Legitimate Scare Part 1

Since four days ago, milk, yorgurt and pancakes have been unavailable at the restaurant I go to in Yokohama because the milk from Fukushima was stopped circulating. After a week or so, we had rain, and the rain collected all the radioactive material in the air and caused the tap water in Tokyo to raise its Becquerel value. The level became 131 becquerel which was double the standard amount acceptable for infants to drink. For adults, it is 300, so for most of us, it is safe. But since then, it went down to 79. Problems will go up and down unless the problem at the plant is dissolved to a reasonably satisfactory conclusion. Until then, steams from the plant will come up because fire fighters are struggling with the pressure and the temperature. When the temperature goes down by watering, the pressure goes up, then steam comes up, workers retreat, then the steam stops, workers return and work for connecting electricity so that cooling systems will be enabled, meantime the temperature goes up again, so fighters again pour water into a reactor and so on until all the reactors are back to normal.

On the water scare since yesterday, the government will provide three bottles of drinking water to each baby under one year old. According to the standard, there is no harm to adults even if people continue to drink. Most of radiation will dissipate in eight days. I’m glued to the development...



Also, television programs have been showing volunteer rescue efforts, and here and there, announcers and other people appeared on the screen and said repeatedly, “Don’t send used clothes. It takes too much time and effort to sort them out. We send survivors only boxes of new clothes which are divided clearly in sizes.” A survivor in her interview, her shelter received used clothes, but they threw them away because some of them had stain. There must be hard effort to match the needs of the survivors and their needs changes in each day. Any help is appreciated, but it will be wasteful if the needs do not match. The kind of help that matches the needs of survivors is much more appreciated and least wasteful.



My daughter’s boyfriend sent me a heartfelt message to me from San Francisco asking me to come back to the U.S. He wrote he could not sleep. I appreciate his concern. I wrote him that my daughter is a lucky woman. I wish I have a boyfriend like him.



I wish everyone can read and listen to the Japanese news. My daughter studied some Japanese, but not long enough. With this blog, I hope to help her and her boyfriend and everyone else. They can research and compare the facts and standards, kilo meters and miles, and other details by accessing both Japan’s and American news. If you have questions, please let me know. This post will continue to next blog.