From the New York Times:
A small crew of technicians, braving radiation and fire, became the only people remaining at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station on Tuesday — and perhaps Japan’s last chance of preventing a broader nuclear catastrophe.
[...]
They are the faceless 50, the unnamed operators who stayed behind. They have volunteered, or been assigned, to pump seawater on dangerously exposed nuclear fuel, already thought to be partly melting and spewing radioactive material, to prevent full meltdowns that could throw thousands of tons of radioactive dust high into the air and imperil millions of their compatriots.
[...]
The workers are being asked to make escalating — and perhaps existential — sacrifices that so far are being only implicitly acknowledged: Japan’s Health Ministry said Tuesday it was raising the legal limit on the amount of radiation to which each worker could be exposed, to 250 millisieverts from 100 millisieverts, five times the maximum exposure permitted for American nuclear plant workers.
You can talk about cultural differences all you want, but it doesn’t diminish the sacrifice and the courage that these workers are displaying.
Honestly, when I realised what they were doing, I cried. I doubt any of them will see the end of next year, and I don’t for a second doubt that they all know that – but they’re staying anyway. Brave, brave people making a horrible sacrifice.
250 millisieverts of radiation is nothing to scoff at but it’s not lethal. They’ll live for a fairly long time yet. They’d need to get dosed with about twice that before they start having to worry about radiation poisoning. They’ll likely have an increased risk of cancer as they go on. They won’t die from that exposure, though.
As Jonathan said, I don’t want to downplay the significance of this, but I do have to emphasize that this isn’t suicide. Even if some of the workers do get exposed to the full legal limit of 250 mSv, or even somewhat more than that, it is unlikely any will get radiation sickness. And even if some do get radiation sickness, it will probably be just some mild to moderate nausea for a few days.
And assuming this disaster doesn’t last too long, none will have a measurable increase in their risk of cancer.
Okay, I will. This coming from the same country that gave us kamikaze bombers. I’d say their culture is rather fine-tuned to this sort of sacrifice thing; I don’t really see something like that happening over here in the states both because I don’t have any examples and our culture doesn’t value sacrifice like that quite as much as the Japanese.
And by examples, I mean large-scale sacrifice like this, not just a guy or two sacrificing themselves.
Flight 93?
Hmmm, but they presumably knew that they were going to die if they did nothing – Not so much self sacrifice as attempted self help?
I don’t know. I was also thinking of all the rescue people that climbed the stairs in WTC towers. I think it was an unusual situation – a huge fire way upstairs and no ladder to reach. It’s hard for me to account for that, just following orders, but they probably doubted it would work on such a huge fire and they would die. What people on the way down the stairs who got out say about the looks on the firefighters’ faces. I don’t really want to look that stuff up online right now.
Now that is a good example; they must have at least realised the risk they were taking.
But they’re firefighters. They do that every day.
I meant in the way that their whole job, which they did choose to do, is like that. I was hesitant to make it my first example, because it wasn’t really their decision… and sequence of events is kind of fuzzy, but I’m not sure they actually saved anyone from dying. They might have encouraged people to continue going down the stairs, some of whom made it out, but they sacrificed in vain, which makes it a lot harder to take, but they went in to make a show. If the fire dept.s didn’t go in, no matter that the same would happen, and spare their own lives, it would have been terrible PR.
Did they? Did they or anyone else expect the towers to come down? Although many of them would probably have gone in anyway, if they thought they could save someone.
But these 50 know that they’re putting themselves on the line – and in line for a nasty death. Brave people.
As I read the news, it’s 180 people working in shifts, in teams of 50. It’s a bit unclear, but I’m reading the Daily Mail, so that’s normal.
If it’s the Mail it’s probably asking a bit much for them not to use racial prejoratives or refer to Pearl Harbour.
That’s a racist statement. You are a racist because you wrote it. Fuck you.
Um… How was any part of DDM’s statement racist? Pointing out a historical fact, no matter how unpleasant that fact might be, is not racist. If he’d said “A load of Germans once kicked-off a really big war”, would that also be a racist statement? No, it would be a statement of fact. Honestly, I think the reply you’ve left for DDM is a long, long way out of order and you owe him an apology.
Seconded.
Kamikaze pilots? Dude, it takes balls to actually kill yourself to advance a cause you believe in. That’s fucking dedication, right there.
No more than your average islamic suicide bomber who we call cowards.
I put this down to human bravery to do a job to save other people. It’s innate to all of us an we are all capable of doing it.
“Drugged” dedication from waht I understand.
I agree…I’m not sure I would have the self sacrifice.
One of my favorite radicals makes a good (political) point…. http://the-crows-eye.blogspot.com/2011/03/how-stuff-works-again.html
A lot of cultures have this attitude. Don’t we have soldiers who have stayed behind to do “their duty”? It’s a human thing and universal to all of us.
There are little examples of this kind of suicidal bravery everyday across the world.Sometimes its just something as simple as women standing up for rights in parts of the world like Afghanistan. Sometimes its this. (Remember we villify suicide bombers for precisely this mentality)
Don’t knock your own cultures down. There are plenty of examples of this kind of bravery. It’s what the medal of honour (in our case the Victoria Cross) and other medals were meant to commemorate. Bravery is just doing your job despite the odds.
Some people feel nausea and loss of appetite; bone marrow, lymph nodes, spleen damaged at this level and the effects of radiation can be countermanded by the use of protective clothing and iodine prophylaxis. They can survive this, its been done before with far less 250 mSieverts is just under the human tolerance. Above that and the effects begin to show but the dosage tolerance can be increased to increase the chance of them coming out.
I think it’s a human thing that can be either emphasized or diluted further by cultural enforcement. For good or ill, mind you, as I think both approaches can lead to rather psychotic conclusions (people committing suicide over trivial dishonor, or people not pulling together when they need to to survive as a group).
If only Metairie had such dedication from their pump operators during Hurricane Katrina.
Thats not exactly fair, they were ordered to leave, so it may not have been their call, but I think sometimes its tough for people to realize the old saying the needs of the many out weigh the needs of the few.
Yes, I just quoted Spock from Star Trek 2.
…or the one.
Wise words.
I imagine the GM of the electric company is one of those 50. Not.
Good luck guys!
If anyone is looking for context for the units of sieverts (Sv), the natural yearly dose is .4 milliSieverts/year (That’s just from naturally occurring radiation from the rocks in the Earth, cosmic rays, etc). A chest x-ray will give a dose of about .08 mSv. If you get one dose of 100 mSv, you have about a 1% chance of developing cancer. Radiation Sickness with 10% fatality within a month happens at 1000 mSv or 1 Sv.
What they are putting themselves through is horrible, I do not envy them, but I do really respect the bravery and courage they have for doing this.
sauce?
1 Sv should not be fatal in pretty much any treated cases. 2 Sv occasionally might be.
But it seems the real risk is that an accident will occur exposing one or more of them to a higher dose of radiation. Given the current circumstances, this is unfortunately a very high risk.
My lecture notes from the class physics class I’m taking, Introduction to Modern Physics II. Wikipedia has a nice chart on their radiation poisoning article that gives a 0-5% mortality rate for 1-2 Sv. I’m guessing that my professor was giving us the information, which was a fun* tangent to the course, to an order of magnitude. One thing that my notes is void about is the duration of exposure. If I’m reading wikipedia’s chart correctly, the duration of 1-2 Sv exposure for this chance of fatality is on the order of a day.
* “Fun:” I mean this in the sense of it being interesting real world knowledge of the physics we are studying. The isn’t anything actually fun about radiation sickness.
As a Senior Reactor Operator at a similar plant, I can imagine the challenge these guys are up against with everything we are trained to respond to events with not available. I am also confident that the majority of my operators would stay and fight. I know that all the senior managers would be there.
Yes I also think that on any nuclear power station a lot of operators would stay to fight the melt down. I would too because I know that this will save many others.
I actually solicited to work in a Nuclear power station but they turned me down.
I have been wondering why, but I think that I responded wrongly at the question what I would do when a nuclear melt down was about to happen. Run or stay? I told that I would stay to help contain it. It think they did not hire me because I sounded too much like one that would take unnecessary risks.
I am following the news reports closely, hoping that they succeed.
“You can talk about cultural differences all you want, but it doesn’t diminish the sacrifice and the courage that these workers are displaying.”
Agreed.
Urgh… the lovely people at Natural News sent this to me
Vultures are trying to make a profit during this period. A quick check has them costing their homeopathic iodine sources at $22 for a bottle of pills.
You have to admire their balls. “Price gouging! Oh noes! NOW GIVE ME YOUR MONEY FOR THIS PILE OF SHIT!”
“Oh, look, a disaster happened! How can we profit off of this…”
Same motive, every time.
Urgh! I didn’t use quote markers properly. Until “see full list here” is their advert.
The bit calling them vultures is me…. I am not pro natural news!.
Fixed.
I sent them this link, saying it doesn’t make them look bad, it’s more like they are bad.
It took three tries via their contact page — after chekcing email address, cookies, and captcha, apparently if you check the circle “I have a complaint”, they just don’t want to hear it and the website refuses to process (incorrect email or captcha”). But when I left it on the default circle, “I have an idea for an article”, then it goes through. Funny, that.
Why are the guys responsible for this disaster not working in the nuclear plant now? The managers that screwed security in favor for some bucks? As I read this kind of reactor was unsafe to begin with and several security checks showed the plant not to be quake safe.
Others have to face death for the errors of the greedy. >:(
“Welcome to the layer cake, son.”
Apparently that was a rumour. The issue was that this was allegedly a breeder reactor for plutonium,
Turns out it is something called a light water reactor. The issue is that the scale of devastation wrought was unprecedented. 9 on the richter scale is a rare event (bear in mind the scale is a base 10 log scale and thus ten times worse than a 8 or a 7 and we saw the kind of carnage those can cause. Even earthquakeproofing may not completely protect the building plus the tsunami did a number on the place.
We like people to take the blame, this is probably among the best run nuclear power stations in the world. Sometimes accidents are accidents with no human to blame.
In fact, the Richter scale measures the shaking amplitude (consider a seismograph with its quivering needles), but the destructive force (the actual energy released) of a quake scales at a factor of 1.5. So for every 1 Richter point the destructive force is increased by 10^1.5, about 32 times. Which means that for every 2 Richter points the destructive force increases 1000 times.
So yeah, 9.0 is really bad…
I think Indonesian earthquake was stronger, so as far as unprecedented… and Tsunami is a japanese word. I’m sure this was one of the best run nuclear power stations and yet, it wasn’t enough. Scary, uh?
The managers that screwed security in favour of a buck?
How can anyone predict a 8.9 Earth quake followed with a Tsunami like this?
It is actually amazing that the reactor still stays this safe.
I think the plant WAS in fact quake safe,,, it simply was not tsunami safe.
Since you value selfless sacrifice for others so much…’and he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves’ 2 Cor 5.15 (hey at least its on topic right? ha) All the best.
Except he didn’t actually die.
Moreover, if he actually existed, jeebus (not really) died to save humanity from himself, in this sense he’s less like the reactor operators and more like the fuel rods.
You know what, John C? Could you rest your stupid spiritbabble for one damned second and reflect on the lives lost ant the valiant people trying to prevent a larger disaster? Tens of thousands of people are dead–and fifty people are more than likely going to sacrifice their lives to protect more Japanese people; for those fifty men and women, there’s not going to be some “magical” three-day-later resurrection. So stuff your nonsense claptrap, you sanctimonious prick.
You sick son of a loving mother.
Don’t you dare to compare the actual self-sacrifice of real human beings with a so called savior, that was definitely not the son of any so called super being?
Your cynicism is unbearable. Hope you are ashamed of yourself. gfy.
Nah. He is just trolling…
It’s like going onto a Christian board on a discussion of the resurrection and saying “Just like Harry Potter”.
Atleast if he is trolling then I would have some respect for him, because he gets a kick out of us not getting the joke. However if he is real then I am ashamed to be human.
This is a case of human bravery, it is universal to humans irrespective of culture. Saying it is from one specific culture insults other cultures who produce people who do the same thing. Any one of us is capable of incredible bravery and I see it daily out there. It does not matter who you are, its what you do that counts.
John has been coming here for years and is, I’m sorry to say, very much for real. I wish that both of those statements were untrue.
A plausible reason people are so gullible for that fictional story.
Yoav! That is amazing. As the parody chick cartoon Big White Guy on A Throne Asks; “Why did I kill myself to save you from rules I made myelf?” (Bad paraphrase)
let’s remember the distant past… when chernobyl went down, the workers who went into that radioactive hell knew that they, too, would die. self-sacrifice is not unique to japanese culture. & kamikaze pilots are the antithesis of what they’re doing. don’t deride their self-sacrifice by comparing what they’re doing in a thoughtful, reasoned way.
the americano way? send in the robots! glad i was born here.
Nobody said it was exclusive to Japanese culture.
I believe I’m the one who brought up the kamikaze pilots — my point there was that it takes a huge set of balls to give your life for something, whether it’s a war or a nuclear disaster. That kind of dedication — “I’m gonna do this or die trying” — is admirable, even if I don’t agree with what a person is dedicated to.
There are actual reasons as to why Robots could not be used. The things that need fixing aren’t replacements but actual parts that require human hands to build. There are no robots that can fix (the japanese love robots if you had not noticed.) the issue so humans are used.
Put it this way, even in robotic surgery you have humans as backups. The robotics don’t respond well to new changes and emergencies. Humans simply work better in situations where you need to wing it. That’s why they don’t use them for emergencies bar in certain situations.
They have already asked for and are being sent ROBOTS.
I’m a bit confused as to why they upped the legal limit. It seems like they should keep it the same if that’s what it should be, but the workers and their families should be compensated for working under conditions above that legal limit. It could be that they are just doing both or the money is kind of a non-issue under the current conditions.
I think it would be hard to compensate someone when there is nothing left to compensate them with. Perhaps they raised the limit much the way the Nutrition Board would lower theirs in a famine.
The country still exists. They had several natural disasters, not civil war. That is like saying the US couldn’t do anything for the fire fighters of 9/11. Why would the nutrition board lower their standards in a famine? That wouldn’t make sense either. That would seem like one of the better measurements to go by to call something a famine. Why lower it?
I could see an agency in charge of nutrition facts lowering the standards when there is a famine to try to get people to cut back on the consumption of food. How many people in the USA base their calorie intake on government guidelines?