Calling for "suicide missions" at Fukushima nuclear plant

[dsdsds]

Would you endorse a plan to recruit workers that would (willingly) subject themselves to leathal doses of radiation to save Japan from a full scale meltdown and/or for a lot of money? - (say, 10M each?)

 

[birch]

if that is the only way to prevent the meltdown. they should offer their families or whoever the volunteers's named beneficiaries a lot of money in case they don't survive. that would only be fair considering they are sacrificing themselves.

 

[Anti-Flag]

If they're volunteering for what they believe to be a sufficient monetary payment then I don't see a problem.
I'm sure some people would do it out of the goodness of their hearts.

 

[Bells]

Do you think they or their families (if they do die from this) will be compensated?

I don't think any amount of compensation would be enough personally.

Those engineers could easily say 'fuck you' and walk away and I doubt anyone would blame them for it. They are having to deal and work in horrendous conditions with faulty and broken equipment with little support. And yet they stay. I think it says a lot about them as individuals.

 

[Tiassa]

The Truest Spectre

Would you endorse a plan to recruit workers that would (willingly) subject themselves to leathal doses of radiation to save Japan from a full scale meltdown and/or for a lot of money? - (say, 10M each?)

More readily than I would send soldiers to war.

With war, I can't pick who lives or dies beyond the most general terms. Is one in the van? In the reserve? Is this or that unit to hold a defensive position, or to advance against an entrenched enemy? I still can't go down the line and say, "Live, live, die, live, die, die, live, live, live, die ...." But I do know that if I send my troops into certain situations, they're going to get cut up, regardless of whether they win or lose.

I know a guy whose time in Vietnam was an intelligence operation. Nothing super-secret, but, rather mass psychological evaluations of enemy troops. He did come under fire more than once in his service, but one thing he will carry to the grave is a certain, ineffable sickness he felt as he was shoved onto a chopper because he was too valuable an asset to stay with the other soldiers, who held their ground that day despite getting their shit kicked six ways from last week. (It was, he reflects, these years later, a disorganized offensive. And he says this with pride: The only reason any of our boys came away from that is because they were god-blessed Americans who did their jobs exactly as they were trained. He's never felt so damnably useless in his life as he did that day.)

Fukushima Daiichi is a lose-lose proposition. What we're witnessing is essentially a disaster in slow motion. There is no strategic withdrawal. My general understanding is that it's now a matter of what kind of catastrophe we can expect. And the difference between the best and worst outcomes might well depend on suicide missions.

More than missiles and bullets, Fukushima is an example of humanity staring down its truest spectre.

Be there a God in Heaven, He will kneel before these volunteers.

 

[Bells]

More than missiles and bullets, Fukushima is an example of humanity staring down its truest spectre.

Be there a God in Heaven, He will kneel before these volunteers.

You know, when I hear people like Beck commenting about how this may or may not be a wake up call from God and how he trivialised the growing catastrophe at the plant in his ever present rant about how the media was being manipulated by the left over nuclear power, it shows their selfishness.

Not once did he mention the sacrifice being made by the people who work there. As he tried to describe how trivial all this was with his pots and pans and his M&M's, he failed to even recognise exactly what the staff battling this were going through.

They have volunteered, or been assigned, to pump seawater on nuclear fuel, already thought to be partly melting and spewing radioactive material, to prevent full meltdowns that could throw thousands of tonnes of radioactive dust high into the air and imperil millions of their compatriots.

They have struggled in the past two days to keep hundreds of litres of seawater a minute flowing through temporary fire pumps into the three stricken reactors, numbers 1, 2 and 3. Among the many problems they faced was what appeared to be yet another fire at the plant.

The workers are being asked to make escalating sacrifices that so far are being only implicitly acknowledged: Japan's Health Ministry said it was raising the legal limit on the amount of radiation to which each could be exposed, to 250 millisieverts from 100 millisieverts, five times the maximum exposure permitted for nuclear plant workers in the United States.

The change means that workers can now remain on site longer, the ministry said.

''It would be unthinkable to raise it further than that, considering the health of the workers,'' the Health Minister, Yoko Komiyama, said yesterday.

There was also a suggestion more workers may be brought to help save the power station.

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Tokyo Electric Power, the plant's operator, has said almost nothing about the workers, including how long they are expected to endure exposure.

The few details Tokyo Electric has made available paint a dire picture. Five workers have died since the quake and 22 more have been injured for various reasons, while two are missing.

One worker was taken to hospital after suddenly grasping his chest and finding himself unable to stand, and another needed treatment after receiving a blast of radiation near a damaged reactor. Eleven workers were injured in a hydrogen explosion at reactor No. 3.

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The site is now so contaminated with radiation, experts say, that it has become difficult for employees to work near the reactors for extended periods of time. According to one expert's account of nuclear emergency procedures, workers would be cycled in and out of the worst-hit parts of the plant.

Some of those battling flames and spraying water at reactors at No.1 plant are members of Japan's Self Defence Force, police officers or firefighters.

(Source)
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I don't think kneeling down is enough to be honest.

 

[Bells]

Some more about these men..

It is virtually impossible to talk to the workers by phone. But the message came out from one that he was "not afraid to die" - that was his job.

The families of these brave men may never see them again, but they are proud of their sacrifice.

A 27-year-old woman, whose Twitter name is @NamicoAoto, tweeted that her father had volunteered for Fukushima duty.

"I heard that he volunteered even though he will be retiring in just half a year and my eyes are filling up with tears," she said.

"At home, he doesn't seem like someone who could handle big jobs. But today, I was really proud of him. I pray for his safe return."

Another loved one says in an email: "My father is still working at the plant. He says he's accepted his fate, much like a death sentence."

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In shifts of 50, they are working in total darkness using flashlights or helmets with lamps on them.

Wearing head-to-toe protective gear and breathing through oxygen tanks as radiation reaches potentially lethal levels and temperatures soar, they crawl through dark mazes of pipes to make an adjustment on a valve, to read a gauge.

Nuclear experts say the skeleton crew is most likely not made up of managers but technicians, including firefighters, who know the plant inside out.

They are more likely to be skilled older men than fit young ones because they have already had children and even if they are exposed to massive amounts of radiation their cancers are unlikely to develop to a fatal stage in their lifetime.

The volunteers are being rotated in and out of the danger zone, often for only 10 or 15 minutes at a time, to limit their exposure.

Health Minister Yoko Komiyama raised the limit on the amount of radiation to which each worker can lawfully be exposed from 100 millisieverts to 250.

The average annual exposure for nuclear power plant workers is 20 millisieverts and most don't absorb more than one millisievert in a year.


(Source)

Brings tears to my eyes to be honest.

That kind of selflessness and humility is rare.