We have to help evacuate people from Japan now.
New Zealand has to regognize them as nuclear refugees.

The supplied information is patchy to say the least, but it is not looking good:
Maddow Explains How Spent Nuclear Rods Could Be More Dangerous Than The Exploded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiXIODVlfXk

Shall we try to collect money to charter plane/s?
Please mail me (now@evacuate.asia) if you have any ideas on how to tackle this.

Nuclear crisis in Japan explained for kids:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sakN2hSVxA

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/18/fukushima_friday

Fukushima one week on: Situation 'stable', says IAEA
Shameful media panic very slowly begins to subside

"The Fukushima reactors actually came through the quake with flying colours despite the fact that it was five times stronger than they had been built to withstand. Only with the following tsunami – again, bigger than the design allowed for – did problems develop, and these problems seem likely to end in insignificant consequences. The Nos 1, 2 and 3 reactors at Daiichi may never produce power again – though this is not certain – but the likelihood is that Nos 4, 5 and 6 will return to service behind a bigger tsunami barrier.

"The lesson to learn here is that if your country is hit by a monster earthquake and tsunami, one of the safest places to be is at the local nuclear powerplant. Other Japanese nuclear powerplants in the quake-stricken area, in fact, are sheltering homeless refugees in their buildings – which are some of the few in the region left standing at all, let alone with heating, water and other amenities."


"As one who earns his living in the media these days, I can only apologise on behalf of my profession for the unbelievable levels of fear and misinformation purveyed this week. I have never been so ashamed to call myself a journalist."

It is not a good sign that the workers at the plant are cut off from family.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/8393018/Japan-nuclear-crisis-Fukushima-Fifty-cut-off-from-family.html
A Tepco official attempted to discourage The Sunday Telegraph from conducting interviews at the centre on Saturday.
It is understood that some of the Fifty themselves have been sleeping at the centre, but they appeared to have been moved out.

Japanese Leaders Leave People in the Dark
http://www.spiegel.de/international/wor ... 09,00.html

Japan’s TEPCO has a history of nuclear disaster cover-ups:
http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/A ... 2544.shtml

Fukushima: Situation improving all the time

Food, water samples OK, Hyper Rescue Super Pump in action
UK gov's top boffin says idea that Japan is concealing danger is 'completely paranoid'

http://go.reg.cx/news/1Nh8

I'm not totally sure either way, but The Register is usually a pretty good source of information.

Downplaying the crisis at this point in time is irresponsible.
This is likely to be the worst nuclear accident in human history.

Several reactors incl. storage pools plus a large storage pool are affected at only one plant.
But there were even more plants affected by the earthquake/tsunami than just one:
2011 Japanese nuclear accidents
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Japan ... _accidents

Smoke spews from 2 reactors at stricken Japanese nuclear plant
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiap ... index.html

Workers flee Japan nuclear plant as smoke rises
http://newsok.com/article/3550582

Kaieda sorry for reportedly 'forcing' firefighters to carry out water-spraying mission
http://www.japantoday.com/category/poli ... ng-mission

High radiation levels detected outside evacuation zone
http://www.news1130.com/news/world/arti ... ation-zone

WHO Concerned About Radiation Levels In Food Near Damaged Japanese Nuclear Plant
http://globalhealth.kff.org/Daily-Repor ... Japan.aspx

Traces of radioactive iodine found in tap water in Tokyo, other areas
http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/79673.html

Strategy of pumping in sea water is 'untested'
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/yb/156745182

Water used to cool Fukushima flowing back to sea – effects hard to predict
http://www.cnewsworld.com/world-news/wa ... o-predict/

radioactive Iodine found in sea water 126.7 times limit
http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-ne ... ntaminated

(It's the Pacific by the way.)

http://blog.xkcd.com/2011/03/19/radiation-chart/

whenever they say "x times the limit", i now automatically think "an amount so small they don't even bother comparing it to the (probably larger) normal background level"

EPA yearly release target (in USA) - 0.00003 Sv
Amount to "increase your risk of cancer" - 0.1Sv
Amount to get radiation sickness - 0.4Sv
highest radiation level recorded in japan (that i know about) - 0.0036 Sv/day

According to Air NZ CEO, even if all the reactors melt down completely and then blow up, tokyo is suffiecintly far away to be a perfectly adequate evacuation destination.

As irresponsible as playing it up and spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt (ie FUD)?



That's BS. This is nowhere near the scale of Chernobyl.



Other plants had to be shut down automatically, as is procedure when they get hit with an earthquake of a magnitude of 5 times worse than the reactor was designed to withstand. And yes, some of them had damage, but nothing that will cause any significant problems.



Yes, the smoke is from a hydrogen explosion that occurred outside of the third containment shield (that is designed to contain a full nuclear meltdown, by the way). The explosion was from gasses which ignited after being released from the reactor and is not indicative of damage to the reactor or the third containment shell itself.



Yes, there was an explosion so they evacuated until they could determine what the cause of the explosion was and what the extent of the damage from it was.



This is an article about a politician playing politics, nothing more.



Give me some facts. What high radiation levels? Is it higher than you would get from an X-Ray? Higher than you would be exposed to on an international plane flight? Without hard numbers this article is just more fear-mongering.



Ahh, yep, you've found an article with some hard numbers, so let's strip those numbers away from all the other fear-mongering in the article and this is what it says:





Yep, let's see what that article says:





More fear-mongering. yes the strategy is "un-tested" but it is very well known what the consequences of using sea water is vs using the distilled water that the reactor is normally cooled with (and which they do not have any left to pump into the ractor at this point). Basically put, The sea water has particulates in it (impuraties) that will become radioactive, but will also remain in the reactor core. When this is all done they will have to go in and do a cleanup on the reactor and remove these particulates to a facility where they will be dealt with the same way any other nuclear waste is treated. This is not ideal, but is a far cry better than the alternative of leaving the reactor uncooled and allowing it to go into a full melt down.



Now I know this is bullshit. The water being dumped on the reactor is filling up a sealed resevoir and the only way it is escaping is by being boiled off by the hot fuel rods. It is escaping from steam and certainly not flowing back to sea.



Still not an amount to significantly affect health in the area, and it will dissipate over time, so just stay out of the water until then. This article is also full of more fear mongering, like quoting the entire death toll of the earthquake and tsunamis (18,000) and implying that this is due to the nuclear problems.

Ok, and now for some other articles to read:
http://morgsatlarge.wordpress.com/2011/ ... -reactors/
http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... shima-core
http://xkcd.com/radiation/

Yeah, right! Whatever you say ...

The threat of several nuclear meltdowns is still real.
Several reactors and several storage pools are still out of control.
As a precautionary measure at least children and pregnant women should be evacuated.
There won't be enough time if a meltdown should be confirmed.

There will never be an immediate health risk from radiation unless you are very close to the nuclear reaction.
There will hardly be thousands of people immediately dropping dead due to this crisis situation.
All the long-term health effects of the radiation will eventually emerge over a longer period of time.
But I believe I can rest assured that all people discouraging a wider evacuation will volunteer for the rest of their lives to care for all additional radiation victims that could have been saved by a timely evacuation.
Thank you for that but I still rather offer my home to nuclear refugees until everything is under control and there is an honest all clear signal from independent sources.

Radiation covers 8pc of Japan

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-22/japan-land-contaminated-by-radiation/3686324