Fukushima Nuclear Panic

A lot of people have been asking me how I’m doing, what my plans are and what is happening in Japan. This is a fairly complicated situation not only because of the actual Japan event but in choosing what to do next and seeing how others have handled it.

Overall the situation at the Fukushima nuclear plant is not going well but from what I understand it is not as bad as it sounds. I’ve been getting my information from the western media and the Japanese media. Although both are trying to be objective there are alternative interests at heart.

The overall trend from the Japanese media has been to display the information on what is happening in an objective view. It is most likely that they are censoring some information to avoid panic but overall they are trying to say that the situation is not that bad and that precautions are being taken. The Japanese have tried their best to cool the reactors by pumping sea water that will keep the temperature down but the continuous earthquakes in the areas and the failure of the equipment has escalated the event. Overall, they are succeeding in lowering the temperature of the reactors but it's taking longer than expected and because of that they are losing containment of the radiation due to pressure from the temperature. In the surrounding area, there have been some reports of people irradiated but it is not a huge outbreak of radiation.

In the western media, please keep in mind that their interest is to be entertaining, thus rumours, exaggerated stories and misinformation have clouded the entire media. Compared to the Japanese media where they are trying to keep calm, the western media is making a frenzy of this event. It is possible that the west simply wants to create panic in the market so that the value of Japanese goods and bonds go down and thus are cheaper to buy. But that’s just speculation. Always keep that kind of stuff in mind when you listen to news. What I’ve heard in the western news is a gross misrepresentation of events.

First of all, the French have offered to evacuate people. This was done as a political move due to pressure in France. They are not evacuating people, they are offering evacuation for those who want it. This is nice but the western media took it as a full scale evacuation. Second, the Russians and Koreans are checking constantly to make sure that there is no risk of radiation on their shores, this is understandable. However, in the media this has been exaggerated to suggest that there is radiation on their shores. Next, the news has been showing people evacuating at the Tokyo train station. If you look closely, they are all Japanese business men who are going home after work. Lastly, some foreign officials are evacuating their families. But the media has twisted this into a full evacuation by foreign officials.

From what I've understood, this image is 100% wrong. Not only is it unnecessary speculation, it is fear mongering. These numbers make no sense. And yet this is some of the stuff that you see in the news. Absolutely absurd.

If your still not convinced that people have no basis for freaking out, watch this video. Seriously some people are so silly.

I’m not sure what to believe about the radioactive steam and hydrogen gas that they have released into the atmosphere. They say that it is not dangerous but what do they mean. Direct impact does not affect us immediately, but over many years? I’m worried what this will do to my health in the long run and more immediately what will this do to the rain and to the food that I eat in Japan. It’s hard to balance these things because they mostly are talking about immediate threats not long term damage since this cannot be assessed very well at the moment. Some of the reports suggest that ,if there is an explosion, it won’t be big enough to alter the rain but food-wise there will probably need some review especially for seafood.

I understand that the closer you are to the reactor the more danger you are in. People in Tokyo are panicking since they are not that far away. I’m 800km away and generally, logic tells me not to worry. Experts seem to say that 30km away is very safe. If this there is a meltdown in the next few days then there will be an explosion of radioactive material. They say that this is serious for the locals of that area (30km) and no more. But even the experts can be wrong and basically it depends on too many variables; wind, size of the explosion, etc.

The other aspect that is in the news is comparing this to Chernobyl. I understand that this is not the case. It’s like comparing the Gulf war to WWII and trying to find a link. Of course it’s going to sound bad if you make a huge jump like that. First of all, this is Japanese engineering vs. soviet Russian engineering. Second, this is 25 years later and they learned from that experience. Chernobyl exploded into the upper atmosphere for a few months. They say that this event would be a few hours at most but then again, what do they know. The fires that occurred in Chernobyl seem unlikely in this situation as there is not the same amount of pressure. The fire is what caused the problem to continue for so long.

What is overall escalating the event is that it has monopolised the news. No one cares that there are mass killings in Libya anymore. Japan has even taken this over. Because of that people think that the situation is really dangerous here in Japan and creating a panic around it. The media is trying to sell papers/ratings. I don’t believe they are seriously hiding information just choosing what to give out. But I’m tired to not knowing and being on edge.

The panic being caused is also compounded with people asking if I am panicking. I’m not sure I should be, but the constant question makes me doubt myself. I would like to fly out but overall prices have shot up to $5000 and this is just too high.

We have stocked up on extra water and canned food, with some tape to mask the windows just in case we need to barricade ourselves and we are waiting. At this point in time that’s all I think I can do.

In addition, unfortunately one person has already cancelled her trip to see us because of this thing and it’s unclear if her visit will be rescheduled.

I really appreciate all the attention and effort people have made in the last week to contact me and check up on me. I love you all and miss you very much. But please try to not escalate the situation, i.e., jumping to conclusions when you read something on the news. Thanks again for all the e-mails and let me know if you have any more questions on what is happening.

The decisions that we have made is that when a rational government, i.e. UK or Canada, start telling everyone to leave than we know there is a serious problem. If it’s too late by then, well there is little I can do right now anyway. It’s hard to consider leaving since we have a home and life here. If we were to leave then returning may not be an option. The other 150 million Japanese may not have that choice.

For now we’re going to wait it out and see. Thanks for your support and I look forward to hearing from you. :)