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Inside Fukushima: 8 months after disaster, foreign journalists get first look at crippled nuclear plant

Xeni Jardin — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 16:07:26 +0000

The crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant's upper part of the No.3 reactor building is seen from a bus window, November 12, 2011. REUTERS/Kyodo.

On Saturday, Japanese government representatives and TEPCO officials escorted a group of Japanese and foreign journalists inside the badly damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant for the first time since March 11. This was the first time media were allowed in after a tsunami and earthquake eight months ago triggered the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.

TEPCO and government officials hoped to show the world that the situation inside Fukushima is under control, eight months later. Visiting reporters had to wear protective gear, and undergo radiation screening. They saw crumbling reactor structures, huge piles of rubble, twisted metal fences, dented water tanks, and trucks overturned by the massive tsunami wave. Smaller administrative buildings nearby remain just as they were when office workers fled the oncoming wave, on March 11.

Authorities said they are hoping to reach full cold shutdown, but the reactor at Fukushima is not yet fully under control. It may take decades to safely close this site.

Reports from today's tour: Reuters, Associated Press, and the New York Times, with more here. AP also has a report today on conditions for workers. Related: The Institute of Nuclear Power Operations has released a detailed, minute-by-minute timeline of the events that unfolded at Fukushima Daiichi on March 11. The report was delivered on Nov. 11 to U.S. industry executives, the NRC, and of Congress. A NYT article on the report is here.

VIDEO: Watch Miles O'Brien's PBS NewsHour report inside the Fukushima exclusion zone, about efforts to monitor and share data about radiation levels throughout Japan (I helped shoot and produce). YouTube, PBS.org.

A worker (C) is given a radiation screening as he enters the emergency operation center, November 12. The poster (L) reads "No tobacco and gum on the premises". REUTERS/David Guttenfelder.

A A worker inside the emergency operation center listens to a speech by Japan's Environment and Nuclear Crisis Minister Goshi Hosono (not in picture), November 12, 2011. REUTERS/David Guttenfelder.

Employees of TEPCO work inside the Fukushima Daiichi emergency operation center, November 12, 2011. REUTERS/David Guttenfelder.

A radiation monitor indicates 73.20 microsieverts per hour at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, November 12, 2011. The power plant's No.4 reactor building is seen in the right side of this picture. REUTERS/Kyodo.

The crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant's No.4, No.3, No.2 and No.1 (R-L) reactor buildings are seen from bus windows. REUTERS/Kyodo.

The crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant's No.4 reactor building is seen through bus windows. REUTERS/David Guttenfelder.

Officials from the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) and journalists pass by a newly built sea barricade next to the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, November 12, 2011. REUTERS/David Guttenfelder.

Japanese officials wearing protective suits and masks ride in the back of a bus while a second bus carrying officials and journalists follow as they drive through the contaminated exclusion zone. REUTERS/David Guttenfelder.

What's the fallout for pets abandoned in Japan's Fukushima hot zone?

Xeni Jardin — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 18:40:52 +0000

PBS NewsHour's Jenny Marder wrote a really interesting feature about the abandoned pets inside the Fukushima evacuation zone in Japan. I encountered some of them when I traveled to the area with Safecast and PBS NewsHour science correspondent Miles O'Brien (our resulting PBS NewsHour report video is here).

Jenny digs into what happened with the volunteer effort to rescue and adopt the abandoned pets, and talks to scientists about the effect of fallout on animals (including intergenerational and genetic changes, like what the world saw within bird and wild animal populations after Chernobyl). Snip:

At the tail end of Miles O'Brien's latest NewsHour report on radiation in Japan, a golden dog with a thick red collar trots into the street of the abandoned town, Katsurao, and weaves along the center divider.

Miles asks, off camera: "Do we have anything to feed him?"

The piece, which airs tonight, reports on the group Safecast, which has measured, mapped and crowdsourced data on radiation levels in locations throughout Japan, particularly in the hot spots near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

The dog was one of several scrawny, undernourished dogs and cats they encountered, most likely abandoned by their owners during rapid evacuation.

Read more: What's the Fallout for Dogs Near Fukushima? (The Rundown News Blog | PBS NewsHour)

(Photos in this post by Sean Bonner: all iPhone snapshots of abandoned pets we encountered in the evacuation zone, shot during our drive from Tokyo to Fukushima in August, 2011)

Safecast draws on power of the crowd to map Japan's radiation

Xeni Jardin — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 17:51:19 +0000

[Video Link: YouTube, PBS.org]

I traveled to Japan with PBS NewsHour science correspondent Miles O'Brien to help shoot and produce a series of NewsHour stories about the aftermath of the March 11 earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disasters. One of these just aired, and is above. It's the story of how a group of hackers and internet folks are working with Japanese volunteers to harness DIY technology to record and share data about radiation hotspots.

We traveled with Safecast on a radiation-data-gathering drive from Tokyo to inside the voluntary evacuation zone, close to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. We monitored readings on the ground and in the air with the Safecast team all along the way. You'll see what those contamination levels were, and what and whom we encountered, in this video.

Some of the voices in this piece are familiar names to regular Boing Boing readers: Joi Ito, Sean Bonner, and others. One DIY/Maker/hacker culture hero we interviewed whose work you see is Bunnie Huang (I was thrilled that this project allowed me to meet Bunnie in person for the first time).

In the NewsHour story, airing exactly eight months to the day after the March 11 disaster, you'll see the geiger counters the Safecast team have developed with Sebastopol, California-based Dan Sythe and International Medcom. The successor to the "B-Geigie" Safecast is using now will be a device Bunnie designed (which looks really elegant, by the way). Oh, and these geiger kits were assembled in the very cool Tokyo Hacker Space, a central site for the Safecast movement.

LINKS: PBS NewsHour site, with transcript. Don't miss this conversation with Miles and NewsHour Host Hari Sreenivasan, the day after we came back to Tokyo from the Fukushima drive. And here's a related story about the abandoned pets we encountered there.

Here's a related post on Safecast.org, and here's Sean Bonner's original drive report from our trip together.

Ganbare, Nippon.

(Photos in this post: iPhone snapshots by Xeni Jardin.)