Since it’s simpler to keep an open thread for the fast moving story of Japan’s crisis, I’m starting the third open news thread on the subject for everyone to add their thoughts and updates to. Since the event has happened, major networks have sent multiple teams for “on the scene” hyperbolic coverage and fear mongering, while also draining Japan’s precious few resources of food, water and fuel. Meanwhile the Congressional Dems, painfully conscious of their traditional anti-drilling and anti-nuclear plant platform, have begun making hiccups about addressing oil prices. In this moment, you won’t find a Democrat in the halls of Congress who’s willing put advocate for nuclear power.
Meanwhile, demonstrating the power of propaganda, sales of geiger counters to fear laden west coast Americans has spiked. Driving this point home was a geiger counter manufacturer who was almost late to his interview on Cavuto’s World today because he was furiously working, getting out a backlog of orders. According to him? Most purchasers are individuals, living on the west coast.
One nation’s desperate crises is another man’s economic boost. Amazing, when you think of it.
But in this third edition, I want to showcase those we’ve not heard much from directly… the TEPCO employees on the front line, battling multiple hardships trying to keep the reactors under control. As foreign national and corporations flee the nation, the Japanese have mounted a quiet and respectful rally around those they call the Fukishima Fifty. UK’s Daily Mail has more info on their on site conditions, stellar photos from the site, and brave tweets and messages from the TEPCO workers to their families.
Japan was today rallying behind the anonymous nuclear emergency workers at the stricken Fukushima power plant – as heartbreaking details of their plight emerged.
The 180 workers face soaring radiation levels as they make ever more desperate attempts to stop overheating reactors and spent fuel rods leaking more radiation into the atmosphere.~~~National television has interviewed relatives of the workers, who the plant operators insist on keeping anonymous, with one woman saying her father had accepted his fate ‘like a death sentence’.
A woman said her husband continued to work while fully aware he was being bombarded with radiation. He sent her an email saying: ‘Please continue to live well, I cannot be home for a while.’ The workers are known as the Fukushima Fifty because they rotate into contaminated areas in teams of that number.
Another email shown by newsreaders said: ‘My father is still working at the plant … they are running out of food…we think conditions are really tough. He says he has accepted his fate much like a death sentence.’
One girl tweeted in a message translated by ABC: ‘My dad went to the nuclear plant, I’ve never seen my mother cry so hard. People at the plant are struggling, sacrificing themselves to protect you. Please dad come back alive.’
According to the Daily Mail, the workers are exposed to radiation levels of 40 milisieverts per hour, and removed from duty after being exposed to 250 milisieverts.
One of the surprising things is that the workers are painfully aware of the demonization of TEPCO by media and blogs … something that those on the front line find offensive and hurtful. So I leave you with the comments of the lone woman worker of the Fukushima Fifty…
One lone woman worker, Michiko Otsuki, this week spoke up for her ‘silent’ colleagues on a Japanese social networking site to insist that they were ‘not running away’ as the crisis intensified.
She wrote in a blog translated by The Straits Times: ‘People have been flaming [plant operators] Tepco, But the staff of Tepco have refused to flee, and continue to work even at the peril of their own lives. Please stop attacking us.’
‘As a worker at Tepco and a member of the Fukushima No. 2 reactor team, I was dealing with the crisis at the scene until yesterday (Monday).’
‘In the midst of the tsunami alarm (last Friday), at 3am in the night when we couldn’t even see where we going, we carried on working to restore the reactors from where we were, right by the sea, with the realisation that this could be certain death,’ she said.
‘The machine that cools the reactor is just by the ocean, 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 gotten in touch with their family members, but are facing the present situation and working hard.’
These workers, to me, are the equivalent of our US military… those that place themselves in the line of fire for family and country. Unlike our soldiers, who know that war is part of their job, I doubt these workers envisioned this as part of their job description. Their rise to to the challenge is beyond commendable.
There is a powerline laid to the power plant, which at latest news has been successfully completed. This should aid in stabilization of water pumps and stop the fluctuating water levels that affect the radiation levels. For these brave souls and their families, my prayers it works, and that their exposure will not affect a long and happy life post this event.
Vietnam era Navy wife, indy/conservative, and an official California escapee now residing as a red speck in the sea of Oregon blue.