Japan has ordered emergency workers to withdraw from its stricken nuclear plant amid a surge in radiation, temporarily suspending efforts to cool the overheating reactors. The workers, who have been dousing the reactors at the Fukushima plant with seawater in a frantic effort to stabilize their temperatures, had no choice but to pull back from the most dangerous areas.
The medias are in a frenzy about this now, somehow overshadowing the tragic situation of millions of people struggling along the coast with little food, water or heat, and already chilly temperatures dropped further as a cold front moved in.
A lot of help is needed and urgently.
But if a flood can be cleaned up, a fire put out, earthquake damage repaired, the effects of a nuclear meltdown will last, well not forever, but certainly hundreds years. The speed this crisis has escalated just goes to show how dangerous nuclear power stations are, When the sea went back they looked intact and just needed diesel generation equipment or auxiliary pumps to run the cooling systems as the reactors were shut down following the earthquake. Less than one week on and they have exploded and are leaking radiation. Everyone was saying this is not as bad as Chernobyl but four reactors are in a critical situation.
I remember the tragedy of Chernobyl vividly. I also remember the conscript soldiers given shovels and brooms and ordered to climb the destroyed reactor and sweep the debris back in the bowels of the wreck. They died in their thousands, but never 'reported' by the Soviet authorities of course. I'm also aware that vast swathes of the Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and Poland remain fenced off and unsuitable for food production and will remain so for many, many years.
The Fukushima reactor may not be a similar disaster (hopefully not!), but it shows that technology is a fragile thing, and we simply can't afford to make fundamental mistakes any more.
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