| Submit your comments on this article |
| -Signs, Portents, and the Weather- |
| The Fukushima 50: Not afraid to die |
| 2011-03-16 |
| Since the disaster struck in Japan, about 800 workers have been evacuated from the damaged nuclear complex in Fukushima. The radiation danger is that great. However, CBS News correspondent Jim Axelrod reports that a handful have stayed on the job, risking their lives, to try to save the lives of countless people they don't even know. Although communication with the workers inside the nuclear plant is nearly impossible, a CBS News consultant spoke to a Japanese official who made contact with one of the 50 inside the control center. The official said that his friend, one of the Fukushima 50, told him that he was not afraid to die, that that was his job. Cham Dallas, who led teams responding to the Chernobyl disaster, said that kind of response is not out of the normal for some workers in the nuclear energy sector. "(In) my experience of people in the action area of nuclear power is much like that," Dallas said. The 50 are working amid decreasing but still dangerously high levels of radiation. "The longer they stay the more dangerous it becomes for them," said expert Margaret Harding. "I think it is a testament to their guts for them to say, 'We'll stay and if that means we go, we go.'" If the contamination threat isn't contained in a few weeks, finding enough workers willing to face the risks could become a crucial challenge. Dallas said he expects that in that scenario, the Japanese energy authorities may have to find volunteers willing to undergo similar dangers, which will be hard to do, but not impossible. Keep in mind they'd be volunteering to head into a place so potentially dangerous, that anyone within 20 miles of it was just asked to evacuate. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #9 A more technical discussion can be found at the NEI website. The Fox News website has an article here. The workers staying behind are the plant engineers, the most technically savvy workers on site. |
| Posted by: Ptah 2011-03-16 19:27 |
| #8 FWIW aggregate status updates can be found here. Their source is this page with links to reports in PDF format. |
| Posted by: Speresing Speaking for Boskone6370 2011-03-16 17:23 |
| #7 Yeah, right after this story started circulating, it was quickly followed up by reports (from everybody but a single NYT reporter) that they were pulling them back because it was too dangerous in the interior. The news coming out of Fukushima is so fucked that I can't tell which end is up anymore. A combination of telephone gaming, massive translation issues, and panic is shredding the information flow in English media. Meanwhile, the fucking French are pontificating about the situation through yet *another* set of translation filters and at about ten thousand kilometers remove. |
| Posted by: Mitch H. 2011-03-16 08:37 |
| #6 As Bill Whittle would say, 'sheepdogs'. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2011-03-16 08:13 |
| #5 one of the Fukushima 50, told him that he was not afraid to die, that that was his job. It reminds me of Heinlein's "The Green Hills of Earth". This was a known possibility the day they started their training, and yet they never turned away. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2011-03-16 07:50 |
| #4 These are the same people who were still coming out of remote Pacific island caves with their Arisaka rifles over 20 years after WWII had officially ended. The Bashido (the way of the warrior) is not dead. I respect these brave people. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2011-03-16 04:30 |
| #3 Modern day Samurai. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2011-03-16 02:44 |
| #2 What Mettle, in the Finest sense. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2011-03-16 01:27 |
| #1 There were men like that at Chernobyl also, warriors in every sense of the word. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2011-03-16 00:56 |