About Japan, the quake, the tsunami and the situation at the Fukushima plant

[Note: this is a copy of my original blog entry, made so you can comment]

I have several friends living in Japan and the country is my life-long love, so I've been pretty worried about the situation there since the quake. For the first days I had the BBC news playing in the background all day at work, but as they eventually started repeating the same things over, I moved on to just reading a few news feeds. Lately, though, even they are becoming useless. I suppose there isn't "enough to tell" about the situation, so many are now posting mostly comments from experts or politically important people, or official announcements from different countries. Everyone is keen on telling the world how THEY at least take care of their citizens and how THEY will check all their nuclear plants and how THEY are flying everyone back home.

The thing is, for a lot of those people, Japan is their home. And they're not as into leaving as the countries are into giving a good impression. I wouldn't be, either. And just like them, I'm not interested in what the President of Whatever has to say about the situation, I'd like to know what exactly is the situation. As the easily accessible media is clearly no use in this case, I decided to collect a list of useful links, which I hope provide more relevant information. They're mostly about Fukushima, since it has the potential for making another disaster, though I put in a few links on the general situation in Japan.

If you have tips on useful sites, please comment.

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News

Google's very thorough page with info on people, electricity, trains etc:
http://www.google.com/crisisresponse/japanquake2011.html

Japan Atomic Industrial Forum (press reports and briefs and stuff):
http://www.jaif.or.jp/english/

IAEA website news (updates on work at the plant):
http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/

TEPCO website (the power company that owns the plants, includes radiation readings at the plant):
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/index-e.html

New Scientist (news on the scientific side with some interpretations, some non-Japan-related stuff in the mix):
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/

Säteilyturvakeskuksen tietosivu, Finnish nuclear safety organisation:
http://www.stuk.fi/

Gakuranman's blog, collecting the more relevant news data:
http://gakuranman.com/great-tohoku-earthquake/



Radiation and the current levels in Japan

Tsukuba (northeast of Tokyo, 170 km from Fukushima):
http://kek.jp/quake/radmonitor/index-e.html

Chiba (east of Tokyo, 240 km from Fukushima):
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/geiger-counter-chiba

Japan radiation maximum by prefecture (I'm not sure who measures the readings? Note the numbers are in nGy, 100 nGy = 0,1µSv):
http://www.targetmap.com/viewer.aspx?reportId=4870

A site with readings from private meters:
http://www.rdtn.org/

JAEA online information:
http://www.jaea.go.jp/english/misc/online-info.shtml

JAEA's map of natural radiation in Japan:
http://www.jaea.go.jp/04/ztokai/kankyo_e/kaisetsu/expln_1.html



Nuclear radioation and health effects:
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf05.html

XKCD's grafical example of radiation levels, with sources:
http://xkcd.com/radiation/

When the radiation is more than 100 microsievers/hour you should keep inside and/or eat iodium.



Air flow from Fukushima (in Finnish, but you understand the pictures):
http://ilmatieteenlaitos.fi/japani



Earthquakes/aftershocks and weather

Latest over 5.0 magnitude earthquakes in the world:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/quakes_big.php

Japan Meteorological Agency (weather in Japan):
http://www.jma.go.jp/jma/indexe.html



Private reports from Japan & other links

A few videos a friend took in Tokyo (he's as annoyed about the media as I am and wanted to show the current life there):
https://picasaweb.google.com/acjama/TokioMaanjaristyksenJalkeen

In Finnish: Muutama sana tilanteesta ja uutisoinnista, pidän erityisesti Japanin pääministerin evakuointikommentista:
http://yoe.iki.fi/2011/03/rikkinaiset-puhelimet.html

Journalist Wall of Shame, a wiki on journalist blunders on the Tohoku quake:
http://jpquake.wikispaces.com/Journalist+Wall+of+Shame