there s radio activity being released from the plant right now, but the levels off-site are not such that it s an immediate health concern for the widespread area. the local people have been evacuated, and that is appropriate for this time. the people are working to bring it under better control than they have it now. so yes, material is leaving, yes, you can see it with very sophisticated instrumentation, but it s not a major health risk outside the evacuation zone. tell me why for that evacuation zone for the u.s. is 50 miles, whereas it s 12 miles for the japanese. what accounts for that difference? my view, i believe overcautiousness. when the government makes a decision to the people, it s trying to do the best thing. you have a nuclear risk of snug that s happening that s very low probability, where a very large release could come out, and you have to compare this radiation against what it takes to move people. to move people 50 miles is a
radio activity in any of the cloudss from japan wafting to the east it would hit thandulousians and hit the western u.s.. ainsley: japanese are saying we have it under control and not telling the whole truth according to the journalist over there. americans are saying this is dangerous and we need to take precautions and american nationals are being evacuated out of japan. itate department and pentagon families, they are boarding planes as we speak right now and heading back to the u.s.. right now 600 american familis and the state department is going to provide transportation out and for those citizens and people in japan, american citizens who don t have a way to get out. maybe they will find room on the plane for them. steve: they are urging people to consider evacuating and bring in charter flights
a large spike in radio activity after the fire in number 4. what that means is the force of that explosion or smoke from the fire or both carried aloft radioactive particles being released by the damaged spent fuel rods. uranium pellets in the big now probably damaged metal tubes. this is not a nuclear explosion. there are not nuclear chain reactions going on here, but this is a means by which radioactivity is being released into the atmosphere, and the question is whether or not those fuel rods, even if already damaged, whether they can be resubmerged. japanese officials floated the idea of helicopters dropping water on them today. they raised the idea of fire trucks or hoses being used to get water on them. we will turn to expert help trying to understand what the best hopes are for getting the situation under control. joining us now, nuclear physicist, frank von hippel.
reported. instead, officials believe it started a second blaze, which firefighters had to battle today. they had a plan to drop water or acid on it from a helicopter. that seems less likely now. they are considering pumping it through the walls instead. until workers, we should mention, are still missing from yesterday s explosion. we know now that the roof was cracked by the blast. workers today have been unable to approach the storage because of those high levels of radioactivity. again, now those technicians who have been putting their lives at risk to stay at the plant have left. in just the past couple of hours, we have had new reports of white smoke emanating from reactor number three and reactor number four. here in tokyo, 150 miles south of the reactor site, low levels of radiation were detected today. ten times the normal level they
done. the radio activity, especially if the winds were to blow into toky tokyo. let s hope it doesn t go there. do you see an obvious way, at least a next step to try to avoid catastrophe? the electricity has to be restored to the circulation pumps in some way to cool the cores of the melting down unis.s i know that they have been try frg days but they have to continue to try. they can t abandon the site and hope for the best. let me bring this into the