Media Hype: More Lives Threatened By Snow Than Fukushima Nuke Plant

A great piece in the Telegraph (London) by Tom Chivers which explains how Fukushima is a powerful distraction from the larger tragedy:

It could all get worse, and I don’t want to belittle it. But here is the thing: the fourth largest earthquake in recorded history struck Japan on Friday. 10,000 people may be dead, and more than 3,000 certainly are. This is in a country more used to earthquakes than any in the world. Of those 10,000 possible dead, so far it appears that not one was due to the problems at Fukushima. Even in a worst-case scenario, if the team of fantastically brave nuclear workers who are there trying to fix it are killed, then it is still something of a triumph for Japanese engineering, which – 40 years ago, remember – created a nuclear reactor so solid that, faced with a cataclysm 8,000 times as powerful as the one which devastated Christchurch [New Zealand] last month, it is still largely intact.

So by all means build future nuclear power stations in Japan to withstand greater earthquakes. But don’t think this means that nuclear power is unsafe. And, most importantly, don’t let the very human fear of the words “radiation”, “nuclear”, “meltdown” and “Chernobyl” distract us from the real tragedy, which is an unfolding humanitarian disaster of entirely natural and familiar causes. The real problem over the next few days is not going to be radiation sickness. It’s going to be hypothermia. Fukushima is a high-profile diversion. Snow is the silent killer.”

You can read the whole thing here.