Today was an emotional roller coaster. For those in this time zone, we watched the day start by the Prime Minister expand the affected area around Fukoshima from 20 km radius to a 30 km radius. That meant that our family was close. We had spoke with them and they were concerned. We considered our options....1) Fly the whole family to Hong Kong; 2) Move them south; 3) Have them stay put.
We checked on flights to Hong Kong which were circa 54,000 Yen or about US$600 one way. In our efforts to connect with everybody, we asked ourselves on what we would do and realized that we would have probably stayed put. In 2003, we were here thru Sars which was a very uncertain time but we survived and they will too. By the end of the day, we received this report which is promising....Thanks Dickie.
Japan Nuclear update
BCCJ Members Update on Japan’s Nuclear Power station situation At 5pm Tokyo time (Tuesday 15th March 2011) a telephone briefing was given by Sir John Beddington the UK’s Chief Scientific adviser and Hilary Walker Deputy Director Emergency Preparedness a...t the Department of Health. “Unequivocally, Tokyo will not be affected by the radiation fallout of explosions that have or may occur at the Fukushima nuclear power stations.” The danger area is within the 30 kilometer evacuation zone and no one is recommended or will be allowed to enter this area other than those people directly involved with the emergency procedures currently being undertaken at both Fukushima 1 & 2. Sir John went on to answer a series of questions including a comparison between Chernobyl and Japan. He said “they are entirely different, Chernobyl exploded and there was a subsequent fire with radioactive materials being launched 30,000 ft into the air. The maximum height of any Fukushima explosions would be no more than 500 metres." “The radiation that has been released is miniscule and would have to be orders of 1,000 or more for it to be a threat to humans” This was confirmed by Hilary Walker. He went on to say that the Japanese authorities are doing their best to keep the reactors cooled and that this is a continuing operation. All workers on site dealing with the emergency are being fully decontaminated at the end of each shift. When asked on how reliable was the information coming from the Japanese authorities as to radiation levels he said “this cannot be fabricated and the Japanese authorities are positing all the readings on the recognized international inforamton sites which they are obliged to do. Independent verification shows that the data provided is accurate”. In answer to a specific question from the Head of the British School in Tokyo, Sir John Beddington and Hilary Walker said that there was no reason at all for the school to be closed unless there were other issues such as power outages and transport problems. David Fitton, First Minister at the British Embassy in Tokyo moderated the teleconference and confirmed that a transcript of the brief. AMAZING NEWS!!!!
I googled Hitachinakacity earthquake and here are the pictures of the immediate area:
http://www.google.com/images?client=safari&rls=en&q=hitachinaka+city+earthquake+pictures&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&sa=X&ei=33p_Te3pFMXBcdK99OkG&ved=0CDMQsAQ&biw=1024&bih=1090
Clearly if there is another earthquake which we understand may happen any time, this could change things.
Other updates:
Yuki...We got a hold of Yuki. He wants us to send food. He is hungry and the rationed food supply is not a lot. This was troubling to us. We couldn't think of how to get some food to him. We will continue to try tomorrow.
Hiro...Hiro is back in the fold. He is going to the family house and neighborhood tomorrow and take some pictures. Stay Tuned...
School starts Friday.
We got the paper and they had an death/missing/injury/collapsed houses report. Fortunately Ibaraki has among the lowest injuries but for some reason they received the most collapsed homes in Japan. As you can see, Tokyo wasn't affected too badly.
Prefecture | Deaths | Missing | Injury | Broken Homes |
| Miyagi | 785 | 1049 | 324 | 826 |
| Fukoshima | 420 | 997 | 220 | 10,981 |
| Ibaraki | 19 | 0 | 648 | 19,332 |
| Tokyo | 7 | 77 | 253 | |
| Source: Yomiori Shimbun (15 March 2011) | ||||
Thanks once again to you all for reading this and keeping up on this perspective.
Brian
No comments:
Post a Comment