Exactly a month after the humongous 9.0 earthquake and tsunami, Japan has finally raised the severity level of the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power plant from level 5  to level 7.   That’s the highest there is.

I guess they could no longer deny reality.  Maybe we can’t either.

The decision came after another huge aftershock (6.6) today.  Which followed an identically huge one yesterday.  And another even larger one (7.1) four days ago.  Which makes me wonder what the new definition of “aftershock” might be.  The dimensions of the unfolding disaster at Fukushima seem to have had a devastating effect on, among so much else, our ability to react.

Now it’s true that a 7.1 is nothing compared to the 9.0 one on March 11 (reminder:  a 9.0 is ten times more powerful than an 8.0, which is ten times more powerful than a 7.0, and so on).  But as I write, these ‘aftershocks’ (any one of which would send Seattle into total panic) all seem to be right in the area of Fukushima.  Where things have clearly gone not from very bad to worse, but from very bad to worst.

So how come it’s no longer headline news? Have we gotten used so quickly to nuclear disaster?  Do we seriously think that because it’s “over there” in Japan it’s not quite real?

Take the word “indefinitely” in this April 6 front-page NYT story, for example.  It could mean an indefinite amount of time.  It could also mean a very, very long amount of time.

United States government engineers sent to help with the crisis in Japan are warning that the troubled nuclear plant there is facing a wide array of fresh threats that could persist indefinitely, and that in some cases are expected to increase as a result of the very measures being taken to keep the plant stable, according to a confidential assessment prepared by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Among the new threats that were cited in the assessment, dated March 26, are the mounting stresses placed on the containment structures as they fill with radioactive cooling water, making them more vulnerable to rupture in one of the aftershocks rattling the site after the earthquake and tsunami of March 11. The document also cites the possibility of explosions inside the containment structures due to the release of hydrogen and oxygen from seawater pumped into the reactors, and offers new details on how semi-molten fuel rods and salt buildup are impeding the flow of fresh water meant to cool the nuclear cores.

Buried in the very last paragraph of the story is this, from the director of the nuclear safety project at the Union of Concerned Scientists talking about the nightmarish pile-up of problems at Fukushima:

Even the best juggler in the world can get too many balls up in the air.  They’ve got a lot of nasty things to negotiate in the future, and one missed step could make the situation much, much worse.

Two days later, and a 7.1 quake hits — a pretty good definition of a missed step —  and yet the story is suddenly not on the front page of the NYT, but on page 14, with the scariest part again buried at the end:

At Fukushima No. 2, extremely radioactive material continues to ooze out of the reactor pressure vessel, and the leak is likely to widen with time, a western nuclear executive asserted.

“It’s a little like pulling a thread out of your tie,” said the executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect business connections in Japan. “Any breach gets bigger.”

Flashes of extremely intense radioactivity have become a serious problem, he said. Tokyo Electric’s difficulties in providing accurate information on radiation are not a result of software problems, as some Japanese officials have suggested, but stem from damage to measurement instruments caused by radiation, the executive said.

In other words, nobody knows what’s happening because there’s so much radiation — those “flashes of extremely intense radioactivity” — that it’s fried the gauges.

Meanwhile, that “extremely radioactive material” keeps oozing out.  Into the Pacific Ocean.  And into the air.   Which means that in an “indefinite” amount of time, it will reach us, wherever we are.  And that sounds pretty definite to me.

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If you want to see just how many earthquakes there’ve been in Japan since March 11, click here for a horribly hypnotic visual timeline of the size, frequency and depth of the ongoing tsunami of quakes (it comes courtesy of a researcher at the University of Canterbury in, no coincidence, Christchurch, New Zealand).  You can follow every one since March 11, when the 9.0 lights up the whole screen, or click on the upper right-hand corner for any date you select.

The super-moon is clearly having its effect on me.  I’m not exactly a wide-eyed optimist, my sense of tragedy is rather well-developed, and I certainly don’t think in terms of “cosmic evolutionary steps” like the writer quoted below, yet I found her description of life right now in Sendai, Japan, very moving.

I was sent it by a friend in New York who wrote:  “There is much to be depressed about what is happening in Japan, the Middle East, and the U.S., and yet this morning, when someone forwarded me this letter from Anne Thomas about her decision to stay in Sendai, I knew I had to send it on because this is really a time for the best in human beings to come forth.  I am glad to be exploring with all of you what it is to be human:

A letter from Sendai
ANNE THOMAS  3/14/2011
published online @ Ode magazine

Things here in Sendai have been rather surreal. But I am very blessed  to have wonderful friends who are helping me a lot. Since my shack is now even more worthy of that name, I am staying at a friend’s home. We share  supplies like water, food and a kerosene heater. We sleep lined up in one  room, eat by candlelight, share stories. It is warm, friendly, and  beautiful.

During the day we help each other clean up the mess in our homes.  People sit in their cars, looking at news on their navigation screens, or  line up to get drinking water when a source is open. If someone has water  running in their home, they put out a sign so people can come to fill up  their jugs and buckets.

It’s utterly amazingly that where I  am there has been no looting, no pushing in lines. People leave their front  door open, as it is safer when an earthquake strikes. People keep saying,  “Oh, this is how it used to be in the old days when everyone helped one  another.”

Quakes keep coming. Last night they  struck about every 15 minutes. Sirens are constant and helicopters pass  overhead often.

We got water for a few hours in our  homes last night, and now it is for half a day. Electricity came on this  afternoon. Gas has not yet come on. But all of this is by area. Some people  have these things, others do not. No one has washed for several days. We  feel grubby, but there are so much more important concerns than that for us  now. I love this peeling away of non-essentials. Living fully on the level  of instinct, of intuition, of caring, of what is needed for survival, not  just of me, but of the entire group.

There are strange parallel universes  happening. Houses a mess in some places, yet then a house with futons or  laundry out drying in the sun. People lining  up for water and food, and yet  a few people out walking their dogs. All happening at the same  time.

Other unexpected touches of beauty  are first, the silence at night. No cars. No one out on the streets. And the  heavens at night are scattered with stars. I usually can see about two, but  now the whole sky is filled. The mountains are Sendai are solid and with the  crisp air we can see them silhouetted against the sky  magnificently.

And the Japanese themselves are so  wonderful. I come back to my shack to check on it each day, now to send this  e-mail since the electricity is on, and I find food and water left in my  entrance-way. I have no idea from whom, but it is  there. Old men in green  hats go from door to door checking to see if everyone is OK. People talk to  complete strangers asking if they need help. I see no signs of fear.  Resignation, yes, but fear or panic, no.

They tell us we can expect  aftershocks, and even other major quakes, for another month or more. And we  are getting constant tremors, rolls, shaking, rumbling. I am blessed in that  I live in a part of Sendai that is a bit elevated, a bit more solid than  other parts. So, so far this area is better off than others. Last night my  friend’s husband came in from the country, bringing food and water. Blessed  again.

Somehow at this time I realize from  direct experience that there is indeed an enormous cosmic  evolutionary step  that is occurring all over the world right at this moment. And somehow as I  experience the events happening now in Japan, I can feel my heart opening  very wide. My brother asked me if I felt so small because of all that is  happening.  I don’t. Rather, I feel as part of something happening that is much  larger than myself. This wave of birthing (worldwide) is hard, and yet  magnificent.

Thank you again for your care and Love of me,

With Love in return, to you  all, A

Out beyond ideas of wrong doing and  right doing,
there is a field.  I will meet you  there. —  Rumi