It is all explained here "in a calm rational scientific manner".
Refs
* Japan nuclear threat: The tsunami is the bigger tragedy By David Spiegelhalter, Professor of the Public Understanding of Risk, Cambridge University
* Pakistan miners feared dead - for anyone who thought that coal was safe.
* Why Fukushima made me stop worrying and love nuclear power - George Monbiot
* Jurrassic Park is a triumph for dino theme parks: Build more dinosaur theme parks now!
* JEB on some back-of-the-envelope calculations of radiation risk
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Another sequence of headlines and news reports, continuation of THIS POST:
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The video said we will probably know within 2 days whether the boron and water worked. But, the video was uploaded 2 days ago.
Today is "the day".
That was strangely comforting.
Let's hope not too many people ask about that other Japanese childrens' classic cartoon ... "Everyone Poops"
Oh yes, let's all give thanks for the electricity we have received and then just pray. That'll work.
On the whole, surreal seems like an insufficient term for this cartoon.
Also, notice how the first and primary doctor doen't look Japanese. Are gaijin doctors thought to be better?
Steve Bloom -- "Also, notice how the first and primary doctor doen't look Japanese. Are gaijin doctors thought to be better?"
It's nothing new in anime. Remember Marine Boy? Early anime.
Meanwhile, Ann Coulter has written a column based on the principle of "that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger". I have a friend who has a taste for right wing radio humor who heard her give this spiel today. He was flabbergasted.
Interesting read:
Stop, Thief! Thank You: Why so little looting in Japan? It's not just about honesty.
http://www.slate.com/id/2288514/?ref=nf
[Hmm: The clearance rate for murder in 2010 was an unbelievable 98.2 percent, according to West - if you've read JEB, you'll know a bit more about that than Slate do :-( -W]
The tsunami hazard was large, but it is finished (except that some communities are still isolated from transportation).
The nuclear power plant hazard may result in smaller hazard, and I hope so, but it is an ongoing hazard. It is natural that we pay more attention to it. (I do think that TV and newspapers pay too much attention to unnecessary aspects of it, though.)
Also, the nuclear plants survived the earthquake itself. They failed because all auxiliary electric power supply failed due to the extraordinary tsunami. So the incident is, in a sense, part of the great tsunami disaster.
Masuda San, the tsunami was a huge tragedy and the effects are on going. Many still lack shelter, there are major problems getting them supplies. The transportation system is not back to fully functioning and the effects extend far away from the earthquake zone. There are large costs in health and deaths, especially for older people and the very young.
The emergency at the nuclear station makes all of this worse, not in the least because of the resources which are needed to deal with it cannot be used elsewhere. In the public health sense, this may be the major cost of the nuclear emergency.
That being said Japan and its people have our best hopes and wishes for the future.
I am sorry. When I said that the tsunami hazard is finished (I do not retract this), I did not mean that the tsunami diaster is finished.
Another piece of thought. If without the failure of power stations, the tsunami disaster will not change the course of the national policy, except that measures against tsunamis will be strengthened. But, indefinitely prolonged shortage of electric power will force us to reconsider the national policy about energy resources and about economic development which depend on them. Maybe we are going to ask whether the problem is really shortage of power or longage (TM Garrett Hardin) of demand.
My apologies too. The destruction of the tsunami has distressed me no end and I was not as thoughtful in replying as I should have been. I fear that in addition to those lost in the original wave, many will suffer and even die later.
While the loss of life and years from the nuclear disaster will, I suspect, be small, the cost and the resources that it is robbing from relief of the tsunami victims is real and worrying.
OK, I know almost nothing about the potential hazards of nuclear power. I suspect that whatever they are, we may well need to derive the bulk of primary load power from nuclear to avoid excess carbon, but I want to know what we are letting ourselves in for. Fukushima seems to be providing a test case for just that.
So, now that they have found plutonium outside the reactor buildings, how bad is that? How bad is this incident relative to Three Mile Island and Chernobyl?
Tom, the last thing I read on the materials/ radiation levels now outside the reactors indicates that =something= has happened which looks a bit like breaching the containment.
That may not be the cause of it, but the mere fact that these materials/ readings have turned up where they have makes it worse than TMI.
[Yeeeesss... I haven't been paying attention recently but things don't look too shiny -W]