Thank you Kathy. I'm watching that now.

More bad news. From the MSNBC website:

""All the workers there [Fukushima Daiichi] have suspended their operations. We have urged them to evacuate, and they have," Japan's chief cabinet secretary, Yukio Edano said, according to a translation by NHK television.

Edano said that a surge in radiation Wednesday morning meant workers were unable to continue even minimal efforts at the stricken nuclear plant."

Yes, CNN is now saying that ops at the site have been suspended.

At lunch, the reporter asked an expert how will we know that the situation is "really bad" [my words, might have even been "out of control"]. He said that would be when the workers onsite evacuate the plant.

The expert on CNN is saying that he hopes that the government statement about the workers evacuating isn't the whole story. He's hoping that they will clarify the statement, saying that they took these workers out and are putting another group in, that they are not just walking away from the plant.

One of them, CNN or govt spox, said that the radiation levels were too high for them to work.

The evacuation order for the 50 workers on site has been lifted about 1 1/2 hours ago. It was in place for about an hour. Now they are trying to get #5 and #6 cool in addition to the trouble with #1 - #4. This is from NHK live broadcast.

Saw the same at Yahoo!

I've been pretty disappointed with CNN tonight. Usually I like Anderson Cooper and tonight it was all a bunch of speculation and conjecture. No one had a clue as to what was happening (they didn't know if the last 50 workers had abandoned the plant or not) so they just kept talking about "what if" as if it were fact.

Anderson Cooper is not doing so good, I agree. He bailed to Akita and is now in Hachinohe. The guy now with the pretty pictures is just putting on a show.

Earlier, they had some good experts on with a deceent interviewer. The GE whistleblower and the guy before him. They were talking like the nuclear engineers that they were, not like reporters.

They said that the defects in the design of plants of those make/model were found in 1972. The NRC or said in the 90s that there was a 90% chance that plants of that design would have some type of failure (I don't recall the specifics). The other guy resigned over those designs and was talking about the Fukushima reactors from first-hand experience.

CNN is repeating the closure report with the words "Breaking News" in the report. Below is a crawler saying "Breaking" - the workers returned. CNN is a mess now.

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nhk-world-tv

The above carries an English language translation of NHK tv....if that is any better than CNN....

According to my relatives, the streets in Tokyo are empty. My mother in law has friends ordering bread on a sort of "black market"because the store shelves are bare. We are in the process of cancelling our trip

Hey all. I am so glad I tripped across this. I was scheduled to fly into Tokyo on April 7th. As it stands, Continental/UA will not change my flight without paying a $250/per ticket fee. I actually purchased travel insurance for once in my life and they also will do nothing. Unbelievably frustrating.

Regardless, it's been really good to read everyone's comments here on both whats going on in Japan as well as people in my situation. Thank you all!

The United travel waiver for Japan is currently through March 31. There is a link in the middle of the united homepage.

Thanks for NHK World link, Mara. I was watching the channel on cable in a hotel recently and enjoyed their programming. There were some good programs about life in Japan. It is not on my home cable.

mrwunrfl - I don't have it at home either, and I also watched it in a Chicago hotel of all places when I was there briefly last July...but now it doesn't appear to have the regular programming, just news or news repeats.....my cable company and others, I think, are giving free access to TV Japan but that's all in Japanese....

This is a reply to Emmagnus regarding another possible destination in light of the fact that you will not be traveling to Japan. I do know that Europe is insanely expensive during the summer (I am not deeply regretting my promise to take my step daughter there as a graduation present). I would suggest, if you haven't been already, that Costa Rica is a MOST excellent destination for 7 YR's. We were there this past July, It's only 2.5 hours away from Miami, and there are a million things to do in Costa Rica for kids. It is safe, with great infrustructure, wonderful people, and not insanely expensive and I do think American flys directly to San Jose. We saw dozens of US kids of all ages there, having a blast! And we really enjoyed it ourselves.

I just got confirmation from our travel agent; we have until April 1st if we want to cancel for a full refund minus a $100 fee. I'm going to hold off, at least for a few more days. At this point, it's really to late for us to book a trip elsewhere for our dates (airfare just too expensive to Europe for example).

Kristina, Hold off until 3/31.....what have you got to lose at this point? The next ten days will tell us a lot more one way or the other.

Aloha!

For those future travelers to Japan, the Japan-Guide site often mentioned here has a thread on going in their forum section that has live and updated reports from travelers on the ground in Japan right now on any inconveniences(if any) they are experiencing in Tokyo and throughout Japan.

Aloha!

Yes, I agree, ht - japan-guide is invaluable - the webmaster is doing a magnificent job there with frequent updates plus now posts show the time (JST) which is a new feature.
Also the Japan forum on tripadvisor.com has a lot of current reports.

FWIW, we have cancelled our trip to Japan (March 26th through April 8). My travel dates are covered in United's Travel Waiver but I do not know if I am entitled to a refund or I can only reschedule my trip without having to pay a fee.

Thanks,
D