"Lufthansa scans Japan flights for radioactivity"

[suffragette]

http://www.thelocal.de/national/20110314-33713.html

Published: 14 Mar 11 16:35 CET

Lufthansa is scanning aircraft that return from Japan for radioactivity but has not detected any yet, the German airline said on Monday.

~~~

A US aircraft carrier deployed off tsunami-hit Japan for relief efforts has repositioned after detecting low-level radiation from malfunctioning nuclear power plants, a US statement said Monday.

"The source of this airborne radioactivity is a radioactive plume released from the Fukushima Dai-Ichi Nuclear Power Plant," said the US statement.

The ship was operating at sea about 160 kilometres (100 miles) northeast of the power plant at the time, but it is not known how high or how far the plume had spread.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Ah the germans have broken out the geiger counters I see

if the counters at the coasts here are working... they will go off as well. I suspect, if the ships go through the plume

[suffragette]

2. Yes, though I imagine it will be quite some time before they return here

At last account, several more ships were arriving there.

Germany is reacting pretty swiftly between this and Merkel's announcement of 3 month moratorium on extension of nuclear power plant lifespans.

Might have something to do with the protests taking place there:
FRANCE 24: 21:07 More than 100,000 people have demonstrated against nuclear power on Monday in 450 cities throughout Germany, according to anti-nuclear group “Ausgestrahlt”.

You might want to take a look at their live blog and tv link. It's all in English and has some additional info to other news blogs. That's where I found the above OP info, then went looking for a more complete report:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x642486

[suffragette]

3. Der Spiegel pulls reporter from Tokyo and reports German embassy may evacuate staff

This is from a Der Spiegel blog in the Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/mar/14/new-europe-live-blog-germany#block-6


12.03pm: Another dramatic development: Der Spiegel has decided to pull its reporter out of Tokyo because of the risk a Chernobyl-style radiation cloud could reach the Japanese capital. Thilo Thielke, Spiegel's veteran war correspondent, is leaving Japan today. Spiegel is now covering the story from Bangkok and the south of Japan. Mathias Müller von Blumencron says the latest information is ominous: the wind is blowing from the north – in the direction of Tokyo. "Perhaps this is a piece of German angst. But no country is more against nuclear power than Germany," he says. He adds: "The wind is shifting from the north and could blow a cloud south directly to Tokyo. This is really horrible. I think this is a big, big crisis and a wake-up call for nuclear energy." The German embassy is also making preparations to evacuate some staff, apparently.


Earlier post from same blog shows more on their concerns:

9.30am: Morning conference in the offices of Spiegel Online has just got under way. The main theme of discussion is Japan and the rapidly worsening situation at the Fukushima reactor. There's a view among Spiegel journalists that the Japanese government is deliberately underplaying the scale of the crisis in order to prevent panic breaking out among Japan's population. Mathias Müller von Blumencron, Spiegel's chief editor, puts it like this: "These are historic days. The news we've had in the last few minutes suggests that the nuclear reactor's core could be heading for a meltdown."

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. And the French already did

somebody is creatively not telling the full truth.

[suffragette]

5. Given the most recent explosion, possibility of leak and more

radiation, It looks like a good choice.

And now the Japanese reporters are directing aggressive questioning at TEPCO officials and demanding specific information.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. The gig is up actually