Japan should call in foreign experts to help end crisis

The temperature in Bangkok has suddenly cooled, like the cold weather in December. Normally at this time of the year we would be sweating in the summer heat, as we are only a month away from Songkran and the hottest time of the year.
In Viet Nam, snow has swept across its northern region in an extremely rare phenomenon. There have been jokes in Thailand that we soon might have snow too. Whether the abnormal change in the weather conditions is related to the nuclear crisis in Japan has not been established. But, joking aside, we are certainly witnessing one of the most challenging and difficult periods in modern history with the tragedy unfolding in Japan and natural disasters in other places, including New Zealand recently.
The United States has issued a warning over the deteriorating conditions at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in the northeast of Japan. It has suggested voluntary departure from Japan of family members of its diplomatic staff, and has chartered aircraft to bring Americans home. Thai officials are also helping Thais in Japan to return home until the situation is deemed safe.
The nuclear plant's reactors were knocked out by the tsunami last Friday, causing a failure to the cooling systems. So far the Japanese government has tried very hard to calm public fears, saying that the radiation leaks at the plant are not so serious. On Wednesday this week the chairman of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Gregory Jaczko, gave a much bleaker appraisal of the threat posed by Japan's nuclear crisis than the Japanese government has offered. According to the New York Times, Jaczko said American officials believed the damage to at least one crippled reactor was much more serious than Tokyo had acknowledged, and he advised Americans to stay much farther away from the plant than the perimeter so far established by Japanese authorities.
The Japanese are now putting all efforts into cooling the six reactors at the power plant. Military CH-47 Chinook helicopters Thursday (March 17) began dropping tonnes of water on the reactors. In an unprecedented practice, they used seawater to try to cool the overheating reactors. Reactors 3 and 4 are short of water, leading to fears that radiation could leak from the fuel rods. Workers at the site are in danger of over-exposure to the radiation hazard.
It is believed that around the plant itself there are now high levels of radiation, making it difficult for workers to get near the reactors. A spokesman for Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, Yoshitaka Nagayama, said, "Because we have been unable to get close to the scene, we cannot confirm whether there is water left or not in the spent fuel pool at Reactor No. 4."
In the worst-case scenario, if the radiation leaks are too high, the workers could be forced to vacate the plant altogether. There would then be much larger releases of radioactive material.
We would urge that all countries with nuclear expertise come to Japan's aid during this most difficult time in its modern history. A nuclear accident in Japan amounts to a nuclear accident everywhere. For the radiation could travel all over the planet.
Japan also is now facing a dilemma. It will have to revise its entire nuclear programme. The country has 53 reactors, fuelling about 30 per cent of the total energy demand. Some of these plants are vulnerable to another quake or tsunami. Time is not on Japan's side. Let us hope and let us pray that the country can overcome this terrible tragedy.

source: www.asianewsnet.net

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