leave the area

[godwine]

Originally Posted by bluejeanslady

they donnot have so much space there ... 500 km minimum, 1000 would be better ...

We are going in circles. I need a scientific explanation of why 500 or 1000.

All the experts from all around the world think 20 is fine, and they all have backup information on the amount of radiation and its impact to the human body.

Unfortunately, I think I will just leave this thread alone. Further debate will kill my brain cells, faster than crack or anything else......

[bluejeanslady]

Originally Posted by godwine

We are going in circles. I need a scientific explanation of why 500 or 1000.

All the experts from all around the world think 20 is fine, and they all have backup information on the amount of radiation and its impact to the human body.

Unfortunately, I think I will just leave this thread alone. Further debate will kill my brain cells, faster than crack or anything else......

thats wrong, the usa says at the beginning 20 km is not enough, it must be minimum 80 km, for that moment and later more than this ... i say of my experience with chernobyl 1000 km, because japan is an island minimum 500 km or sth. between this ... but not 20 km, that is a joke .. later on there is no time to evacuate .. for this i donnot understand why they didnt use the time they had to do this ... and if the situation is over, you can decide in which areas people can return and in which not ...

[godwine]

Originally Posted by bluejeanslady

thats wrong, the usa says at the beginning 20 km is not enough, it must be minimum 80 km, for that moment and later more than this ... i say of my experience with chernobyl 1000 km, because japan is an island minimum 500 km or sth. between this ... but not 20 km, that is a joke .. later on there is no time to evacuate .. for this i donnot understand why they didnt use the time they had to do this ... and if the situation is over, you can decide in which areas people can return and in which not ...

We already discussed this previously, this is no where near the magnitude of Chernobyl. I don't see a point of debating this further, you hang on to your believe, and I will just listen to the expert since I am not one

[JohnBraden]

Originally Posted by godwine

We already discussed this previously, this is no where near the magnitude of Chernobyl. I don't see a point of debating this further, you hang on to your believe, and I will just listen to the expert since I am not one

Is it safe to evacuate this thread with a 500km cordon around it?

[godwine]

Originally Posted by JohnBraden

Is it safe to evacuate this thread with a 500km cordon around it?

Neah, this thread is Chernobyl grade. You need a shuttle to fly to Mars.

[RealJames]

Originally Posted by godwine

Neah, this thread is Chernobyl grade. You need a shuttle to fly to Mars.

I've noticed that many of this forum's most rational and intelligent voices have bowed out of this "conversation" which amounts to reason on deaf ears about as much as tomatoes on a jet engine.

I'm going to join ranks with them. I don't feel it to be my imperative to educate one person with heretic-like discourse and the ears of a jet engine.

Good luck to those with more patience, I can no longer get past the first phrase of a post that starts with " .. " and has a " .. " to delimiter sentences.

[lbtan]

Originally Posted by godwine

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but one thing I don't understand is that, why are you still insisting that its not safe and that people should evacuate?

The situation is under control, they are now doing more measurements, and so far the risk is very low. It is not fair to say that they "Don't have the information you have", because they definitely have the information, first hand too. I don't think its in their government's interest to just let its citizen expose to severe dose of radiation, they are the one country that knows the impact of a nuclear disaster (Nagasaki, Hiroshima), they know the consequences and the effect

And what makes you say that pumping seawater will cause future cooling issue? Every single specialist and expert suggest that the action of pumping sea water may not work, but now that it worked nobody is saying anything about its impact to future cooling. Unless you know something beyond all the experts in North America or Asia (I said ASIA, not just JAPAN, because there are more than Japanese expert looking at this).

And what will your suggestion for the map do? It only shows you data of how much radiation is given around a certain area... TODAY, what are you going to compare it to? I think the first thing that you yourself and people with similar mentalities will first need to understand the impact of the different level of radiation. We are expose to different type of radiation daily.

I am not sure why its surreal to you (btw its Tamagochi...), maybe you are just really proud of yourself and your country, so automatically thinks that you all know more and better than Japan. To me, THATS surreal...

Originally Posted by godwine

Fair enough, and as I said, I would be scared too if I am reading the same source you are reading.
But if you look at sites and news from Taiwan, US, Canada, China and most importantly Japan, they are reporting problems and they are reporting issues with the plant, but its under control. The current concentration for most news agencies with the mentioned countries are all all surrounding either Libya or they own local affairs. People are not jumping up and down over Fukushima because they don't see the value of it now that the situation is under control (Sadly, yes, mass media are happy over disaster)
If its as bad as what you saw, I am sure everyone will be all over it, especially the US, they have troops working there right now helping you know
I just saw a picture of US military cleaning the flight deck of their carrier, trying to get rid of any radiation that it maybe exposed to. That said, the troops are wearing standard military uniform, no mask, just cloth wrapped around their face. The fact that they are cleaning the deck means they are aware of the radiation level there, but the fact that they are only cleaning it and not getting away form it means that its not high risk. Not to mention the troops are not wearing protective gear, and that cloth around the face is probably meant to fight against whatever chemical is used in the cleaning solvent.
A

Originally Posted by godwine

You are still only giving me figures out of no where. Why 500KM? The level of radiation is nowhere closed to what happend at Chernobyl. The Chernobyl incident was sad, but the darn thing basically went through a complete meltdown
Fukushima is in a far more different situation, its not a complete meltdown, they are doing whatever it takes to contain the issue, and it appears to be working and stabilize
So, quantify why 500KM...

As far as i can understand, every efforts are being put in to attempt to contain the problem so that it may not deteriorate into a more serious problem (eg: meltdown).
i am all this while thinking that the condition is still serious and volatile at least up to today.
Care to share your source of info?

[godwine]

Originally Posted by lbtan

As far as i can understand, every efforts are being put in to attempt to contain the problem so that it may not deteriorate into a more serious problem (eg: meltdown).
i am all this while thinking that the condition is still serious and volatile at least up to today.
Care to share your source of info?

Hmm.. I know i said I will stay out but just some info:

This one talks about the evacuation zone

http://www.jiji.com/jc/c?g=pol_30&k=2011032500798

This one talks about the nuclear safety agency ordering tepco to step up on safety measure around the plant. I would assume that they won't be so specific to say just the plant if the situation is not under control. One thing to note though, it did mention that water in one of the reactors measured to have 10000 times higher radiation than normal, but thats localized the reactors and plant. If it does blow up, then yes, it will be bad. But there does not appear to be that concern at all:

NHK WORLD English

More from NHK. 6 prefecture detected radiation in plants, but the water is still safe for consumption:

NHK WORLD English

this one talks about the restoration effort:

More engineers, workers dispatched to ailing Fukushima nuclear plant - The Mainichi Daily News

This article has something interesing : Shigenobu Nagataki, professor emeritus at Nagasaki University, who specializes in radiation medicine, said, "Because there were no other health problems after the Chernobyl accident besides thyroid gland cancer among children, it is unlikely (that the situation in Fukushima) would lead immediately to health problems. In areas where high levels of contamination were detected, measures should be considered after holding sufficient discussions with residents based on the data that is available

asahi.com

Ok, so I cannot find anyone that explicitly say that "We are all fine", but I take it as an implied thing now that nobody is screaming "On my god, a meltdown, oh my god it will blow up"

As i mention before, i do see why there is a fear, but the situation that people most fear about will only happen if there is a meltdown or if the plant blow up. In which case there does not appear to be any recent news suggesting something like that

That said, the fear of radiation is still there, but is it necessary to evacuate the country, thats a different story. I don't want to repeat figures that other have posted, but current measurement suggest that a mass scale evacuation is not required as it post negligible health risk

[Nyororin]

The more and more I read, I honestly think that a lot of this is down to cultural misinterpretation. (This is true of what Bluejeanslady is saying as well as various media sources.)

To put it simply, let us say that we have 4 cultures. I`ll call them A, B, C, and D. To the exact same event, they each respond a bit differently.
A responds with response 1.
B with 1b.
C with 1c.
D with 2.

Someone in culture A is going to be most familiar with their own culture. They`ll probably know a lot about cultures B and C, and see them as the same or similar to their own culture. They may know a little about culture D, or think they do - especially if the culture *looks* somewhat similar to their own.

But for some reason, culture D is responding in a way that is unexpected! As A, B, and C all respond with variations of response 1, to someone in culture A it is the natural and normal response. To someone in culture A, a response as different as 2 can only mean that the event triggering it must be different.

Japan is culture D here. Because people in Japan are not displaying the "normal" response expected by A, it isn`t hard for people to imagine that there must be some difference in what they know of the event. As panic and fleeing is "normal", the people of Japan must not know enough to have this "natural" response.

In reality, it`s just a different response - it doesn`t mean they don`t know what is happening.

It`s all about applying your own values to someone else.

[TalnSG]

Originally Posted by RealJames

I've noticed that many of this forum's most rational and intelligent voices have bowed out of this "conversation" which amounts to reason on deaf ears about as much as tomatoes on a jet engine.

I'm going to join ranks with them. I don't feel it to be my imperative to educate one person with heretic-like discourse and the ears of a jet engine.

Good luck to those with more patience, I can no longer get past the first phrase of a post that starts with " .. " and has a " .. " to delimiter sentences.

I left the quote in tact because it is exactly how many of us feel.
Well said!