I am fine. We didn't feel the earthquake at all here in Kochi and were barely affected by the tsunami (we had a tsunami warning for the weekend, but that's it). Kochi is also quite far south of the current nuclear situation in Fukushima. Here is some information that I hope will put your minds at ease:
-Report of measured radiation in all the prefectures as of Tuesday: http://notice.yahoo.co.jp/emg/en/archives/np_jp.html ...Kochi is number 39. Kochi has one of the lowest levels in Japan and is even on the lower scale for "normal radiation." Even at the worst on Tuesday, the levels in Fukushima were similar to that of an x-ray. Ironically, those leaving the country at the moment are exposing themselves to a greater deal of radiation with the flight alone. (Thank you Craig and Naomi for this information.)
-According to the BBC: It is the ''breakdown of essential services'', not worries over radiation, that is prompting Australia to advise its citizens to leave Tokyo and its vicinity, Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd says. ''There are problems in terms of electricity, power supply, as well as a whole range of other things as well," he says. "Schools being closed... trains not functioning properly."
-Even the people who are leaving the Fukushima and Tokyo areas are heading south to places like Osaka and Kyoto. Kochi is even farther south than both of those places.
-John Beddington, the UK's chief scientific officer, spoke at the British Embassy in Tokyo on Tuesday: http://ukinjapan.fco.gov.uk/en/news/?view=News&id=566799182 ..."Let me now talk about what would be a reasonable worst case scenario. If the Japanese fail to keep the reactors cool and fail to keep the pressure in the containment vessels at an appropriate level, you can get this, you know, the dramatic word “meltdown”. But what does that actually mean? What a meltdown involves is the basic reactor core melts, and as it melts, nuclear material will fall through to the floor of the container. There it will react with concrete and other materials … that is likely… remember this is the reasonable worst case, we don’t think anything worse is going to happen. In this reasonable worst case you get an explosion. You get some radioactive material going up to about 500 metres up into the air. Now, that’s really serious, but it’s serious again for the local area. It’s not serious for elsewhere even if you get a combination of that explosion it would only have nuclear material going in to the air up to about 500 metres. If you then couple that with the worst possible weather situation i.e. prevailing weather taking radioactive material in the direction of Greater Tokyo and you had maybe rainfall which would bring the radioactive material down do we have a problem? The answer is unequivocally no. Absolutely no issue. The problems are within 30 km of the reactor. And to give you a flavour for that, when Chernobyl had a massive fire at the graphite core, material was going up not just 500 metres but to 30,000 feet. It was lasting not for the odd hour or so but lasted months, and that was putting nuclear radioactive material up into the upper atmosphere for a very long period of time. But even in the case of Chernobyl, the exclusion zone that they had was about 30 kilometres. And in that exclusion zone, outside that, there is no evidence whatsoever to indicate people had problems from the radiation. The problems with Chernobyl were people were continuing to drink the water, continuing to eat vegetables and so on and that was where the problems came from. That’s not going to be the case here. So what I would really re-emphasise is that this is very problematic for the area and the immediate vicinity and one has to have concerns for the people working there. Beyond that 20 or 30 kilometres, it’s really not an issue for health."
I'm not trying to prove anything by staying here. There's just no reason to leave. I am safe here in Kochi. But in the northeast, there are still thousands of people missing and turning up dead every day due to the natural disasters. Taylor Anderson, a girl I met last year on vacation in Korea, lived in one of the towns that got hit the hardest by the tsunami. She was missing for 4 days, thought to be found, and now it turns out that she never was found.
I love you all very much. Thank you to those who are being calm and rational about this, which is understandably difficult given the astounding amount of sensationalism in the news. But to others, I need to tell you that I honestly cannot take any more of the panic, the guilt tripping, the fear mongering, the ridicule, the insults and even the name calling you are throwing my way. I don't deserve it. I am not trying to spite you or hurt you by staying here. I am not trying to assert my independence, "play the hero," or fulfill some misguided sense of duty. I'm just living my life. And life in Kochi right now is the same as it ever was.
There are much more important things to worry about than Kochi being in danger when it's not.
Love,
Britt
P.S. My friend Alex made this video. Please consider helping the real victims of this devastating disaster by donating to earthquake and tsunami relief efforts. Even if you can't donate, please share the video, spread the word, and keep northeastern Japan in your thoughts.
