it tells you your personal exposure and has an alarm. if are you exposed to a significant amount of radiation, it will alarm you so you can distance yourself from that source. that s what s going on. there s a lot of concern. these workers, a lot of them have left, but so many have stayed to try and control the reactors. it s really heroic work they re doing. so many experts are telling me, they are likely to pay the price. they are being exposed to significant radiation so others around them won t have to. questions that remain to be answered what s going to happen to radiation levels over the next several days are they going to continue to decline, are there going to be significant increases again? people are sort of holding their breath while waiting to answer those questions, piers. sanjay, thank you very much, indeed, for that pretty harrowing report. please stay safe yourself out there. now i want to bring in the new york times nuclear expert, matthew wold, to explain wh
and we don t know a lot with precision about the effects of small doses. there s a theory that every little bit hurts, but there s observational data that says we can t demonstrate that. without wanting to be doom-laid ben thden about this, is the worst possible news that you would hear as an expert in this area from that plant? probably that the spent fuel spool on fire because what would burn there is the metal cladding, and that s very difficult to put out. that would disperse more radioactive material than is in the reactor itself, but with a little work, i think they can keep that from happening. thank you very much indeed. thank you, piers. the nuclear crisis in japan has changed some people s minds on nuclear power. but not everybody s. let s go to capitol hill now and speak to senator david vitter. senator, you remain steadfastly behind america s nuclear problem, why are you confident this is the right way to go? the main thing i ve said is
coming together and giving so much love. so that s something amazing, very positive. and one thing which when i look at all the images and videos, what i see is a reminder of however connected we are. the world is like our body, and when a finger is hurt, the rest of the body is influenced. and we are influenced here in new york. and i just hope that there s a lot of support coming for japan, and not just now for the first response but for the long run. and the importance of sustained response is as crucial as first response. what is the most effective thing that americans can do to
obviously their stock market, nikkei, has taken a huge hit in the last few days. conversely, there s been quite good news on the economy in america, is that going to be helpful to japan, do you think? it s going to be helpful at the margin. so it s better that the u.s. is growing than if the u.s. were in a recession. it s not going to make that much of a difference. i think japan controls its own destiny. once they get over the rescue element and that s really critical because there s lives involved here, once they get over that, they re going to embark on a reconstruction program which is going to take a long time. and hopefully that acts as a cats lift for what they ve been missing for the last 20 years. the enough political unity to put this country on a high growth path. i hope that s the case. thank you very much indeed. one of the most striking
translator: the volume of water was so high, the car wouldn t move. my daughter and i tried our hardest to push her up to this hill. she was so heavy, i let go of her hand. i think this is the area where it happened. i am thinking that i might have closure if i keep sitting here. the human stories coming out of japan are simply heartbreaking. for most of us, surviving a tsunami is unimaginable, my next guest, though, has done exactly that. petra nemcova went through the 2004 tsunami in timberland and lived. out of that in thailand and lived. out of that she founded the happy heart foundation for children in disaster zones. petra, thank you very much for coming in. i can only imagine the kind of emotions you ve been through in the last few days, reliving the horror of what you went through. for people like most of white house have never been through a tsunami, what is the experience like when it happens?