the whole crisis deteriorates into a slow motion mega-disaster with unknown consequences.
On Monday, 740 of 800 plant workers were sent home. It wasn't because they weren't needed.
Arnie Gunderson on DemocracyNow:
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: What are the efforts right now to cool down the plant? Why do these explosions keep happening? This is the third explosion now.
ARNIE GUNDERSEN: Yeah, that’s a great question. They will continue. I think, given that the site has been evacuated—you know, those 800 people were not sitting around playing poker. They were all doing critical, critical things. So, if you’ve let 800 people go and are trying to do the work of 800 with 60 people, clearly critical items are not going to be accomplished.
...
ARNIE GUNDERSEN: It’s got to make the efforts worse. You know, these 750 people that are being evacuated were doing critical work. They weren’t sweeping floors and washing windows; they were doing critical work. So, when the staff, basically, is cut—90 percent of the staff is told, "You have to leave the site"—that’s an indication that a lot of critical work isn’t getting done. I really think it’s also—it’s an indication that management at the site has thrown in the towel and is going to let this thing run its course without any more human intervention. What that means is that—I’m particularly concerned about another aftershock, especially if an aftershock—on the weak Unit 2 containment, which already apparently has failed, and an aftershock would make it worse. The other thing that especially concerns me is that a large group of personnel were fighting the fire in the fuel pool on Unit 4, and again, you can’t have 60 people on a six-unit site and expect that anything gets done.
...
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/3/15/this_could_become_chernobyl_on_steroidshttp://www.democracynow.org/2011/3/15/get_the_children_away_from_the