Tōhoku Earthquake Part 4 (東北の地震パート４)

The impact of all of this is too difficult to be fully determined this early and with ongoing problems at the plant, but I can talk about things that have already happened because of it.  The biggest impact is obviously in the area around the plant.  There is a 12 mile (20 km) evacuation zone around the plant and a further 6 mile (10 km) zone where people shouldn't be outdoors.  [1]  Besides the evacuation zone, crops and fishing have been hurt not only by contamination of: raw milk, spinach, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, turnip, shitake mushroom, bamboo shoot and sand lance (fish) in parts of Fukushima, Ibaraki and Tochigi prefectures [2], but also by the stigma with no one wanting to buy anything from Fukushima Prefecture or areas around the nuclear plant, whether it is contaminated or not.  What I think the biggest problem might be the radiation that leaked into the ocean.  A lot of the emergency water used as emergency coolant had leaked out of the plant through a vent.  This water was very irradiated and directly entered into water streams that led to the ocean.  At this point, not much is known about how much there is or how far it spread except for an estimate and radiation found in small fish. [3]  Why this is worse, is with varying currents it's really difficult to figure out its spread.  Not only that, but the radiation is able to spread through the food chain potentially, further spreading radiation and being difficult to find.  While this might be the biggest concern, I imagine the area around the plant will be environmentally damaged for some time also being a terrible disaster.

The nuclear situation quickly followed the earthquake, so even while the earthquake situation was still very serious the news and focus quickly turned to the nuclear situation.  The news I usually used was NHK World (Japan's National News Network) or Reuters, which had the best coverage I found (terrible additional social media forum comments aside).  Besides the news, I also had a variety of live updating Geiger counters in various locations in Japan and research in radiation, nuclear plants and previous nuclear disasters basically acquiring a poor man's non-sanctioned small minor out of it during that month.  Most of this was focused on figuring out if things were getting better or worse and determining if any radiation could possibly have any effect on Tokyo.  Most of this was for projecting what would happen and giving us enough time to escape even if things got disastrously bad.  Based on what I researched, there wasn't really a possibility of there being danger in Tokyo unless contaminated food was sold there.  Only one time was I caught by surprise and became a bit nervous of the situation.  The first rain showed an increase of radiation at one of the water treatment plants that supplied Tokyo water.  I expected radiation would be higher because the airborne radiation from the plant would come down in the rain the first time.  What I didn't realize was there being water treatment plants to the north of Tokyo as I thought Tokyo's water source was from the south-west only.  Obviously, the plants in the north could present a problem as the rivers that fed them would be coming from the north.  All this did was require a notification warning about using the water for infants.  This didn't even mean it would be specifically dangerous, just a notice set up by Japanese law.  For consideration, Japan's Iodine-131 limit in water is 100 becquerels per kilogram for infants and 300 for adults.  The international agreed level according to the World Health Organization is 3,000 becquerels per kilogram. [4]  This was the most dangerous / worst it got for Tokyo and the only time I even somewhat considered the possibility of leaving Tokyo and even then most likely for western Japan.  That day caused a water scare, with a ridiculous line at the grocery store before opening and the only way I was able to get water was a store ration of 1 bottle per person.

That was the low point and since then the news got steadily better (with setbacks here and there of course) until it had reached a more controlled situation.  While the after effects of the earthquake showed me the fragility of cities and the danger of herd mentality, the nuclear crisis really showed me the failings and danger of media.  The coverage was basically terrible and biased on all sides.  On the Japanese side, news was very slow to come out and lacked too much information.  Maybe the biggest problem was the government reliance on Tepco for information.  Obviously the problems at the nuclear plant made it too dangerous for news to cover the site, but the government seemed all too willing to accept whatever Tepco reported when they could have done more independent verifying.  It basically allowed Tepco to present reports on the situation when and how it wanted to leaving things in the dark and with a positive spin.  Even at one point getting bad enough that the Prime Minister had to yell at Tepco for not getting information for what was happening quick enough. [5].  I also remember during the crisis the Japanese media was also getting increasingly frustrated at Tepco's reports and question answering.  Also not the best way to handle it considering Tepco's history of covering up accidents.  The nuclear industry also made this worse by basically only giving best case scenarios and dismissing any worst case scenario as impossible.  While some of it was obvious to counter the ridiculousness of the doom and gloom sayers and maybe even somewhat warranted, their focus only on positives and best case scenario as the probable outcome was more politicking for their industry than helpful reporting.  It wasn't until a couple weeks into the incident when it was painfully obvious that things were much worse that they reported more accurately to what was happening.  So this reporting already created some skepticism, but was made worse upon the introduction of foreign media into the story.

While the Japanese media reporting wasn't great, the worst of the media was far and away most of the foreign media.  The basic reporting was doomsday far beyond worst case scenarios or even anything within the realm of possible scientific outcome.  Some highlights (lowlights?) from this reporting included people getting sick from taking potassium iodide pills to supposedly protect themselves from radiation that wasn't there, also making them more susceptible to thyroid problems they were trying to protect themselves from in the United States. [6]  Even worse in the case of China when people started to hoard iodized salt, because they thought it would do the same thing as potassium iodide. [7]  Or the mistaken reporting of the presence of a nuclear reactor in the main part of Tokyo itself with ShibuyaEggman. [8]

[9] Fox News realizes that Dr. Eggman isn't in charge of Tepco or a nuclear reactor in Tokyo and is a fictional video game villian , right?

Joking aside, a lot of the foreign media was very alarmist and sensational; whether using disaster and fear to create ratings or some other motivation.  The reporting was basically irresponsible and dangerous, that forced me and I'm sure many other people to fact-check and correct information people would email me from back at home worried due to hearing or seeing bad information.  It made figuring out any truth in the situation confusing and difficult, especially with the local reporting being almost the opposite.  Not only did it make it confusing, but created a situation where no one could trust any of the information that was coming out.  Even information that was accurate could be misleading and cause problems.  Specifically in media's reporting of radiation levels as times above normal.  With the normal levels at such a insignificant amount, even many times above that are still very small numbers.  What would have been better reporting of the radiation levels would have been comparing it to commonly known radiation exposures, such as x-rays or cat-scans, or comparing it to what are dangerous levels.  I ended up figuring out my information about it from U.S. government / military reports, monitoring a host of geiger counters, Reuters which had relatively decent coverage and NHK world, but only for basic facts and observations.  A lot of times, I needed to piece together pieces from different reports and then use the science I was learning while researching to figure out something that might make sense.  Maybe even worse was after the two week news cycle the media stopped reporting or caring about the story.  Right after the Libya bombings, foreign media stopped reporting and with no foreign pressure for information, domestic news also dried up.  I think the problems with some foreign media reporting added a lot to the 'flyjin' effect.

'Flyjin' is a new word created out of the aftermath of the nuclear power plant disaster.  Jin (人, じん) in Japanese is person or people, so the word basically means fly person.  It's a reference to all of the foreigners who left Japan after the earthquakes because of the problems with the earthquakes and more likely radiation fears.  Over 500,000 foreigner left the country during the first month. [10]  While some were relocated along with their company, others quit their jobs or left girlfriends / boyfriends, spouses, family or life behind to escape Japan.  I can't make the decision that someone leaving was the wrong thing to do, as people have a right to determine what is safe or unsafe for them, especially if they have other people to take care of besides themselves.  However, I think the foreign media really made things worse in this regard and some people became too scared to rationally think through the situation and properly decide what the risk was.  To make matters worse, I'm sure many people had people back at home telling them to get out of there due to receiving wrong information through foreign media viewpoints.  This would have made things difficult for some people to stay even if they wanted to.  The hardest to not follow and stay in Japan would have been when foreign governments started intervening and suggesting people leave Tokyo and Japan. [11].

Basically France jumped the gun and went too far, possibly for political benefit and trying to be safe as the world's 2nd largest nuclear power user.  Since France acted in this way, it basically forced other governments to act for no other reason than to not look like they didn't do enough in case things went really bad.  The government mandates basically gave people no choice but to leave Japan after they were issued.

Thankfully the U.S. didn't do more than increase their evacuation zone to 80 km.  If it had take the action France and other nations had taken, I would have probably had to leave Japan for good as that time was right before the main hiring period for teachers and not having a job combined with the expense of a round-trip flight would have been too much to overcome to return here.  I'm sure a lot of people who left felt very foolish and lost a lot of money when things were not the doomsday that was getting reported.

Living in Shibuya, Tokyo, I'm pretty used to seeing foreigners in the area as it's a relatively desirable spot.  However, the two weeks following the earthquake, I didn't see any foreigners, whether walking about or getting errands done.  Fore those couple of weeks, I felt like I really stood out compared to how it normally is.  In Tokyo, the foreign exodus was very noticeable and easy to see how the word flyjin could have been created out of this environment.  For people who were making their lives in Japan to leave when Japan could most use the support at signs of trouble, I'm sure has created a bad enough impression to popularize a disparaging term.  I'm not suggesting that people should have thought about impressions their actions were making when deciding upon their personal safety, nor that the use of the term is justified or right.  At the same time though I can understand why it was created, and the negative impact it will cause for foreigners living in Japan that already didn't need the help of giving a bad impression.  If anything, this plays into already made assumptions about foreigners by some in Japan and it will now be even harder to make a good impression or at least a non-negative one.  I can already imagine jobs will be harder to find, as why would a company want to hire someone who might dump everything and run at the first sign of trouble over a Japanese worker who would stay here.  The bigger impact is on the impression of foreigners in general and its hard to see what the full damage will be.  It's also disappointing that with the gains that have been made with Japan and foreign soft power interaction and the interaction with tourists and English teachers in Japan has made big growths, but now that takes a huge step back and provides the other side some "told you so" ammunition.  I hope that Japan can make a full recovery from the earthquakes, tsunamis and nuclear problems to be better than it was before and through people helping and giving support, such as the U.S. military clean-up and rescue Operation Tomodachi (友達, ともだち, friend) as well as continued positive interaction between foreigners and Japanese that relations can become better than ever before too.

References:

1. "Japan Bans Entry Into Fukushima Evacuation Zone," BBC.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13153339.

2. "The Instructions Associated with Food by Director-General of the Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters (Restriction of Distribution in Fukushima Prefecture)," Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.
http://www.mhlw.go.jp/english/topics/2011eq/dl/Instructions0530.pdf.

3. Juro Osawa, Yoree Koh and Daisuke Wakabayashi, "Japan Finds Radiation in Fish," The Wall Street Journal.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703712504576244251331137870.html.

4. Michiyo Nakamoto, Gwen Robinson and Lindsay Whipp, "Tokyo Tap Water Alert Deepens Fears," Financial Times.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/512fa9fe-5527-11e0-87fe-00144feab49a.html#axzz1R8AWTzNA.

5. "Kan Berates TEPCO for Tardy Response," The Daily Yomiuri.
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110315004235.htm.

6. JoNel Aleccia, "Popping Potassium Iodide Already? Really Bad Idea," MSNBC.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42135438/ns/health-health_care/t/popping-potassium-iodide-already-really-bad-idea/.

7. "Panicked Chinese Mistakenly Hoarding Iodized Salt," MSNBC.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42133596/ns/health-health_care/t/panicked-chinese-mistakenly-hoarding-iodized-salt/.

8. Simon Maloy, "Fox News Discovers Nuclear Reactor in Japanese Disco," Media Matters.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201103140036?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4d84088d20552601%2C0.

9. "Dr. Eggman from Sonic Colors," Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eggman_pose_29.jpg.

10. "531,000 Foreigners Left Japan Since Quake; 244,000 in First Week," Japan Today.
http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/531000-foreigners-left-japan-since-quake-244000-in-first-week.

11. Gwen Robinson, "Expats Leave Japan in Increasing Numbers," Financial Times.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/724b48e6-50ae-11e0-9e89-00144feab49a.html#axzz1R8AWTzNA.