Conditions at the Fukushima 1 Nuclear Complex continue to deteriorate this morning. There is more damage to the reactor buildings and radiation levels are so high that helicopters are now being used to pour water on the reactors and spent fuel pools in a last ditch attempt to cool them. The only promising news is that a new electrical cable may be connected to the stricken plant, which might reactivate the plant's coolant pumps, assuming they have not been damaged in what has happened at the site so far.

I would urge anyone who is anywhere near this plant to leave if they possibly can before the winds shift. The "50-mile zone" now identified by the US Government may not be an adequate evacuation zone for this unfolding accident.

The fact that there are 6 nuclear reactors at the Fukushima 1 nuclear complex has compounded the problem of dealing with this unfolding disaster, not to mention the reporting of it. Chalk that one up in the column under "design failure" lessons to be learned. The plant workers in heavy containment suits have had to race up and down trying to cool damaged reactor units and spent fuel pools, one after another or even simultaneously. Monitoring equipment for gas pressure, liquid levels, and radiation have been reported broken down.

There is renewed concern now about increasing temperatures in the spent fuel pools of units 5 and 6; these units were shut down for routine maintenance before the earthquake and tsunami but their spent fuel pools were filled with highly radioactive fuel rods which need to be kept underwater in order to keep them from igniting (which evidently is happening in Unit 4).

Our local newspapers still have conservative commentators such as Cal Thomas sporting such "helpful" headlines as "Panic over N-Plants harmful in itself." I would so like to see Cal lowered by helicopter onto the hell on earth that Fukushima 1 is now becoming.

Charley Noble