Qantas is doing contingency planning for the evacuation of Australians from Tokyo if called upon by the Australian government.
However, so far the official Australian response, despite some emphatic urging by Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd that people should consider leaving now, is more measured than that of the US, which this morning urged its nationals to retreat at least 80 kilometres from the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power reactor complex 240 kilometres north-east of Tokyo.
In fact, Qantas flights from Tokyo are still showing seat availability in coming days.
But the precision of the US advice reflects the total breakdown of the protocol between nuclear treaty nations not to comment on each other’s nuclear regulatory affairs. The Japanese authorities are sticking to a 20-kilometre exclusion zone in the open air or 30 kilometres for those who stay indoors. They are also refusing to budge on their claim of a level 4 nuclear crisis at the plant, despite now being contradicted by at least four nuclear treaty nations who have through their agencies described it as level 6, the same level first applied to the Chernobyl disaster of 1986, which was later raised to a level 7 event with global consequences and a need for concerted international action.
Overnight, the regulatory authorities of France, Germany, Switzerland and lastly the US have become the leading sources of accurate data and assessment of the situation at the six Japanese reactors that are collectively, in severe crisis and risk of total meltdowns.
Air France is operating two additional evacuation flights out of Tokyo on instructions from the French government, which like Germany, has told its nationals to leave.
The winds are currently forecast to blow directly from Fukushima to Tokyo tomorrow.
The US Department of Energy and the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission have nuclear reactor-trained personnel at, but now presumably some distance from, Fukushima Daiichi.
The most urgent concerns, at least at this moment, concern reactor No.4, where the temperature monitor in the spent fuel rod cooling pool went off line yesterday after remaining at 84 degrees throughout Monday and Tuesday.
The chairman of the NRC, Gregory Jaczko, says all of the coolant has drained or evaporated from the No.4 pool, leaving the fuel rods fully exposed. This is a prerequisite for a total meltdown of the fuel rods, in a reactor design that has been criticised for not being sufficiently robust to contain the consequences.
The temperature readings from de-activated reactors No.4, No.5 and No.6, for their spent fuel rod cooling pools, have been published by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The cooling ponds are specified to remain at 25 degrees with continuous coolant level maintenance. As of early this morning units 5 and 6 were also showing high and gradually rising readings.
Earlier today the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Yukiya Amano, admitted that he didn’t know who he would be able to meet with when he arrives in Tokyo to learn more about the state of affairs at Fukushima Daiichi.
At the moment Tokyo Electric says it hopes to restore power to the water pumping system at the complex today. It earlier abandoned attempts to drop water and boric acid on reactor 4. There has been no further guidance on official disclosures of structural damage inside reactor 2.
22 thoughts on “Qantas planning Tokyo evacuation as nuclear protocol breaks down”
hozozco
March 17, 2011 at 3:38 pmBARRY 09 – I think I can see the humour in your posting, but please keep in mind that this a real event for a lot of people and it’s actually not that funny.
I have a relative working for DFAT and last I heard he was within 80km from the plant. I hope DFAT move their people out now!
Perhaps we can send Bolt in their place?
Mark Duffett
March 17, 2011 at 3:46 pm@Capt Planet, wtf? Did by ‘India’ you mean ‘Indonesia’? Even in the latter case, they only have research reactors, albeit with plans for commercial construction in the next few years.
lindsayb
March 17, 2011 at 3:59 pm@Captain Planet
not wanting to be a pedant or anything, but India is well inside the northern hemisphere.
puddleduck
March 17, 2011 at 4:17 pmThanks for this piece. I’ve forgotten more than I ever knew about nuclear fuel and power.
Poor Japan and its people and animals. What a terrible tragedy.
On a lighter note – John Bennetts, you can get caramello choc in blocks here in Victoria, and in the rolls – the same rolls are available with ordinary CDM choc too.
John Bennetts
March 17, 2011 at 4:40 pmI will keep an eye out for the Cadbury fuel rods. Both types. Yum.
Ben Sandilands
March 17, 2011 at 4:51 pmCaptain Planet,
They do mix but if I remember what I have been told correctly doing climate stories over time, it is a very complex process, so gross contamination does indeed tend to get blocked or slowed down in the lower layers of the atmosphere but not in the very highest layers because of a very strong north-south exchange at heights where aircraft don’t fly.
If the particle sizes are notably large or dense, they tend to self filter or settle before much of the load seeps into the southern hemisphere or vice versa.
This is why in the polar ice cores traces of volcanic eruptions in one hemisphere do not necessarily appear as strongly represented, or even at all, in the other.
But when atmospheric nuclear tests were being conducted, the extreme high altitude dispersal of very large fireballs meant that they could be found in matching or one year displaced ice core samples in both hemispheres.
This bi-polar (oops!) distribution of lighter contaminants or certain classes of contaminants also saw the hydrofluorocarbons and chlorofluorocarbons associated the industrially enhanced ozone depletion migrate to both hemispheres from predominantly northern hemisphere origins.
Perversely, the HFCs and CFCs accumulated more deeply over the southern polar latitudes because that hemisphere tends to facilitate one large more stable atmospheric depression high over the elevated Antarctic continent than is the case with the northern hemisphere, with very different atmospheric circulation patterns driven by a polar sea hemmed in by the land masses of Asia and North America.
In summary. Any high altitude contamination from Fukushima will turn up in Antarctica fairly quickly, but more slowly in the middle southern latitudes. Any middle level contamination will probably be held back and diminished.
Any oceanic contamination will end up in fish, and if we aren’t vigilant, in our supermarkets and fish markets.
Captain Planet
March 17, 2011 at 5:10 pmGood point about the fish, Ben, concentrating radionuclides in the food chain remains a major concern in Europe and Russia after Chernobyl (oops, can’t mention Chernobyl, can we).
Captain Planet
March 17, 2011 at 5:12 pmHmmm, for some strange reason I thought the southern bit of India crossed the equator, just goes to show my basic geography is a bit lacking on this one, thanks to those who pointed it out. Does anyone know of a Southern Hemisphere country which does have Nuclear power?
John Bennetts
March 17, 2011 at 5:19 pmArgentina and Brazil.
29 countries in the other hemisphere.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_by_country
Mark Duffett
March 17, 2011 at 5:20 pm@CP, SH nuclear power in South Africa, Argentina, Brazil and (as mentioned) soon to be in Indonesia.