Is it just me or are the 50 workers at the Daiichi plant left alone to fight this crisis while

the Japanese government, army, air force, has not mobilized to fight it? Are they just hoping for the best? Or are they leaving it up to the TEPCO corporation? Looks foolish to me to the highest degree. Something stinks in Japan and I think it's capitalism. It stinks everywhere.

which was run by wait... no they weren't capitalists.

Both bred corruption and a lack of compassion in humanity.

the army. There were 600 helicopter pilots flying sorties with bags of stuff to cover the reactor. Japan seems to be unwilling to do the sacrifice but risks damage to the entire nation.

I would imagine those 50 workers are the most well trained and well equipped personnel to handle the crisis.

and motivated by the most pure possible sentiments.






















And will be forever honored.

nt

and they're saying it's a pool of 200 people they draw the rotating 50 from, that is good to hear.

so it's actually around 200. This is highly specialized work. Warm bodies won't do.

I believe they can honestly say, "we've got our best people on it".

on NPR this morning in which they said there are a couple of hundred men rotating in and out in shifts of 50 men. These men are technicians and are taken from the older workers at the plant because the health effects of radiation will likely not become full blown in their life span as they would for younger workers there.

Who knew.

nt

You really think it would have been done if there were no profits involved????

They were dropping water from the air and now they're working on getting boots on the ground with hoses (not something you can do at the drop of a hat in an area with destroyed infrastructure).

They are currently working on a plan to get ground personnel there with hoses.

who told you otherwise?

The people who most likely volunteered, know they are already dead

but they already had lethal doses... lord

with lots of people taking turns never staying long enough to sustain lethal dose and then being taken out of the area. I don't see that happening and it worries me that somewhere somebody is just hoping for the best.

It is very likely that many, if not all, of these volunteers know that they are going to die from this.

Second, do you really want a bunch of untrained police or military folks also committing suicide while not really being all that effective (throwing their lives away or at least their health for nothing).

50 men, for god's sake, this disaster is bigger than 50 men. I understand that the infrastructure is destroyed, but the government has to take charge. This is not a job for 50 men, the well-being of the whole country is at stake.

water drops? You have fuel rods (even spent fuel rods) which are exposed to the air right now. It is very likely that there are holes in the pools where the spent fuel rods are located. Those fuel rods, once exposed to the air, oxidize very very quickly. This will compromise the metal cladding that surrounds the fuel pellets. Once the cladding is gone, the fuel pellets will "slag" and concentrate at the bottom of the pool. Once that happens, there is a likely increase of heat (dramatic) and a "China Syndrome" is possible. When that molten slag of uranium (and plutonium in one of the spent fuel pools) hits the water table, there will be an explosion (water turned into steam instantly) which will create the world's largest dirty bomb. That's game over.

Helicopter water drops are unlikely to prevent it. Repaired electric lines (recently announced) are also unlikely to prevent this as well because of damage to the pipes and to the pumping system. Not to mention that those pools have holes in the walls, therefore, trying to keep the rods covered with water is problematic.

It all sounds like desperation to me.

Throwing a bunch of people at it... not sure that they can even get a significant number of people to the site, much less have them do anything.

wouldn't you try it, considering the alternatives you just outlined? This is not an academic problem. A desperate act may be the difference between life and death for many people. Chernobyl liquidators did a lot of desperate acts that saved us from an even greater catastrophe.

But I doubt it. The fat cats from TEPCO are probably on their way out of the country.

planning the two new nuclear plants the Whitehouse hired them to build.

from BP gushing oil into the environment. I'm sure all the people pissing blood are lying and trying to get money from BP. :sarcasm:

100 workers. I cannot imagine what hell it must be to be one of those 50.