Earthquake Anniversary: Updated and Unplugged

The non-fatal-tragedy

School buses
 They were used for evacuation
Older people fell off the seats and died
Chaos

Today is is the third anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated large portions of eastern Japan on March 11, 2011.  Approximately 20,000 people died in the tsunami and earthquake, but the focus of the media has always been on the Fukushima "disaster" or "tragedy."

Three nuclear power plants suffered meltdowns.  Nobody died of direct radiation, and it is unlikely that there will be any detectable rise in cancer deaths. In terms of deaths, the immediate deaths came from mishandled evacuations.   See my post from last year: Fukushima: the Second Anniversary.

Updated:

In Japan, some people are being allowed to move back to areas that had been evacuated for fear of radiation. Fuel rods are being successfully removed from Fuel Pool #4.  The story in Japan is slow, but progress is being made.

Instead of trying to update the situation myself, I will share some links:

• ANS Will Davis at American Nuclear Society ANS Nuclear Cafe: Fukushima Three Years Later.This is an excellent description of current status and lessons-learned, with many diagrams and links.
• NEI NEI has a linked series of pages on Fukushima Daiichi Recovery: The Facts. Authoritative, short, and clear
• Les Corrice at Hiroshima Syndrome. Corrice has updated his Fukushima Accident page twice a week since the accident.  His blog is very complete. He has also written two e-books: Kimin, Japan's Forgotten People (about the tsunami refugees), Fukushima, the First Five Days (accident chronology)
• Atomic Insights: Atomic Show #212 at Atomic Insights What Can We Learn from Fukushima?  This is a podcast with me, Les Corrice, Rod Adams, Cal Abel, and Will Davis.

Unplugged

Camera operator
From Wikipedia

Anti-nuclear activists are using today to "Unplug Nuclear Power."  They can't actually unplug nuclear power, so they are unplugging themselves by turning off their electricity for a day. Supposedly, this will "show that nuclear power is unnecessary." Activists have defined four levels of "unplugging" yourself from electricity.  In the first level, you "turn off extra lights and cut back on video games."   

My friends, these are real quotes.  I could not begin to make this stuff up!  Shall we have a "play a video game for nuclear" day, maybe?

I have great hopes that that the nuclear opponents will unplug themselves from those horrible electricity hogs: broadcast media.  If they see a reporter with a video camera at one of their rallies today, they should make her leave the premises. Otherwise, she will begin sending video to some broadcast media establishment, and that group will use a lot of electricity to broadcast the video clips.  This is totally against the spirit of "unplug nuclear power."  I hope the nuclear opponents won't let this happen.