

Japan suspends work at stricken nuclear plant - Element_
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hr2sPhUE6ja0EMclJeUeGSQAON-g?docId=7e3dd7128b804f5d965554ff69375e76

======
mrshoe
I'm having a hard time reconciling patio11's article with more recent reports
of people walking 60km to get home, all food being gone from all stores,
people living in Apple stores, and the government ordering a 30km evacuation
zone around nuclear power plants.

Maybe his point was "it could have been a lot worse", but I read it more like
"everything went as planned and life went on without missing more than a few
beats". The latter certainly doesn't seem to be the case.

~~~
patio11
Outside of the immediate disaster zones, I think "everything went as planned
and life went on without missing more than a few beats" is substantially
accurate. The context for my post was originally I got literally in excess of
a hundred people who _thought I might be dead_ trying to reach me because of
the reporting, despite me being several hundred miles away. I have been
talking to news reporters the last few days (whose Rolodex of English-speaking
Japanese people is apparently non-existent, so I'm the next best thing) and
its like we're living on two different planets: "Can you comment on the food
shortages you're experiencing in Fugu?" "Fugu is a poisonous fish. I live in
Gifu. There is _no food shortage_ here. I just got a pizza delivered despite
there being an earthquake in the middle of the delivery." "I thought the quake
was days ago?" "Not that earthquake, the Shizuoka earthquake, at 10:30 PM last
night." "Shizuoka... is that by the nuclear power plants??" I nearly exploded.
Halfway between Tokyo and Nagoya, cut off power to a lot of people, and would
have been virtually unremarkable except that it happened this week.

This is a disaster localized to a small portion of a big country. That was
certainly _not a given_ : Tokyo could be burning right now, and the situation
at the nuclear plant which _literally had a tsunami hit it_ could be the
situation at every nuclear and chemical plant in the country. (Or the plant
could have suffered immediate, catastrophic failure, rather than immediate
work-as-designed followed by a deterioration which gave us enough time to
evacuate everyone.

Food distribution and trains got a hiccup in Tokyo -- they're now operating
normally. (They're decidedly not normal in the towns destroyed in Miyagi,
obviously. 500,000 people were displaced at least temporarily.)

People do not live in Apple stores. They stayed there _one night_ while
waiting for train service to be restored. If you're worried about displaced
folks, look to the evacuation sites like e.g. schools in Miyagi, which is
where folks who don't have a home to go back to are staying temporarily.

~~~
cookiecaper
My impression is simply that people don't know Japanese geography, which isn't
all together too surprising. There's no reason a person should know the
geography of Japan any better than the geography of Uzbekistan if he or she
doesn't have a specific tie to either country. They just hear "earthquake in
Japan" and ask the people who live in Japan if they're doing alright.

My brother lives in Auckland. We had a lot of people asking if he was OK after
the quake in Christchurch. They are ~700 miles away on different islands, so
he wasn't affected at all by the quake there, but we patiently explained this.
It seems silly to get so haughty when people are expressing genuine concern
for your well-being.

~~~
jrockway
_There's no reason a person should know the geography of Japan any better than
the geography of Uzbekistan if he or she doesn't have a specific tie to either
country._

I'm going to agree here. I went to high school in Tokyo and I hadn't heard of
Gifu until patio11 mentioned it. This is not really a problem due to the
availability of these things called "maps", however.

~~~
josephcooney
This is not really a problem due to the availability of these things called
"maps", however.

And the availability of this thing called 'the periodic table' means everyone
knows and understands basic chemistry.

~~~
pyre
The periodic table explains more complex relationships than: "how far apart
things are" or "where they are in relation to one another." Basic concepts
such as distance and relative orientation are things that (should) come as a
basic understanding to even people with no formal education; therefore once
one is introduced to maps, those concepts are (or should be) very easy to
grasp. The relationships and orientation of elements on the periodic table are
much more complex and cover much less 'intuitive' topics.

------
pessimist
Headline is false (possibly mistranslation).

According to [http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/latest-
updates-o...](http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/latest-updates-on-
japans-nuclear-crisis-and-earthquake-aftermath-2/):

11:13 P.M. (EST) Core Group of Workers Remain at Plant The Times’s Hiroko
Tabuchi reports that a small group of workers remains at the Fukushima Daiichi
plant, contrary to what an English translation of the chief cabinet
secretary’s remarks had implied.

Edit: <http://live.reuters.com/Event/Japan_earthquake2> is also reporting that
workers are (back) in. Also NHK is clearly reporting that the chief secretary
misspoke radiation levels and used milli instead of micro.

~~~
jedsmith
I waited a while to get a feel from multiple media outlets before replying to
you, and CNN aired the video of the remarks in question in that time...based
upon waiting, it would appear that the headline is in fact true. BBC, AP, and
CNN have all reported that operations have been suspended due to high
radiation levels, as high as 1,000 mSv at their peak, which is enough to
justify complete evacuation as I understand it. The last report of radiation
levels was 600-800 mSv.

Edano's translator on the tape said (loosely, I typed quickly): "All the
workers there have suspended operations there. Even the minimum ones. So we
have evacuated them in a safe area."

The _even the minimum ones_ is interesting. Edano himself promised more
details on the suspension later, which is worrying in itself.

Edit: Video of Edano's remarks here: <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-
pacific-12755739>

~~~
pero
That was 600-800 _uSv_.

~~~
jedsmith
Watch the video. He specifically said milli-Sievert.

~~~
pero
And then he was corrected by the dude in the white lab coat.

I however heard micro on my translation and was a little bit confused during
the correcting.

~~~
jedsmith
It might be where they're measuring. He went on to indicate that at the gate,
the measurements had just reached the milli- level; perhaps the exorbitantly
high figure is very close to the core?

~~~
pero
I think the figures that were thrown around in that press conference--either
by Edano or 'white lab jacket guy'--varied by location however the translator
had my head spinning and I couldn't deduce what's what.

I'm pretty certain that anytime "600 to 800" was mentioned, it was supposed to
be in uSv, and that those measurements were taken at the plant's gates.

~~~
jedsmith
Fair enough. Will be good to see a correction, then (like that'll happen) --
most of the big names in the media have already run with milli-.

Takeaway for me from this: units for radiation exposure suck, and don't
communicate well to the lay.

~~~
pero
I'm willing to bet they will repeat that news conference on the hour (one
minute) on NHK:

<http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nhk-world-tv>

EDIT: They indeed did so, but shortened and dumbed it down with only 2 figures
being provided by 'WLJG'--2.3 and 6.4 mSv 'near the plant', with the latter
being the peak at the time of 'leak.'

~~~
ramchip
There's no point endlessly debating the numbers since Tepco releases them in
full:

<http://www.tepco.co.jp/tepconews/index-j.html>

Here are the latest ones for Fukushima-daiichi:

<http://www.tepco.co.jp/cc/press/betu11_j/images/110316c.pdf>

The columns are, in order, date, time, location (often 正門, the main gate),
gamma rays, neutron radiation, wind direction, wind speed. The latest peak
seems to be 10.85 mSv/hr at 12:30PM on the 16th, down to 2.5 mSv/hr less than
one hour later.

------
jedsmith
Nikkei and CNN both reported that 50 employees stayed behind out of 800, with
CNN quoting someone as saying that they should be considered heroes for doing
so (couldn't agree more). If you click CNN's "breaking" on this topic, the
article actually still says that. This is certainly a much more serious
development.

Edit: Anderson Cooper called this "hard to believe" on-air, and he's being
careful about how to word it.

Edit 2: BBC just finished a writethru with more details on the full suspension
(thanks paul): <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12755739>

~~~
hop
That was yesterdays news. Those ~50 remaining all evacuated apparently.

Also, the Wikipedia "Timeline of Fukushima nuclear accidents" has been
reliable for the latest updates -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Fukushima_nucle...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Fukushima_nuclear_accidents)

~~~
redthrowaway
As a total aside, I find it interesting that Wikipedia, which 5 years ago
would never be considered a reliable source for a developing event such as
this, is now (rightly) considered a good place to go to for up to the hour
information.

~~~
InclinedPlane
I've found wikipedia to be an excellent source of news on current events.

One of the problems with most "regular" news reporting is that it's very
context sensitive. It's a tiny diff of info that assumes that you have already
applied all of the previous diffs. If you want to understand a situation well
this process can be infuriating. Wikipedia however actually distills down all
the info into a complete and coherent whole making it a far more useful
overall source of information.

However, there are some caveats. Wikipedia isn't well optimized for breaking
news, so the hiccups in the process can cause more problems there than for
other articles. Case in point, the wiki article for the Sendai quake/tsunami
had very early on listed the number of casualties at an astonishing 6 million.

~~~
redthrowaway
"Case in point, the wiki article for the Sendai quake/tsunami had very early
on listed the number of casualties at an astonishing 6 million."

I imagine that was fixed pretty quickly. Things like that tend not to last
very long.

~~~
InclinedPlane
It was only that way for a few hours, but the magnitude of the inaccuracy is
important to keep in mind. No matter how good wikipedia gets it's always
important to use critical reasoning to make sure what you're reading is
actually reliable information.

------
hartror
False attention grabbing title.

They have _not_ abandoned it, they said in the press conference just passed
that they had suspended operations due to a radiation peak but they expected
to resume again without much delay.

Edit: The workers have returned <http://roound.com/redalert>

~~~
jedsmith
The entire article didn't mention any kind of expectation for resuming
operations, and you are doubting the Associated Press here, not Gizmodo. Can
you cite the rest? So far, I can only find this AP story.

~~~
msbarnett
It was just announced in a press conference that I caught live on NHK that
they were planning on resuming operations shortly.

The AP article seems to have been written prior to this conference.

~~~
hartror
Which is exactly what I refered to in my post. _sigh_

~~~
afterburner
I think everyone (including myself) was reacting to your claim it was a false
attention grabbing title. Regardless of that, looks like broken telephone,
best source might be to watch NHK broadcasts directly as you did (CNN seems to
be translating it live?). The HTML-news sources didn't note the further detail
then, maybe they have now.

EDIT: Ah, NHK is providing the translation and stream.
<http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nhk-world-tv>

EDIT 2: Apparently they've been ordered back now. <http://roound.com/redalert>

EDIT 3: Or not, no-one else is confirming.

~~~
hartror
"2:53 PM - Workers ordered to leave the Fukushima plant have been allowed back
after radiation levels fell, the Japan nuclear agency said.

Pumping of seawater at reactors at No. 1, 2 and 3 was proceeding smoothly, it
said.

(Reuters)"

[http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/japan-
quake-2011/#entry-6a...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/japan-
quake-2011/#entry-6a00e0097e4e688833014e86bd94f8970d)

------
pero
They earlier raised the legal radiation limit that workers can be exposed to
from 100mSv to 250mSv.

Readings _at the gates_ were 800uSv 30 or so minutes ago when the suspension
was announced.

~~~
webXL
Don't you mean 800μSv - _micro_ sieverts?

Seems to me like they have a long way to go until 100mSv - _milli_ sieverts

~~~
pero
No, I don't think so. Whatever sources I got that from had it as milli. I
triple checked.

------
Element_
World Nuclear News has posted an update regarding recent developments to their
site: [http://www.world-nuclear-
news.org/RS_Second_fire_reported_at...](http://www.world-nuclear-
news.org/RS_Second_fire_reported_at_unit_4_1603111.html)

Sounds like reactor #3 may have suffered damage similar to #2 causing the
increase in radiation.

------
thesystemis
the ny times has a pretty amazing article now about the 50 remaining workers
trying to avert nuclear disaster in Japan. apparently they are back at work
now after radiation levels dropped:

<http://t.co/7H>

also, reuters has a very good real time blog, I think it's best source of up
to date, level headed info. They curate commentary from other into their
stream, and have experts, such as nuclear expert do live Q and A in the
stream.

<http://live.reuters.com/Event/Japan_earthquake2>

------
afterburner
Apparently they've been ordered back 2 minutes ago.

<http://roound.com/redalert>

~~~
ay
This link that you posted seems to be sending a lot of misinformation, though
the "return to work" part is correct. Radiation levels in Tokyo are near-
normal as far as I can see on the online counters.

I'm collecting the factual links that do not contain the hysteria, on a post
on my blog. No, there is no adsense on that blog.

[http://bnpcs.blogspot.com/2011/03/links-about-situation-
in-j...](http://bnpcs.blogspot.com/2011/03/links-about-situation-in-
japan.html)

~~~
afterburner
It's quite possible, I have no idea who's updating it, and NHK TV isn't
confirming it (yet?).

~~~
ay
180 workers onsite now, according to YokosoNews folks translating the TBS.

------
w1ntermute
(Sorry in advance if this is a stupid question or I didn't pick up on a major
point) Can anyone explain how they're going to stop whatever is going wrong
without any workers there?

~~~
wtn
I've read news reports that they were thinking about helicopter drops of water
and/or boric acid.

~~~
jacquesgt
They've rejected helicopter drops because the targets aren't close enough to
the holes in the reactor building roofs.

[http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/15/japan.nuclear.re...](http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/15/japan.nuclear.reactors/index.html?hpt=T1&iref=BN1)

------
redthrowaway
FYI, the article is false. It was based on a translation error. A core group
of workers is still at the plant working to cool the cores.

Source:

[http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/latest-
updates-o...](http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/latest-updates-on-
japans-nuclear-crisis-and-earthquake-aftermath-2/)

------
soamv
A reporter for the NYT in Japan says the workers aren't leaving --
<http://twitter.com/#!/HirokoTabuchi/status/47882019102928896>

~~~
icarus_drowning
More importantly, she claims that a "core team" _didn't leave_. There's a lot
of contradictory and confusing information on the situation right now.

------
faramarz
In times like these heroes are born. I wouldn't be surprised if some workers
stay behind or break protocol to do whatever it takes.

------
friendstock
Question: why don't the US military forces get involved in the rescue effort
at Fukushima? Is it because the Japanese government does not want the US to
get involved due to political considerations, or because there's not much the
US forces could do to help at this point?

------
radicaldreamer
This is worrying (unless it's to conserve bandwidth so the video can be
rebroadcast via mirrors): "TEPCO has removed public access to a webcam showing
the Fukoshima reactors. Now a password is needed in order to observe the
complex."

------
ck2
So just out of curiosity, does GE have any liability since they built all
those reactors?

Or does "earthquake" get them out of any responsibility?

Any GE Mark I's on the west coast on the USA?

~~~
jrockway
The reactors didn't fail; the site did. If the backup generators and power
grid didn't fail, there wouldn't have been any issue. It's well known that you
can't just unplug a nuclear power plant and have it shut down safely.

------
guelo
What the Russians did at Chernobyl was they asked the army for volunteers
fully informing the soldiers that it could be a suicide mission. They ended up
getting more volunteers than they needed.

~~~
hartror
Really? I've seen a couple of docos where the firefighters and such said they
had no idea what they were getting themselves into . . .

~~~
orblivion
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbCcutzXzYg>

I was just in the middle of this. I'm at about 4 minutes, and the people have
gas masks around their necks that they're not even bothering to use. Seems
like they're oblivious.

------
bluedanieru
Just in case anyone is wondering, levels of radiation in Shinjuku, Tokyo, have
remained at about 0.05µSv/hr for the day, tapering off from 0.1µSv/hr for a
few hours very early this morning (before the evacuation from Dai-Ichi).
Equivalent to about one chest x-ray each month. Normally the amount in Tokyo
is 0.035µSv/hr.

------
stofu
Instead of committing Seppuku the responsible executives should form a bucket
brigade ...

