Tohoku Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Disaster!!!

[Yokohammer]

Hammer, I do need to look into the local situation further. As you say, the news article was sparse. Certainly the issue enflames passions when it hits close to home. Some caution and clarity would do me good. I'll try and refrain from any more commentary on this particular local story until I know more. I do appreciate your manner and form in debate.

All good Mike. We have a situation that pretty much demands discussion and debate. It's great that there are people like yourself who are willing and able to engage without having a meltdown (see what I did there?).

Much appreciated.

[Yokohammer]

If it's worth anything Hammer, I'm with you 100% on this. I am really worried that even though we were badly affected by the earthquake and tsunami, and things still haven't been repaired or even a concrete plan presented, we are going to become pariahs within Japan. Even though we are much further away from Fukushima than most of those living in Tokyo, as soon as you mention Tohoku, red flags go up.
A friend of mine is in the apple business and they have already had cancellations for this coming year from different parts of Japan. Even though they have independent testing done, people don't trust them, which is a real shame. This seems to be the fourth disaster to hit the Tohoku region!

Yup. What you're saying here scares me more than the radiation.

Social meltdown. (Whoops ... I did it again ... )

[Coligny]

[Yokohammer]

There is an additionnal problem...
Few days ago, there was from the same fukushima diary an article aboot high level of radiation in tokyo station on the tokaido shinkansen plateform. Blaming it on the passengers coming from Tohoku. Classifying the station as a hotspot...

I wuz at this same place around the same times... with an ukrainian made terra counter in gamma mode (because the beta mode is a pita to deploy) and a gamma scout in beta+gamma mode (but i use it much less because it look like a star trek prop have no vibrator and the beeper never agreed to work for me) and the readings like all the others done in Tokyo were at normal background level around 0.08 micro sievert per hour (*) same as here...
well except at my desk... where I never get less than 0.16 microsievert per hour... sometime up to 0.32 trigerring the alarm... Am pretty sur I have some cfl ready to die on me soon...

So for me... Fukushima diary is no longer on the reliable sources list...

(*) do I put plural form when the number is below 1 in the unit concerned ?

What impresses me most abut this comment is that ... you had two geiger counters with you?! Fuck it ... I'm turning in my geek license.

But yeah, the Fukushi Diary guy seems to have an agenda that doesn't involve reporting facts in an unbiased manner.

The 0.16 µSv/h you're getting at home is pretty normal, but I'd be interested to know why you get readings as high as 0.32 µSv/h. It could just be the concrete, which is known to be a source (although as you know the legal limit in the Ukraine, where your Terra is from, is 0.3 ... which is why that's the default alarm setting on that device), but there could be some ex-hospital issue as well. Have you tried to locate your domestic hot spot?

* microsievert or microsieverts ... good question. The plural form seems to be common, but I think the singular form is correct in that case. If it was exactly one you wouldn't say "1 microsieverts".

[matsuki]

A friend of mine is in the apple business and they have already had cancellations for this coming year from different parts of Japan. Even though they have independent testing done, people don't trust them, which is a real shame. This seems to be the fourth disaster to hit the Tohoku region!

We can thank the J-gov/J-companies for this...seems even with transparency of honest people there, the deception and mishandling of these disasters and problems along with the usual hype is working against them.

[FG Lurker]

I haven't followed this thread for the past 150 pages or so, it was getting pretty crazy for a while. Not sure that has really changed but I guess I'll wade back in anyway.

My wife (Japanese) does all the food buying for the house. She refuses to buy food from anywhere east of Kansai, and the further west she can go the happier she is. She's pretty much stopped buying processed foods unless she can be quite certain where the ingredients come from which is pretty rare. She makes yogurt for herself and our daughter using an "easiyo" as the base powder is imported and it uses water instead of milk. (Milk can be mixed from various regions and still labeled as being from one place.)

She's not crazy or paranoid, she just no longer trusts the Japanese government and she is well aware that the Japanese media is kept under the government's thumb to varying degrees about varying subjects. While I feel some of her actions are a bit over the top I can't really blame her for the lack of trust in the j-gov't.

[matsuki]

I can't really blame her for the lack of trust in the j-gov't.

THIS is what I'm trying to say...

[twww]

Greenpeace climbers scale Mt Fuji to call for nuclear-free Japan

Messages of Hope From Mount Fuji

Greenpeace activists send a messages of hope beside Lake Kawaguchiko, in the shadow of Mt Fuji, and deliver messages of support for the victims of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster to the summit of Mt Fuji, Japan.

[Samurai_Jerk]

(*) do I put plural form when the number is below 1 in the unit concerned ?

Plural is correct.

[Coligny]

Greenpeace climbers scale Mt Fuji to call for nuclear-free Japan

Messages of Hope From Mount Fuji

Where is their ship anchored at ?

just askin...

[Mike Oxlong]

Scientists: Far more cesium released than previously believed

A mind-boggling 40,000 trillion becquerels of radioactive cesium, or twice the amount previously thought, may have spewed from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant after the March 11 disaster, scientists say.

Michio Aoyama, a senior researcher at the Meteorological Research Institute, released the finding at a scientific symposium in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, on Feb. 28.

The figure, which represents about 20 percent of the discharge during the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, is twice as large as previous estimates by research institutions both in Japan and overseas.

It was calculated on the basis of radioactive content of seawater sampled at 79 locations in the north Pacific and is thought to more accurately reflect reality than previous simulation results.

Scientists believe that around 30 percent of the radioactive substances discharged during the crisis ended up on land, while the rest fell on the sea.

This makes it especially difficult to accurately evaluate the total amount of radioactive materials released. Thus, seaborne data is essential to the process...

[Russell]

Where is their ship anchored at ?

just askin...

Well, at Mount Fuji, of course!!!



Ancient technology.

[Coligny]

Well, at Mount Fuji, of course!!!



Ancient technology.

Frack... our guys will have a day in hell with their diving suits trying to sink that boat...

[Mike Oxlong]

...from what I can read of the source article (it's a fuzzy photo of a newspaper article) they're talking about tsunami debris from Miyagi and Iwate. Said debris is presenting a serious problem, not because it's radioactive, but because there's so fucking much of it. There are mountains of tsunami debris up and down the coast that Tohoku really needs help with. Most of it isn't any more radioactive than anywhere else in the country...

As you move down the coast, getting into Fukushima, I'm sure you'd find some radioactive debris. But simply calling it all "radioactive debris" is a huge exaggeration that can only serve to create panic and reinforce the mistaken but unfortunately widespread belief that everything in Tohoku is a health threat...

I'd like to come back to this for a bit. The locals I have spoken to the last few days all seem to be under the impression that it will be radioactive debris, not simply disaster debris. But let's assume they are mistaken for argument's sake.

Okinawa is as far away as you can get from Tohoku and still be in Japan. It would be the most expensive place to ship debris. It is the smallest prefecture, with no rail system and a very stressed road network, yet all debris would have to go by road. There is already the problem of very limited landfill areas to dispose of waste that is produced locally, yet we should take outside waste. Local produce is more popular than ever outside of the prefecture, as people feel it is safe. Somehow I have strong doubts that that will be the case once the debris arrives. A very economically depressed area will suffer even more when the produce is viewed as no different from that much closer to the meltdown.

We are asked to share the burden, yet when Okinawa asks other parts of Japan to share the US military base burden, "not in my back yard" is the only reply. It's very difficult to see how this plan will have anything but a negative impact on the prefecture.

Then there's this, which makes sense...

Disaster Debris Wide-Area Processing: "What's the Point?" Asks a Mayor in Disaster-Affected Iwate Prefecture

[Coligny]

From a more practical standpoint...

They have tons of shit to burn...
They lost a major power plant...
If instead of talking and trying to pass the stick of shit to sumeone else they build a trash-fired powerplant they would be already making steam and electricity out of it... (once again... works for Paris...)

[Yokohammer]

I'd like to come back to this for a bit. The locals I have spoken to the last few days all seem to be under the impression that it will be radioactive debris, not simply disaster debris. But let's assume they are mistaken for argument's sake.

Okinawa is as far away as you can get from Tohoku and still be in Japan. It would be the most expensive place to ship debris. It is the smallest prefecture, with no rail system and a very stressed road network, yet all debris would have to go by road. There is already the problem of very limited landfill areas to dispose of waste that is produced locally, yet we should take outside waste. Local produce is more popular than ever outside of the prefecture, as people feel it is safe. Somehow I have strong doubts that that will be the case once the debris arrives. A very economically depressed area will suffer even more when the produce is viewed as no different from that much closer to the meltdown.

We are asked to share the burden, yet when Okinawa asks other parts of Japan to share the US military base burden, "not in my back yard" is the only reply. It's very difficult to see how this plan will have anything but a negative impact on the prefecture.

Then there's this, which makes sense...

Disaster Debris Wide-Area Processing: "What's the Point?" Asks a Mayor in Disaster-Affected Iwate Prefecture

I'm actually perfectly happy with this line of reasoning. If there are economic reasons for not doing it, that's fine. I also understand Okinawa's disgruntlement with the rest of the country's reluctance to share the base burden.

Both of those viewpoints make perfectly good sense to me. It's the perception that debris from Iwate is going to be radioactive and therefore should be refused that bothers me. I would like to see a clear copy of the article that started this discussion. I'm quite sure I saw Iwate and Miyagi mentioned in relation to the debris, in which case it's not going to radioactive. The problem I'm most concerned with is the social and economic damage that such beliefs cause (are already causing).

Here's some food for thought:

* The distance from Morioka, the main city of Iwate, to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is 254km.

* The distance from Hiraizumi in southern Iwate, recently listed as a world heritage site, to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is 197 km.

* The distance from the center of Tokyo to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is about 220 km.

So by applying "concentric circle logic" we can assume that anything coming from Tokyo should be just as radioactive as anything coming from Iwate. So far I haven't heard any reports of people refusing goods or services from Tokyo because they fear the radiation. Now why is that?

[Mike Oxlong]

Here's some food for thought:

* The distance from Morioka, the main city of Iwate, to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is 254km.

* The distance from Hiraizumi in southern Iwate, recently listed as a world heritage site, to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is 197 km.

* The distance from the center of Tokyo to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is about 220 km.

So by applying "concentric circle logic" we can assume that anything coming from Tokyo should be just as radioactive as anything coming from Iwate. So far I haven't heard any reports of people refusing goods or services from Tokyo because they fear the radiation. Now why is that?

From the maps I've seen online, it appears wind and precipitation patterns have moved the radiation more in the direction of Tokyo than to the north. I certainly avoid goods from Saitama, Chiba, even tea from Shizuoka. A refugee from Chiba whose child attends school with mine does the same. It sounds like FGL's wife avoids anything east of Kansai from his last post in this topic. There may not have been any concerted efforts to refuse goods from Tokyo like what we saw with the firewood that was to be sent to Kyoto, but on an individual basis goods from Kanto appear to be treated with suspicion.

[Coligny]

Map of the initial dispersion:



Less precise but showing the wind movements:

* The distance from Morioka, the main city of Iwate, to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is 254km.

...

* The distance from Hiraizumi in southern Iwate, recently listed as a world heritage site, to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is 197 km.

and is a ˜˜˜hotter˜˜˜spot

* The distance from the center of Tokyo to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is about 220 km.

and the whole north/east part of Tokyo was a bit under the wrong winds too

but...

So by applying "concentric circle logic" we can assume that anything coming from Tokyo should be just as radioactive as anything coming from Iwate. So far I haven't heard any reports of people refusing goods or services from Tokyo because they fear the radiation. Now why is that?

the place have never been famous for their farming products...

[Russell]

Frack... our guys will have a day in hell with their diving suits trying to sink that boat...

Time to hire this guy:

[Yokohammer]

... and the whole north/east part of Tokyo was a bit under the wrong winds too

but...

the place have never been famous for their farming products...

Once again, just a perception.
Chiba ... lots of farming. There are even a number of prominent farming plots in Yokohama where I was previously. Lots of cabbage and hakusai. Plenty more farming to the west of Tokyo. There's farming all around the central cities.

So ... things aren't always what they seem to be. And it's the unthinking, knee-jerk reaction to scenarios that exist solely in people's imaginations that is precisely the problem I'm talking about. A housewife at the supermarket might turn up her nose at a cabbage or daikon from Iwate or Miyagi while happily buying one from Nerima.

It's not particularly difficult to find the facts and then put 2 and 2 together, it's just that most people couldn't give a fuck. As long as it's not their problem, or they believe it's not their problem, they'd rather just regurgitate whatever Mrs. Sato next door told them while they were hanging out the washing than actually think for themselves.

When it's individuals, there's not much you can do about it as MOx implies in his last post. But when it's groups, organizations, or corporate/government entities, it becomes harmful and frankly shameful. Individuals will follow the example of the larger group, and in this scenario the most representative group of all ... the government ... is doing a wholly inadequate job. Then when smaller local entities start making narrow-minded, bigoted decisions it just makes the situation worse. It'll tear the country apart.

[Coligny]

It's not particularly difficult to find the facts and then put 2 and 2 together, it's just that most people couldn't give a fuck. As long as it's not their problem, or they believe it's not their problem, they'd rather just regurgitate whatever Mrs. Sato next door told them while they were hanging out the washing than actually think for themselves.

When it's individuals, there's not much you can do about it as MOx implies in his last post. But when it's groups, organizations, or corporate/government entities, it becomes harmful and frankly shameful. Individuals will follow the example of the larger group, and in this scenario the most representative group of all ... the government ... is doing a wholly inadequate job. Then when smaller local entities start making narrow-minded, bigoted decisions it just makes the situation worse. It'll tear the country apart.

You do realize that all this speech could also have been applied toward the missmanagement of Daiichi pre accident. with bogus security checks, lack of upgrades when the knowledge of the seismicity of the place became better known and overall 'fuck you' attitude from Tepco.

So basically, you are blaming people who stop shopping north of Tokyo.

But what happen to all the years where people turned their back on the problem and had for excuse "Tepco told us it was safe".

[Yokohammer]

You do realize that all this speech could also have been applied toward the missmanagement of Daiichi pre accident. with bogus security checks, lack of upgrades when the knowledge of the seismicity of the place became better known and overall 'fuck you' attitude from Tepco.

So basically, you are blaming people who stop shopping north of Tokyo.

No I'm not.

The accident has happened. We're already living in a post-accident world, and the immediate priority is dealing with that world rather than arguing about what might have happened if so-and-so had handled such-and-such better or differently or with more integrity (leave that shit to the politicians). Those past-tense issues need to addressed for the sake of the future, but the present-tense problems are just as acute and in need of attention.

We're talking about people's current reactions to the situation. At least that's what I'm talking about. I'm beginning to get the impression that we're not talking about the same thing.

[2triky]

Japan's Post-Fukushima Earthquake Health Woes Go Beyond Radiation Effects
Heart disease and depression are likely to claim more lives than radiation after the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident, experts say

By Katherine Harmon | March 2, 2012

After the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami crippled Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, worry about the unfolding nuclear accident quickly commandeered international headlines. Even after the situation was brought under relative control over subsequent days and weeks, public concern hung on the threat of radiation almost more than it did than on the tsunami and earthquake themselves, which had killed more than 15,850 people and displaced at least 340,000 more.

A year out, public health experts agree that the radiation fears were overblown. Compared with the effects of the radiation exposure from Fukushima, "the number of expected fatalities are never going to be that large," says Thomas McKone, of the University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health.

And some, including Richard Garfield, a professor of Clinical and International Nursing at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, go a step further. "In terms of the health impact, the radiation is negligible," he says. "The radiation will cause very few, close to no deaths." But that does not mean that the accident has not already caused wide-reaching health issues. "The indirect effects are great," Garfield says.

Read more

[canman]

Coligny, I can't understand your attitude towards the people of Tohoku, and how you seem to want to blame them for many of the things that happened. Like it is their fault that TEPCO was hoisted on them by the politicians of the area, or that they should have risen up and done like what the left wing anarchists did with Narita airport before it opened, attack and try to destroy it. They are not to blame, but the way that these people and the area is being ostracized is really scary, and will have a much longer effect on the area than anything else that went on.
I am not saying people cannot be careful, but to completely shun an entire area without the proper information is careless in the least and dangerous at most.

[Coligny]

Japan's Post-Fukushima Earthquake Health Woes Go Beyond Radiation Effects


^^^^

Read like the Pravda of old time... For the aame reason it's too early to blame any thyroid abnormality on Fukushima it's too early to clear it from any blame...

[MrUltimateGaijin]

Like it is their fault that TEPCO was hoisted on them by the politicians of the area,

like Japanese people in general, they failed at democracy like no other country. They could have voted out those politicians but chose to not think for themselves. Even after the whole maintenance/upgrade matter came to light.

What happened after Tokaimura? Probably not much as far as democracy is concerned: it's easier to just go back to watching mindless variety shows and letting the LDP hold their hands through their lives.

The japanese people only have themselves to blame for Fukushima.

[FG Lurker]

I am not saying people cannot be careful, but to completely shun an entire area without the proper information is careless in the least and dangerous at most.

When the radioactive shit hit the fan at Fukushima I gave the Japanese government (and by extension TEPCO) the benefit of the doubt. I didn't believe they could really have been so insanely stupid as to play fast and loose with a nuclear power plant. Turns out I was wrong.

Now we have the same government telling us food grown in Tohoku is safe to eat. Fool me once...

[cstaylor]

I am not saying people cannot be careful, but to completely shun an entire area without the proper information is careless in the least and dangerous at most.

Considering the current cost of sampling for caesium and strontium in food, it would make better financial sense for Japan to write-off any of the areas implicated in SPEEDi's predicted high-risk areas. Just like they do with rice subsidies, subsidize the affected farmers not to grow anything until effective testing systems become affordable.

[cstaylor]

Turns out I was wrong.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to FG Lurker again.

[Coligny]

Considering the current cost of sampling for caesium and strontium in food, it would make better financial sense for Japan to write-off any of the areas implicated in SPEEDi's predicted high-risk areas. Just like they do with rice subsidies, subsidize the affected farmers not to grow anything until effective testing systems become affordable.

You're not a good politician...

If they write off all the local production they acknowledge the negative influence of Tepco's recklessness... and their guilt in "disturbing the peace"... opening the way for prosecution...

Meanwhile... random testing, even if some come back positive give the illusion of governement doing something while business can mostly continue as usual...


yay for state level denial...