Archive for March, 2011

Tanks Used to Clear Rubble at Nuclear Plant

In the aftermath of the March 11th disaster, Japan’s Self-Defense Forces have been getting a lot of positive press for their dedication to rescue and relief efforts.

Now they are using tanks as bulldozers to clear rubble at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant:

The massive March 11 Tohoku earthquake and ensuing tsunami, as well as several explosions at the plant’s reactors in the following days, have left the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant littered with rubble and debris, which has hampered desperate efforts by the SDF and Tokyo Fire Department to repair the reactors.

The tanks from the GSDF’s Camp Komakado in Gotemba, Shizuoka Prefecture, were transported to Fukushima on Sunday evening.

The tanks arrived at the power plant Monday and began operations after receiving a request from the government.

Normal bulldozers would be dangerous in such a situation, but the tanks are apparently built to shield its crews from most of the radiation.

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TEPCO’s Apology Commercial

In yesterday’s post about PSAs on Japanese TV, I forgot to mention that there is one company that has been paying to air commercials for the last few days. That company is Tokyo Electric (TEPCO), the folks behind the nuclear accident in Fukushima:

In the commercial, a voice reads an apology for the worry and trouble it has caused to the people of Fukushima and to Japan as a whole. The voice says that TEPCO will keep working hard to resolve the situation.

[hat tip to Mulboyne]

I’m still waiting for TEPCO’s president to make an apology ad like this:

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Why Do Japanese Politicians Dress-up Like Workmen After Natural Disasters?

A couple days ago on the TBS news program “Jouhou 7 Days News Caster,” comedian/director Takeshi Kitano delivered a monologue in which he commented on how Japanese lawmakers switched from suits to work clothes after the March 11th earthquake [via Itai News]:

Takeshi thinks it is ridiculous. Why are lawmakers dressing up like they are going to do manual labor? If they dress up like that, shouldn’t they be out in Tohoku helping clean up? He sees it all as a stupid performance.

Below are a few photos of Japanese politicians playing dress-up in Tokyo after the big earthquake.

Renho, Minister for Administrative Reforms, wears work clothes as she inspects on food availability at a convenience store in Tokyo:

Opposition party lawmakers dress up in work clothes (Yoshimi Watanabe and Mizuho Fukushima wear normal clothes instead):

Ritsuo Hosokawa, Minister of Health, Labor, and Welfare, wears a work jacket while giving a press conference:

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, whose use of work clothes is probably more understandable than others, since he has been working his ass off for days without much sleep:

Prime Minister Kan talks to reporters in Tokyo:

Kan was scheduled to visit the disaster-struck areas today, but concerns about “bad weather” made him cancel the trip. I guess those work clothes aren’t durable enough to withstand a little bit of rain.

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Over 75% of French Citizens Residing in Japan Have Fled the Country?

Liberation.fr has posted an interview with French Ambassador to Japan Philippe Faure, in which the Fukushima nuclear accident and the evacuation of French citizens.

It contains the following line:

Vendredi soir, il restait au Japon près de 1 800 Français.

As of Friday night (March 18th), about 1,800 French people remained in Japan.

According to Japanese government statistics from 2009, there were about 9,200 French citizens residing in Japan. If only about 1,800 French citizens are remain in Japan, that would mean that over 7,000 have left the country – an astoundingly high number. It looks like a lot of French citizens believed their government’s scary statements about radiation danger.

Britain’s Daily Mail, which seems to have realized that Japanese people are not fleeing Tokyo in terror, included this passage in a recent article:

Life is going on as normal.

I spoke to businessman Yashiko Nakasuma, who shook my hand and said: ‘Thank you, the British, for coming here to tell it as it really is.

‘We have been seeing the reports on CNN and hearing what the French have been saying about our country and how the disaster is out of control and that Tokyo is in chaos.

Hikaru added: ‘There is a lot of anger in Japan against the French. We are not particularly close to that country and their officials have been coming out very publicly and accusing the Japanese of mishandling the power-plant disaster.

‘How dare the French attack us when they are always the first to collapse and run away at the first sign of any trouble?’

Update: The French news article seems to have made a mistake.

It looks like a big mistake from Liberation.fr.
I saw this information nowhere else, LeFigaro.fr say that about 2,000 French people remained in Tokyo, and that between 1,000 and 2,000 come back to France.
AFP say that 977 French people come back to France Thursday and Friday with the first free flights from the French government.

[hat tip to Daniel Seite and PP]

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Post-Earthquake Japanese TV: PSAs Instead of Commercials

Japanese TV channels have had a bit of a problem. For the first few days after the March 11th Tohoku earthquake, most television programming consisted of live news updates about the disaster. When the channels started airing normal programs again, they found themselves without advertisers. It seems that few companies want to air cheery commercials during what is essentially a period of mourning for the Japanese nation.

Since TV programs have been created with the assumption that a certain number of minutes per hour will be taken up by commercials, the TV networks have been airing public service announcements during commercial breaks.

This PSA from AC Japan has been shown so many times that people are beginning to go crazy when they hear it:

There’s also this PSA, asking women to get breast cancer and cervical cancer checks:

A few days ago, AC apologized for the annoyance and started to remove the “eeyyy-seeee” jingle from the end of some of these PSAs, since they are apparently getting a lot of complaints about it.

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Taiwan: Radiation Detected in Shipment of Japanese Beans

Taiwanese authorities are claiming that they’ve detected trace amounts of radiation in a shipment of fava beans imported from Japan to Taiwan:

Taiwan’s Cabinet-level Atomic Energy Council Radiation Monitoring Center said in a statement that a small amount of iodine and cesium had been found on a batch of Japanese fava beans imported to the island on Friday. The center said 11 becquerels of iodine and 1 becquerel of cesium were detected.

The amount of radiation was well below Taiwan’s legal limit and not harmful to human health, an official from the center told The Associated Press.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to deal with the media.

The radiation was detected on the surface of the beans in one batch, the official said. He did not know where in Japan the beans originated.

The article is extremely vague. It does not specify what it means by “becquerels.” It only says that the radiation level was well below the Taiwanese legal limit. Is it becquerel per kilogram, or something else? In Japan, news agencies have been reporting radiation using becquerel per kilogram, with the legal limit for iodine-131 in spinach at 2,000 becquerel per kilogram.

It’s quite possible that beans from Fukushima or Ibaraki would have some contamination, but it seems unlikely that beans harvested after the nuclear accident would already be making their way to Taiwan.

Update: The shipment of beans has been destroyed, so nobody will eat them. The beans were apparently from Kagoshima.

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