Consider the followingfrom the Washington Post... [Kaiser Permanente] Japan Nuclear Reaction Contained By Shihoko Goto Associated Press Writer Thursday, Sept. 30, 1999; 10:27 p.m. EDT TOKAIMURA, Japan –– An uncontrolled nuclear reaction was contained at a uranium processing plant in Japan Friday, authorities said, a day after leaking radioactive gas seriously injured three workers and possibly contaminated 34 others. [Later in the article it is claimed that the plant was not designed to contain radiation.] Masaru Hashimoto, governor of Ibaraki Prefecture, said he had received confirmation that the reaction had been brought under control at 6:15 a.m. The company that runs the plant acknowledged fault. The accident was the result of a "clear violation" of in-house safety rules, Makoto Morita, a spokesman for the company JCO, told The Associated Press Friday. The radiation levels outside the plant had returned to normal Friday morning and experts said that they did not believe there was a serious threat to local residents. [Note that no description has been made up to this point of the radiation levels outside - only now it is implied that the radiation levels were high! "Returned to normal" suggests that the levels were "abnormal", no? Notice the fact that the measured levels were normal again THE VERY MORNING OF THE DAY OF THE ACCIDENT is couched to make that harder to notice.] Still, officials described the accident as the most serious ever at a nuclear facility in Japan. An order for more than 310,000 residents within a six-mile radius to stay inside remained in effect, cloaking this normally busy town and the neighboring city of Mito in an eerie silence. [The dramatic choice of "cloaking" and "eerie" makes the overreaction of the evacuation an emotional highlight.] The facility, which refines uranium so it can be used to fuel nuclear reactors, is located in Tokaimura, a town of 33,000 people, 70 miles northeast of Tokyo. Morita, the JCO spokesman, said workers had been mixing uranium with nitric acid to make nuclear fuel, but had used too much uranium and set off the accidental uncontrolled reaction. [Note; mixing nitric acid with uranium does not make nuclear fuel. It may be the FIRST STEP in a lengthy process to make nuclear fuel. This misstatement makes the procedure sound like something from a terrorist cookbook, as though it could be done in a bathtub! It is unlikely that the spokesman actually said this; more likely it was mutilated somehow in paraphrasing.] He said one of the workers is believed to have put 35 pounds of uranium into the tank - well over the 4.8-pound limit. "We have no words to express our apologies," he said. "We cannot escape our responsibility." Police were investigating whether negligence was involved, according to Japanese news reports. [Wasn't it just pointed out that there was?] Government officials said the accident spewed a gas containing alpha, beta and gamma radiation into the atmosphere, forcing the evacuation of 150 neighbors of the plant. [Gases do not "contain" radiation any more than a flashlight "contains" light! Whether a mistranslation or bad paraphrasing, the fact is that the journalists involved to too ignorant of the facts to spot it. What was this "gas", anyway? Why is the one substantial fact that could have been reported simply left out? As we shall see later, this mystery gas did not "force" an evacuation by any means - but that was the most dramatic choice of words no doubt.] The plant was not designed to block the escape of radiation, company officials said. [What! A nuclear processing facility not designed to contain radiation? (Somebody probably meant to say "radioactive materials" along the line.) This strains credibility enough to warrant questions or explanation - maybe even an entire story! Interestingly, no explanation whatever is given.] In Washington, President Clinton expressed deep concern, offered assistance. "This is going to be a very hard day for the people of Japan," he said. [Why? Only three people were injured. No criticism, no analysis.] Two of the three injured workers were in critical condition from the radiation, estimated at about 4,000 times the level considered safe for a person to receive in a year, said hospital official Yukio Kamakura. [Why not say what that level is? Are we supposed to be too stupid to understand it? It is not considered "safe" to smoke a cigarette, but you can do THAT 4000 times and get away with it. To the average reader, this means nothing, but sounds dramatic. It is not informative, it is meretricious.] A team removed water from the cooling equipment around the tank early Friday in hopes that it would suppress further nuclear fission, Science and Technology Agency official Eiichiro Watanabe said. Nuclear fission happens when neutrons hit uranium, causing atoms to split, releasing huge amounts of energy. It is the principle behind the atomic bomb. Water stimulates the neutrons, spurring along the reaction. [Water STIMULATES neutrons? The exact opposite is true. Water SLOWS DOWN fast neutrons released by fission, thus allowing them to be absorbed more efficiently by uranium atoms. At that point, the reaction does not need or get "spurring along"! A bizzare choice of words like this betrays ignorance on the part of the reporter.] At least 34 workers other than the injured were being examined for possible contamination, said Junichi Takahashi, an official with JCO, which is owned by Sumitomo Metal Mining Co., one of Japan's largest business groups. Five residents were exposed to radiation, a local official said on condition of anonymity. [Outside the plant? Given that raqdiation levels outside were normal the very same morning and what we shall see later, this seems very unlikely. The reporter accepts this unquestioningly, from a "source" who refuses to be accountable for this claim.] "This is something that Japan has never experienced," government spokesman Hiromu Nonaka said late Thursday. [Other stories claim that this is Japan's 15th such accident - a fact that one would think any reporter would jump on to criticise this melodramatic exclamation from a government official. Here it is left untouched.] Radioactivity levels – at one point 10,000 times above normal at the plant – remained high several hours after the accident. Ibaraki state officials said Thursday that radiation levels were about 10 times above normal 1¼ miles from the scene. [Natural radiation at seal level is so low that 10 times above that is hardly worth mentioning. Being in an airplane exposes one to more than that. "Normal at the plant" is another matter. What is normal at the plant? If "normal" is considered as elsewhere, 10,000 times that (almost nothing) would be suprisingly low. No explanation is offered - probably because it sounds dramatic just as it is.] Major highways into town were closed, smaller roads had electronic billboards asking motorists to pass through the area as quickly as possible. Train services were stopped in the area, Kyodo News service reported. [Like he said earlier, it was evacuated, right? I don't know why this is thrown in here. The next paragraph gets right back to nuts-and-bolts.] On Thursday, Tokyo Electric Power Co. delivered 880 pounds of sodium borate, but authorities were trying to figure out how to get close enough to dump the neutron-absorbing powder onto the radioactive tank to snuff the fission, company official Kohgo Usami said. [Finally some clean facts! Incidentally, sodium borate is washing powder - you can buy it at grocery stores - rather than go to a "neutron-absorbing powder" supplier.] U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said in a telephone interview from Russia that the United States and Russia were prepared to send a joint team of nuclear experts to Japan along with high-tech robots that can work in areas too dangerous for human beings. He said the United States was awaiting a formal request for help from Japan. Nuclear fuel for U.S. reactors is processed using a different method than the one used in Japan, said Dr. Donald Olander, a professor of nuclear engineering at the University of California at Berkely. Accidents have plagued the nuclear power industry in Japan - a land so poor in natural resources that it relies on atomic energy for about a third of its electricity. [It is not pointed out that this is inconsistent with Hiromu Nonaka's satement above.] The accident is sure to damage the already shaky faith of many in the nation's nuclear policy. The government set up a task force to investigate – the first time it has taken such a measure in a nuclear accident. "This is an accident that's so basic it should never have happened," said anti-nuclear activist Chihiro Kamisawa. "So much has been made of Japan's sophisticated technology that supposedly makes nuclear energy safe. The accident proves that's absolutely not true." [Why not point out that more people have been injured chopping wood than using nuclear power in Japan? I guess nobody claims chopping wood is safe.] Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi acknowledged late Thursday that the government was slow in reacting to the accident, Kyodo News agency reported. The three injured workers were exposed to about the same amount of radiation as was received in 1986 by workers at the Chernobyl plant in the Ukraine during the world's worst nuclear accident, a radiation biologist said Friday. "Those are real high doses," said Tom Koval, a radiation biologist at the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements, a private, nonprofit agency in Bethesda, Md. [Why do we need to know that Tom works for a "private, nonprofit" agency? Why not just SAY what the estimated dose is? I give up.] Hisashi Ouchi, 35, and 39-year-old Masato Shinohara were in a state of shock and had diarrhea, fever, a high white-blood-cell count and reddened skin – all symptoms of radiation sickness. The third injured worker, Yutaka Yokokawa, 54, was alert and able to walk. © Copyright 1999 The Associated Press [I wish Hiashi, Masato, and Yutaka a speedy recovery.] [House of Doors] [Coolfont]