After the Earthquake – Part 4
This is an archive post from my old blog. I’ve put this series here for others that may still be interested and so that I don’t forget…
Wednesday 16th March – Day five continued
We had three aftershocks in as many minutes at about 1:15pm. Feels like Tokyo has become a theme park, and we are on the roller-coaster. I know now why I’ve always hated roller coasters, give me one of those little kiddy rides any day.
It’s reached the point where sometimes we not sure whether it’s the building shaking or us. Every so often we have to stop in our tracks to see if anything else in the room is moving to check – I kid you not. A few of my wife’s colleagues at work got motion sick because the building sways so much at the aftershocks. Everyone still worried about the possibility of another big quake.
Not been much live coverage of the nuclear reactor roulette on TV today, not really sure if that’s good or bad. They endlessly show diagrams of the inside of the reactors, I could probably make a scale model using sticky tape and toilet roll, if we had any toilet roll that is (just kidding! About the toilet roll that is not the scale model).
Lots of images of things in the north of Japan today. They are having such a hard time in places that it’s heart-breaking. Lack of food, water, heat and fuel in freezing temperatures. I feel guilty every time I turn on the tap.
To give an idea of how confusing it is for everyone here are 2 pieces of information that I received within the an hour of each other today. The first is a bulletin from the UK Embassy, and the second as part of the updates from the BBC website:
RADIATION ADVISORY from the UK Embassy
Subject: UK Embassy feedback re Tokyo radiation
Feedback by Sir John Beddington, Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government, after conference held at British Embassy (yesterday). 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 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).
BBC Website
France is now urging its nationals in Tokyo to leave Japan or head to the south of the country, Reuters reports. It says Paris has asked the Air France carrier to provide planes for the evacuation.
Do we run for our lives or wait it out. This is question on most people’s lips at the moment. I’ve got to say I’m leaning very much towards the French approach.
More later…
