Rainy Day Friends and The Atomic Samurai

I have been seriously stressed this week. With a number of friends going through personal crisis, others dealing with health issues and then my aging dog to take care of, there were times I wished I coped better.

Then I looked at Japan again - the small miracles that have occurred and solidarity that has been expressed by the global community. If they can cope with this massive disaster and nuclear uncertainty, then I can cope with my small world of disorder...


So here's an update on Japan.  


In the three weeks since the 9.0 earthquake and massive tsunami hit Japan, the life and death struggles these polite, industrious people still face have largely been marginalized by the news media.

In addition to leaving 9,800 dead and 17,500 missing, March 11's massive earthquake and tsunami has left numerous stray and stranded animals throughout the disaster zone. 

A baby porpoise was rescued recently and hailed as a miracle amidst so much devastation. 

Yet the repercussions continue, as workers at the Fukushima nuclear power plant believe they are going to die trying to save their country and other parts of the world from this insidious threat.

The technicians, soldiers and firemen have been repeatedly exposed to dangerously high radioactive levels.


"My son and his colleagues have discussed it at length and they have committed themselves to die if necessary to save the nation," said a mother of one of the men. "He told me they have accepted they will all probably die from radiation sickness in the short term or cancer in the long-term."

The group of about 300 workers have been battling to cool dangerously overheating reactors by working in shifts of 50 after the plant's cooling system was knocked out during the March 11 tsunami. Hailed as local heroes, these technicians, soldiers and firemen are known as The Fukushima 50 or the "Atomic Samurai," a name the Japanese have given them.

"They have concluded between themselves that it is inevitable some of them may die within weeks or months," the mother said. "They know it is impossible for them not to have been exposed to lethal doses of radiation."

Radiation has been leaking from the complex, contaminating food produced in surrounding farmland and seeping into groundwater beneath the site.

Radioactive iodine was found in nearby seawater that is 4,385 times the legal limit. An abnormal level of radioactive cesium has also been found in beef from the area.

Although there likely will be an extended food ban on farming and harvesting within a 30 kilometre area surrounding the reactors, experts say there is the option of applying remedial measures. 

Cesium 137 is one of the radioactive compounds found in the soil. With a relatively short half-life of 30 years, chemical compounds like Prussian blue can help. Prussian blue binds to cesium preventing it from being taken up during the digestion in animals like cows, goats and sheep. This method is still used in Norway today to counter the effects of the radiation fallout from Chernobyl.

A squad of U.S. 'radiation-resistant' robots was dispatched to help the stricken nuclear power plant.


Controlled from afar by human handlers - these robots will be used primarily to take pictures and measure radiation levels in places where they wouldn't send a person. 


With France being the most nuclear-dependant nation in the world, President Nicolas Sarkozy has proposed a global conference that would create new nuclear rules so this type of accident wouldn't happen again.


To show his support, Sarkozy flew to Tokyo - the first visit by a foreign leader since the earthquake hit. Prime Minister Nato Kan thanked him for coming citing the Japanese proverb, "A friend who comes on a rainy day is your true friend."


May we all be "rainy day" friends, whatever our circumstances!

The Fukushima 50!

They are the last line of defense for a country fearful of imminent nuclear catastrophe. With nerves of steel they've gone into battle, crawling on their hands and knees through dark mazes, with flashlights and radiation detectors. They are wearing "hazmat" protection suits with heavy oxygen tanks on their backs. They are exhausted but have fought fires and poured sea water on partially destroyed reactors.


They are the Fukushima 50!

Once a worker is exposed to 1000 millisieverts of radiation, nausea and vomiting occur - the first signs of radiation poisoning. The Fukushima 50 could be exposed to radiation levels eight times that amount. That's more than a skilled nuclear facility worker in the USA would face in a career.


As the Japanese Times and other newspapers around the world have been focusing on the stricken nuclear plant in Fukushima - almost to the exclusion of mounting concerns for the thousands who are missing, dead, or without basic supplies - one woman decided to set the record straight.

As Japanese countrymen focused their rage on the owners of the nuclear facility, TEPCO, for not doing more to prevent this crisis, Michiko Otsuki and her colleagues worked all-out to control the disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. In the midst of the post-earthquake chaos, she watched her co-workers quietly put their lives on the line, doing all they could to stave off a meltdown with little thought for their own safety.
In a series of blog posts, translated by The Straits Times, Otsuki writes, “In the midst of the tsunami alarm, at 3 a.m. in the night when we couldn't even see where we were going, we carried on working to restore the reactors from where we were, right by the sea, with the realization that this could be certain death.”

The extent of the destruction was worse than anyone had anticipated, and at its most dangerous for the employees who stayed on the job. 

“The machine that cools the reactor is just by the ocean,” Otsuki writes, “and it was wrecked by the tsunami. Everyone worked desperately to try and restore it. Fighting fatigue and empty stomachs, we dragged ourselves back to work. There are many who haven’t got in touch with their family members, but are facing the present situation and working hard.”

And on Twitter, NamicoAoto talked about her father’s heroic call to duty. “Tomorrow, my father will be dispatched to the Fukushima nuclear power plant to help out with the crisis,” she wrote two days after the quake. “When I heard that my father, who is scheduled to retire in six months, had volunteered to help, I could barely hold back my tears. ‘If we act now,’ he said, ‘we can change the future of the nuclear power plant. I will go there with this mission.’...I have never felt so proud of him.”

Reports from the plant, according to a statement from the International Atomic Energy Agency, indicate that 21 people have been injured, 20 have been exposed to excessive radiation and two are missing. Most of the plant’s 1,800 employees have been evacuated, except for the skeleton crew of unsung hero's that remains.

Though they are now described in Japanese media, with growing admiration, as the Fukushima 50, there is a skeleton crew of close to 200 that work in rotating shifts of 50 to try and keep the reactors from total radioactive destruction. These modern-day hero's are working in radiation levels that have been high enough to drive off outside emergency crews. The Fukushima 50 try to limit their exposure and have to carry out their work in clammy, airtight suits, slowing down their repairs and adding to their fatigue even as the situation at the nuclear plant worsens.

“Everyone at the power plant is battling on, without running away,” Otsuki writes. “To all the residents who have been alarmed and worried, I am truly deeply sorry...There are people working to protect all of you, even in exchange for their own lives.”

Low levels of radiation have been detected well beyond Tokyo, which is 140 miles (220 kilometers) south of the plant, but hazardous levels have been limited to the plant itself. With the Japanese and US nuclear experts saying it could take weeks to get the reactors under control, will the Fukushima 50 be given any relief?

An admirer of this crew tweeted, "Whatever's the closest international equivalent to the Medal of Honor - Nobel Peace Prize? -- The Fukushima 50 deserve that, and more."

What do you think they deserve?

Nuclear Meltdown

Of all the countries in the world, Japan is one of the most prepared for either an earthquake or a tsunami. But to have both come at once, with an 8.9-magnitude quake that was upgraded to 9.0, is something no country is ready for. Experts say the earthquake that hit Japan on March 11th, released 1000 times the energy of the one that leveled much of Haiti just over a year ago.

This is now the fourth largest earthquake since 1900. It had a shallow epicentre in the Pacific Ocean just off Japan's northeastern coastal city of Sendai. 

It triggered a tsunami that traveled almost as fast as a cruising Boeing 747, carrying away everything in its wake - cars, trucks, houses, large buildings and even planes - nothing was spared.

Though the loss of life and devastation is overwhelming, possibly the most frightening occurrence right now is happening at the Daiichi nuclear reactor facility.With 6 of Japan's 55 nuclear reactors forced to shut down in the wake of electrical outages, the plant located in Fukishima, close to the epicentre, has had one catastrophe after another. Everything that could go wrong, has - almost.

Not only did the tsunami knock out electricity to the plant, it also knocked out its diesel-generated backup power system. This left the facility without the energy necessary to cool the rising temperatures in the fuel rod housing.

The Fukushima facility after explosions rocked reactors #1 and #3.

Fukushima Daiichi has six reactors, all built in the 1970s, and three were operating when the quake and tsunami happened. The #1 unit, the oldest and smallest of the reactors, and unit #3 initially were the source of the main problems.

To shut down a reactor, safety valves are opened to release the steam and water is used to then to cool down the reactor core. The core can overheat if part of it has been exposed above the water level for some time.

Loss of cooling water resulted in a near meltdown of the Three Mile Island reactor in Pennsylvania in 1979, the worst nuclear incident in U.S. history even though minimal radiation leaked into the atmosphere. Scientists have said that even if the Japanese nuclear plant goes into full meltdown, it is unlikely to cause environmental fallout on the scale seen after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the Ukraine. Damage to this nuclear reactor in Japan has happened just weeks before the 25th anniversary of Chernobyl.

Japanese engineers are taking these problems very seriously. At the first sign of trouble, people living close to the reactor were asked to evacuate. When all attempts to stabilize reactor #1 failed, workers vented some radioactive gas. 

But leaking hydrogen caused an explosion that blew the roof and walls off of a secondary containment structure in the reactor facility, releasing a plume of smoke that could be seen by television. Four engineers were injured in this explosion and radiation levels outside the reactor rose to 1,015 microsievert, or the equivalent of being exposed to the maximum allowable level of radiation for a full year in a single day. Three days later another hydrogen explosion rocked the same facility, this time blowing out the roof of reactor #3. While more radioactive gas was released, levels are still not lethal.

The evacuation zone has been growing larger every day, now encompassing a 20-mile radius with over 200,000 people asked to evacuate. Remember, these are people who are in a disaster zone, trying to cope with the aftermath of this massive earthquake and ensuing tsunami.

Officials then took the unprecedented measure of flooding the reactor with salt water to cool the core down. This is akin to the Japanese waving a white flag. By using salt water, the reactor will never be operational again. That alone is a $1 billion loss.

If this doesn't work, the reactor’s fuel rods will reach such a high temperature that they would burn through the reactor walls — melting them down — and release potentially deadly radiation into the atmosphere. But a third reactor lost its emergency cooling system and Japanese officials said the fuel rods were exposed to air in all three reactors, causing a partial meltdown. They asked nuclear experts from the United States for help.


Ten days after the reactors failed, trace elements of radioactive iodine have been found in milk and spinach, near the nuclear facility and detectable levels of radiation are in the drinking water. These are just trace amounts and the Japanese government has indicated it will stop shipping these products. The radiation in their tap water is deemed insignificant.


It's important to remember that even if one of the reactors has a core meltdown, very little radiation may be released, like Three Mile Island. The worst possible scenario is if the radiation cannot be contained. Then massive amounts could be airborn to go wherever the wind currents flow.

Experts have upgraded this to the second-largest nuclear disaster in history. But we need to remember that both Chernobyl and Three Mile Island were caused in part by human negligence  - Chernobyl being an example of human stupidity on a massive scale.

When technicians at the Chernobyl, Ukraine reactor attempted run a systems test, they shut down the reactor's emergency water-cooling system, while allowing the reactor to run at very low power. A sudden power surge started a chain reaction in the core that went out of control. Several explosions and a large fireball blew off the heavy steel and concrete lid of the reactor. This released large amounts of radioactive materials into the atmosphere where it was carried over Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia with traces found as far away as Italy and France.

Two people died immediately from the explosion and 29 from radiation. 

About 200 others became seriously ill from the radiation; some of them later died. It was estimated that eight years after the  accident 8,000 people had died from diseases due to radiation (about 7,000 of them from the Chernobyl cleanup crew). Doctors estimate that 10,000 others will die from cancer.

The radioactive energy released at Chernobyl was two times bigger than that created by the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.

Images of children born with deformed limbs still haunt us in the aftermath of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

Let's hope and pray that a similar situation does not occur in Japan.