Japan Daily Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Japan: The situation at Japan ’s Fukushima nuclear power plant remains fluid and the flow of information scattered and inconsistent. Another fire has broken out at Reactor 4 this morning, the BBC reports, without further detail. The IAEA – the slow but seemingly only truly reliable source of information about the disaster – has not yet posted any detail of this (second fire at Unit 4) on its website (www.iaea.org). A first fire at Unit 4 had broken out yesterday morning at 8:55am ( Japan time) but, according to the IAEA, was extinguished by 11am.

According to the IAEA, Reactors 1 and 3 (the first two to experience difficulty) are now stable and their containment vessels are intact. Absent further cooling difficulty at these units, releases of radioactivity from units 1 and 3 are unlikely. However, according to the IAEA, an explosion at Unit 2 yesterday morning (6:15am Tokyo time) “may have affected the integrity of its primary containment vessel”. If so, further leakage of radioactivity into the atmosphere remains a key risk/concern.

It was such a release, compounded by incomplete and inconsistent information that spooked markets yesterday. The Nikkei dropped by 9% shortly before noon when reports of a 400 millisievert (mSv) reached the markets. What time that (high dosage) reading was taken remains unreported/ unverified but events suggest it followed the 6:15am explosion at Unit 2. In the event, at a press conference shortly before noon, the prime minister announced that leaks were rising concurrent with reports that some 740 workers at the plant had been evacuated, leaving but 50 to deal with the cooling efforts.

What the prime minister did not say is that, according to the IAEA, by 9am Japan time, radioactivity levels had already fallen to 11.9mSv. That is, some 2-3 hours before the 400mSv reports hit the wires and the Nikkei fell by another 8%-9%, radioactivity levels had already fallen by 35 times. Six hours later, at 3pm Japan time, levels had fallen to 0.6mSv – that is 700x less than the levels that spooked markets and were still being reported on all the major newswires and that continued to be reported some 3-4 hours after that on the all the nightly news shows.

Risks remain in Japan ; that much is clear. But the lack of information is making it very difficult to assess just how serious they are.