Japanese Quake and tsunami

How else would one know?

 

If a whole street is missing who's going report? the people at the other side of the street!!! they are missing too.

In other words it is a legitimate way of keeping numbers down.

 

Correct.

In Japan, one is only "officially" dead when the body has been formally identified. Until then, one is just "missing"....

There is going to be a significant amount of poeple missing, who shall remain missing. Since those family members who could formally identify them are also 'missing'.

Post Script:
Gov.t official walks into a house, sees a dead body.

Q:...who is this?
A..don't know sir
Q..find someone who does know
A..there isn't anybody sir.

Gov.t Statament: 1 missing body...not dead, missing.
Missing because identity is unknown, despite clear evidence of a dead body. That is Japanese bureaucracy/culture. (which is a whole other story not for a boat forum).

 

For cthippo: I do not think the pebble beds are ready for widespread implementation.

As far as the info coming out from Japan about the nuclear stuff, they are probably sharing more than you think. It is probably just to the right people.

More than a few emergency workers have probably been hurt or killed both at the nuclear facility and elsewhere in response to this huge natural disaster. Emergency workers are sometime called on to lay it all out on the line and they deserve nothing but admiration and respect when they do. Those big explosions were what they were and anyone in the wrong place would not do so well.

By the grace of God, I have never needed to provide this kind of function, but I am part of our plants response team. I like to think I would do what ever is needed to protect the public, but it is probably better to just make sure that heroism is never needed in the first place.

I know what the nuclear lingo means, and as such I was able to get a pretty reasonable picture from web based news releases. I just reviewed a 11:20 release for 3/22 and there is not much change. The way the world "news media" can take so-so facts and turn them into "death & gloom" is pretty obvious. Not much point in telling these guys much given what their track record is.

From my experience, Japan has been somewhat less open to talk about events at their facilities than most countries, but there is a world nuclear organization that tends to keep everyone honest enough. We all insist on sharing lessons learned so that we can all get better and avoid repeating mistakes made elsewhere. The nuclear utilities are not really in competition with each other, so we probably share info as good or better than any other major industry. It is pretty obvious that a bad event anywhere causes trouble for all of us.

 

I can appreciate that initially the ranks of the 'missing' must be accounted by some means such as direct reporting.
I see this more as a necessity than deception.
How many fled? are at relatives, shelters etc.
It takes time to know I suppose how many have been lost.

Will the eventual accounting adjust this number by some other means such as a comparative census Ad Hoc?

I believe that Japan is not unique in the semantics of this grim issue.
"Missing" has long caused consternation and suffering amoung the survivors of those lost in military action here in the US where the body was never recovered..
Also in civil matters- the condition of deceased must be observed to be factual.

Forgive me but it is not my instinct to call out a trespass in a nations response to such dire circumstances.

 

I have met quite a few Vietnam vets who never went home, they own bars in Pattaya and more recently Vietnam and Cambodia.

Why tell the US where they are ?--they will be expected to pay US taxes.

Sooo your missing in action presumed dead is inaccurate ,---a bit.

 

Then again, it is probably pretty ovbvious what the scope of damage is. Anywhere that folks have access to cameras and You Tube (or even just blog postings from the locals), the stuff just gets out. This makes it hard for much "hiding" of what is going on.

The world should really not focus on body counts and such. The real story is what are we (the world) doing to help all of the injured and displaced people. The human tragedy will continue for a while.

 

The plant workers are not posted pictures or videos. They could be intensely loyal, too busy or forbidden cameras on pain of who knows what. With the prevalence of camera-equipped cell phones and recent events, one would expect they would communicate with their families, but the media are not getting a whisper ...

 

BBC 3AM 22 march

Tokyo is 100 times over the safe limit. China and Taiwan are carefully examining Japanese food imports. water is contaminated along with cows milk, spinach and sprouts.

At least one reactor is back on grid but there is a radiation leak from an unknown source.

 

Um, your information is incorrect, Frosty.

They have restored outside power to all 6 reactors and gotten the lights back on in control room #3, but none of the reactors themselves will be back online for months, if ever. I have no idea where you got "Tokyo is 100 times over the safe limit", but that is materially false. The radiation level in the seawater next to the plant is greatly elevated, but this is localized and not expected to cause any harm.

Low levels of contamination have been found in the products you mentioned, including groundwater in a few places near the plant.

 

Damn that BBC they always get it wrong. Do you get it. you should look at it and see the lies they put out.

They got the lights on in a control room!!!! Did they have to switch them on or were they already on as they were on when the power was cut off,-- wow -- breaking news --

 

I read the BBC all the time and I thought they were pretty good, besides unlike american TV I'm pretty sure its illegal to present outright false news in Europe

There was an article in the BBC this morning about Germany moving to eliminate nuclear power and replace it with various forms of green fuels.

 

Ya, speeding is illegal too Boston!

"Green" fuel 'eh, what is that anyway?

-Tom

 

well at least they catch some folks some of the time
try fox news sometime and check the crap they are trying to pass off

don't know what green fuel is?
its the stuff that doesn't demolish the place cause its non toxic ( hm there's a double negative in there somewhere but you know what I mean )
and can almost always be produced on a municipal level freeing us all from things like nuclear meltdown or BP's deep water horizon accidents and mega corporations dictating the price of fuel. check the bio-diesel thread for my new WMO processing tank I just finished yesterday.

we now return you to your normally scheduled programing

 

Germany is building the first industrial scale Fischer-Tropz biomass-to-liquids plant in the world. Expected to come online this year or next. When completed the plant will convert pretty much any sort of organic waste (plants, trees, etc) into diesel or jet fuel.