Why would CNN have to mention something that everyone knows?

CNN- America nuked Japan twice to end WWII

World - No shit, sky is blue

More like America nuked Japan twice to scare the Russians, but that thread has already been done >

It's just trashy reporting, flash a few shots of destruction after the bombs versus the tsunami and earthquake, people love to see destruction.

LazyNomad Wrote:No, I don`t mean that government is lying to public. It`s just the public that doesn`t understand the meaning of what they hear.
As one such example, there is continuing white smoke from the pool with spent fuel. This fuel is not inside containment. And it is spent fuel, which means it is highly radioactive, uranium inside partly transmutated to plutonium, and there are oxides of iodine and cesium, deadly mix. But my wife was not worried at all when she heard the news. She thought that spent nuclear fuel is not dangerous anymore, because it is "spent". And smokes from fuel goes straightly into the atmosphere through the hole in the wall and in the roof.

Ouch... yeah, i'd much rather be exposed to nice, clean fresh uranium than the gunk that comes out of a power plant. Uranium itself isn't terribly radioactive. Nothing that has sat in the ground for billions of years can be very radioactive as radioactivity and half life are inversely correlated. It sounds to me that the waste pools are the real threat at the moment. Rapidly drying pools filled with toxic flammable gunk exposed to the air. That's the big difference to TMI.

Quote:Now they don`t know what to do with it. To fly over it is to dangerous. So they decided to take a long hose, to insert it in the hole in the wall, and to pump water from the distance. Needless to say, that there are no robots to do this dirty job. Volunteers are all over 60, as far as I understood. What a tradegy
how is this so much different from Chernobyl I don`t understand
And actually I remember when Chernobyl happened, Soviet government was telling it`s citizens something along the line "Don`t panic! It`s not a nuclear explosion. It is a thermal explosion. It is like explosion of boiler at thermal plant." Nobody was aware how bad it is for a long time.

To be fair to the soviets, i believe the idea that it was a nuclear explosion came later. There *was* a conventional boiler explosion... So they're half truths. I doubt the japanese government would lie to the extent the soviets did though.

The only relation to Chernobyl is that both are nuclear accidents. The causes and likely outcomes are different. This is a pretty unique situation. Bringing up such emotionally charged past accidents and presenting them as the worst case scenario is just lazy journalism (badly captioned stock footage is especially outrageous). I'd rather see actual analysis of what could eventuate from *this* situation.

Another thing i've noticed is articles with a "Nuclear crisis" headline, then a couple of dot points relating to the reactors, then a dot point listing the total confirmed death toll thus far from the tsunami... with no mention that is what caused the deaths. Now, you'd have to be a moron to not know about the tsunami and the devastation it wrought but... why would they craft the article like that?

Jarvik7 Wrote:More like America nuked Japan twice to scare the Russians, but that thread has already been done >

Yea my bad, we can do that thread every August until eternity.

I think I'm gonna take some good advice and start tuning into Al Jazeera from now on

Al Jazeera is reporting the exact same thing as the western media, for example the BBC - it's just a large news agency. They aren't some pure journalistic force for good in the world.

By far the best thing you can do is read a broad spectrum of news sources and draw your own conclusions, rather than relying heavily on any one source.

@LazyNomad there's no point in trying to stir up panic, even if you yourself are scared. The most sensible thing for people to do in any crisis is to calmly evaluate the situation. If you do this, you'll realise that there is a tiny, tiny risk to anyone even in the worst case.

For a start, even if this was equivalent to Chernobyl in the amount of radioactive products released into the atmosphere, the actual damaging effects would be tiny. After chernobyl the only real discernible health effect (apart from the deaths of the reactor staff in the explosion) was a slight increase in thyroid cancer occurrence related to iodine-131 exposure, and this only happened to some people who were young at the time. Other unconfirmed effects like birth defects were tiny in number. If the Soviet authorities had given people iodine tablets, as the Japanese have, there would have been no negative health effects.

In the worst case scenario, this event leads to atmospheric release of radiation at a much lower level than Chernobyl. Then the radioactive products are dispersed by wind and at most land on some nearby areas of Japan. The dispersal will be so great, and the preparedness and precautions of the Japanese government have already been vastly superior to those of the Soviets, that there will be no negative long term health effects for Japanese residents.

It's nice to see that most people on this forum are taking a sensible view. Don't panic about the nuclear incident, don't get scared about radiation, do try to help the real sufferers who are the people displaced by the tsunami.

Quote:For a start, even if this was equivalent to Chernobyl in the amount of radioactive products released into the atmosphere, the actual damaging effects would be tiny. After chernobyl the only real discernible health effect (apart from the deaths of the reactor staff in the explosion) was a slight increase in thyroid cancer occurrence related to iodine-131 exposure, and this only happened to some people who were young at the time. Other unconfirmed effects like birth defects were tiny in number. If the Soviet authorities had given people iodine tablets, as the Japanese have, there would have been no negative health effects.

Chernobyl had serious consequences. There's still a 30 km exclusion zone 25 years later. 300 000 people were resettled. And wildlife living there is still affected by the radiation. Despite reports of a wildlife haven, not everything is so great for the animals living there:

[url=Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven'
]http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6946210.stm[/url]

The French, Norwegian, Russian embassies seem to be taking a more pessimistic view. In contrast, the Canadian and US embassies' views are more in line with the following report regarding risks to Tokyo residents by Paul Atkinson posted on Facebook on March 15, 2011:

Quote:I have just returned from a conference call held at the British Embassy in Tokyo. The call was concerning the nuclear issue in Japan. The chief spokesman was Sir. John Beddington, Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government, and he was joined by a number of qualified nuclear experts based in the UK. Their assessment of the current situation in Japan is as follows:

* In case of a ‘reasonable worst case scenario’ (defined as total meltdown of one reactor with subsequent radioactive explosion) an exclusion zone of 30 miles (50km) would be the maximum required to avoid affecting peoples’ health. Even in a worse situation (loss of two or more reactors) it is unlikely that the damage would be significantly more than that caused by the loss of a single reactor.

* The current 20km exclusion zone is appropriate for the levels of radiation/risk currently experienced, and if the pouring of sea water can be maintained to cool the reactors, the likelihood of a major incident should be avoided. A further large quake with tsunami could lead to the suspension of the current cooling operations, leading to the above scenario.

* The bottom line is that these experts do not see there being a possibility of a health problem for residents in Tokyo. The radiation levels would need to be hundreds of times higher than current to cause the possibility for health issues, and that, in their opinion, is not going to happen (they were talking minimum levels affecting pregnant women and children – for normal adults the levels would need to be much higher still).

* The experts do not consider the wind direction to be material. They say Tokyo is too far away to be materially affected.

* If the pouring of water can be maintained the situation should be much improved after ten days, as the reactors’ cores cool down.

* Information being provided by Japanese authorities is being independently monitored by a number of organizations and is deemed to be accurate, as far as measures of radioactivity levels are concerned.

* This is a very different situation from Chernobyl, where the reactor went into meltdown and the encasement, which exploded, was left to burn for weeks without any control. Even with Chernobyl, an exclusion zone of 30 miles would have been adequate to protect human health. The problem was that most people became sick from eating contaminated food, crops, milk and water in the region for years afterward, as no attempt was made to measure radioactivity levels in the food supply at that time or warn people of the dangers. The secrecy over the Chernobyl explosion is in contrast to the very public coverage of the Fukushima crisis.

Quote:* Regarding Iodine supplementation, the experts said this was only necessary for those who had inhaled quantities of radiation (those in the exclusion zone or workers on the site) or through consumption of contaminated food/water supplies. Long term consumption of iodine is, in any case, not healthy.

The discussion was surprisingly frank and to the point. The conclusion of the experts is that the damage caused by the earthquake and tsunami, as well as the subsequent aftershocks, was much more of an issue than the fear of radiation sickness from the nuclear plants.

Also, the BBC reported: "At a news briefing with experts in London on Tuesday, the question was raised as to whether the incident should be upgraded from a four on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES). INES four is defined as "accident with local consequences", five as "accident with wider consequences". All the experts said that so far, four was the most apt category."

Let's keep hoping for Fukushima residents that the worst case scenario won't occur and that the workers can somehow minimize their exposure.

The most ridiculous headline so far:

Mass Exodus from Tokyo

http://www.japanprobe.com/2011/03/16/no-...o/#respond

Eikyu Wrote:The most ridiculous headline so far:

Mass Exodus from Tokyo

http://www.japanprobe.com/2011/03/16/no-...o/#respond

Same title in one of the major Polish "news" portals with exactly the same picture of a baby... Its ironic since just this morning I've seen the movie ActiveAero has put on YT

Also I don't know if anyone posted this or seen this live:

Its just incredible how well organized this is: first automatic message system, then live announcement still from the parliament but once they notice its going on for too long they cut to the studio to follow events that occur live. It actually gets scary when you notice even the studio has problems and is shaking really bad, shouts of the off screen guy also add to the tension. Then its instant information about arriving tsunamis with a timetable (apparently in Japan even tsunami is always on time).

And it all happens in around 4 minutes!!!

That's really professional! Thanks for the link.

The American embassy just decided this early morning to suggest that any Americans remaining in an 80km radius of the Fukushima 1 plant get out of the area. If you can't leave for some reason, they suggest you don't go outside.

http://japan.usembassy.gov/e/p/tp-20110317-01.html

thurd Wrote:Also I don't know if anyone posted this or seen this live:

Its just incredible how well organized this is: first automatic message system, then live announcement still from the parliament but once they notice its going on for too long they cut to the studio to follow events that occur live. It actually gets scary when you notice even the studio has problems and is shaking really bad, shouts of the off screen guy also add to the tension. Then its instant information about arriving tsunamis with a timetable (apparently in Japan even tsunami is always on time).

And it all happens in around 4 minutes!!!

This shows that video side by side with 5 other stations at the same time, for comparison:

On a side note, I've grown quite fond of multi-video feeds.

It's sad to see how slow the private channels reacted. I wonder how many lives were lost because of this.

Japan Ministry of Education Now Reports Radiation Level Across Japan

Japan Prime Minister’s Office Begins English Twitter, To Inform Disaster Information

Posted this in the evacuation thread too, but I think it's useful.
Radiation levels in Japan by prefecture:
http://notice.yahoo.co.jp/emg/en/archives/np_jp.html

nest0r Wrote:Japan Prime Minister’s Office Begins English Twitter, To Inform Disaster Information

That sounds a good idea, I hope it helps get clearer information out to the English media. I've found things really confusing to follow today, and the BBC hasn't helped - again. I don't blame 枝野さん for making a few mistakes, he's been doing this for days and I'm sure he can't have been getting much rest (I've been really impressed by his efforts throughout this - can we trade one, no, several of our politicians for him?), but I do blame the BBC for not picking up on it sooner.

I was interested to see the message from the Emperor today, too, I had wondered if Japan's Royal family would give a message for the people.

I found these links on a conspiracy theory webpage. The forum attendees didn't seem to understand the numbers, but I will give it here in case it helps anyone better understand what's going on. As far as I can see, these are the live feeds of radiation levels around japan:

Various monitoring stations:
http://www.bousai.ne.jp/vis/index.php

Various gates around Fukushima 1:
http://www.tohoku-epco.co.jp/electr/gens...wa/mp.html

edit:
Units are in nGy/hr, which is nanoGray/hour. From my understanding, you can say this roughly equals 0.001 microSv/hr

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12766930

It sounds so scary.

In other news, lol...

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/new...&ATTR=News

Ｒｅａｌｌｙ？

＊ｓｉｇｈ＊

Wait... is that a real newspaper, or just another version of the Onion? o_O

Watching NHK... it was inevitable. They've already made small toy models of the reactor buildings, down to all the melted bits to try to explain what's going on. (As they usually do.)

EDIT: The toilet labs people have posted info on how to deal with emergency toilet facilities, should you need to deal with the necessaries if things go out of round in your area. (Or civilization just crumbles all around you.)

http://www.toilet.or.jp

Might want to go easy on their site for now. It's a little slow.

dizmox Wrote:In other news, lol...

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/new...&ATTR=News

Either this is a joke or that lady should calm down a bit. If it's real ... I used to live in Nerima a year ago ... it's always empty at night with very few ever walking around all the time. It's because the population in Nerima is very spread out. This story is laughably self contradictory too. I love it.

In other news, my girlfriend tried tried to get a minor vacation from work so we could go to her home town Nagasaki for a little while on vacation. They said, if she didn't come in to work tomorrow, she shouldn't come back ...

Me on the other hand am a grad student and have been given permission to do work from home (or anywhere I guess). Also, I received a hilarious email today about a planned presentation rehearsal tomorrow at work. I thought it was kinda funny, so I'll give you the gist:
--
Two of the Three planned presentations have been canceled. One is in America, so only one rehearsal will be given tomorrow. Here is the schedule:
1. If the professors and the presenter show up by 11, it will start shortly afterward.
2. If all students and the presenter show up by 11, it will start at 11.
3. If the presenter doesn't show up until the afternoon, it will be rescheduled to the afternoon.
4. If the presenter doesn't show up at all, the rehearsal is canceled.
None of you are obligated to come. Please keep safe.
--
I enjoyed that email

rich_f Wrote:Wait... is that a real newspaper, or just another version of the Onion? o_O

I'm afraid to say The Sun is, at least theoretically, a real newspaper. Although this is highly debatable.

Ok, I'm not in Tokyo. I haven't been to Nerima. I can't verify that she's not telling the truth, but I still don't believe a word of it, and it still makes me mad. The Japanese people really don't need this kind of 'journalism' at such a difficult time.
She doesn't want to see her country again? As a British person myself, that's just fine by me. Urgh. Some people will do anything for attention.