHK. I have never watched much NHK before till now, and I was even in Japan for a year. I have to say I'm absolutely in love with the format. Its ACTUAL NEWS! No fluffery, almost no bullshit, the speech style is flat and has little inflection save for important announcements about safety and the like. I watched a bit of NHK and then saw some CNN immediately afterward and was sickened by the vast difference in style. Not that I'm surprised or anything, "news" has not existed in the US for decades. CNN/Fox are just total garbage.

Ah! I just saw the press conference, there was a actually a quesiton on reactor 5 and 6 but my JP isn't good enough to follow. What was the status on it or whatever? Anyone catch the press conference?

EDIT: Decided to just watch NHK English side and they just mentioned that 5 & 6 are inactive at the moment and were undergoing maintenance and refueling during this, same as #4. However, it seems that they need (haven't been? *sigh*) keeping an eye on the spent fuel suppression pools there either and now need to check them out to see if they might have the same issue occurring that 4 had. This is all around bad news because it means that every reactor at Plant 1 is now useless. I highly doubt they will bring the suspended reactors (4-6) back online till a year or so later if at all. So most of Japan is looking at being out of about 4.7Gigawatts of power.

Despite the Republicans' (who seem to despise reason and science) attempts to demonize it, PBS is a good source to get news in America mostly without a self-serving slant.