There you live, in the middle of the biggest ocean of this blue planet. An island paradise, about 43 miles in diameter on the longest stretch and over 2,350 miles away from the nearest continent. We are so very small but still one risk after another.

A terrible disaster happened last week in Japan, an 8.9 earthquake which immediately caused a tsunami with 30 feet high waves. The same tsunami would also come to our island and, like I also wrote in one of my previous articles, this did cause some worries.

Now, almost a week later, new concerns are emerging. The earlier mentioned disaster is at the dawn of possibly an even bigger disaster as six nuclear reactors seem to have huge problems with the cooling of the nuclear bars. In the worst scenario, this could cause a chain reaction meltdown. And that is where the worries start.

If a meltdown sends enough radiation into the air, then this might end up in the jet stream and then it would only take a few days before the radiation reaches Hawaii with a possibility of fallout in Hawaii. By the way, a jet stream is a very strong wind (100 mph and over) at around 30,000 feet height. And one of the jet streams is currently going towards Hawaii and the US. A situation like that is not completely unimaginable.

And that such a situation is not completely unimaginable, is something we can see here on the islands (and also on the mainland US when I hear the stories). The news of possible radiation created a spur run on iodine tablets and they were almost completely sold out in only one day, and I hear it is not much different on the US West coast. Normally such tablets cost around 10 dollar for 14 pieces, when I checked earlier online I’ve seen prices up to 425 dollar for the same 14 tablets. They are very scarce and the manufacturer seems not to be expecting any new supplies before April 18.

Halfway April? That is still a whole month away from us… and whether or not it would be smart to buy these pills, it kind of looks as if one is not prepared for a similar situation, which is a bit odd when you look at the history with Chernobyl. Or do the various governments have millions of these pills in stock somewhere? For some reason I don’t think they do, but then again, I could be wrong.

And do these pills help? Possibly, but you don’t have to be entirely sure about it. I read many various messages in which is stated that it is firstly not exactly healthy to take them when there is no medical need, they flood the thyroid with ‘good’ iodine so the body will not take any radioactive iodine in but this could cause for some thyroid problems. So you can imagine there are quite a few warnings given for these tablets. Next to this, these pills only help against the ‘iodine 131′ radiation, but there are far more different forms of radiation which we could see, like also shown in the scheme below (sorry, so far I only found a Dutch diagram, will update when I find an English one.. ‘stolen’ from nu.nl).

Do we have these iodine pills at home? No.. Would I like to? Yes, somehow I do. Although I do believe it will not matter much, it would still be good to have some just in case. Having less risk does provide a better feeling. But to buy them for such amounts? No, I wont do that either… if dangerous radiation from Japan would be imminent here on the islands, then chances are very likely that we will not wait it out but leave on the first possible plane to a safer location. We can always come back at a later time. But if it comes that far? I don’t expect it will.

But still, how do the people here assess the chances of dangerous radiation? President Obama, and the state of Hawaii alike, do not expect that we will have to worry here or on the US West coast. They also placed two extra radiation detectors in Hawaii to ease the worries of the people here.

However, while it is said that this is done to put the mind a bit more at ease, it is also ground for new questions. We should not forget that the same government has told the people more things in the past, which eventually turned out not to be entirely true, and that is something the people here know as well.

And what to think about the current nuclear plants in the US? Let me first say that this is really not my expertise, so please don’t mind me if I misjudge certain things, but when I read an article what states that the US plants, for example those on the San Adreas fault, can withstand an earthquake with a strength up to 7.5 on the Richter scale (don’t forget: the one in Japan was 8.9), and then half a day later I hear that President Obama said that a similar disaster is not possible in the US, then I do place some question marks at that remark. Is that true? It doesn’t sound very plausible I think. And because it doesn’t sound plausible, it also raises questions to a possible radiation here.

One thing does put my mind a bit at ease, although I have no idea if this is a wrong thought, and that is the disaster in Chernobyl in 1986. We’re about 3,600 miles away from the nuclear plants in Japan, while I lived ‘only’ little over 1000 miles away from Chernobyl. That was much closer, and that was something we also survived, although it did cause for a lot of trouble in Western Europe (and still does) according to Wikipedia.

To be honest, I don’t dare to go completely with what the government says, that is something I never did before anyways but will certainly not do in a situation such as this. Instead I try to read a lot of different news sources to stay up-to-date and not to be completely depending on only one source, and I notice a lot of people over here think the same about this.

And even though it does run through my mind almost constantly, and want to stay up-to-date the whole time, I thought I was not worrying too much. However, I have to come back from that thought… Last night, when I wrote the Dutch part of this post, the civil defense warningsystem came on television, just like last week with the tsunami. My heart skipped a beat I can tell you. Fortunately that didn’t take too long as it turned out quickly to be ‘only’ a test.

Let’s hope that a certain disaster spares us, and certainly also those in Japan and the rest in the world. There is enough trouble in the world, we’re not waiting for a nuclear disaster.

Update, March 17: The local government also let us know that, when something does happen, we should best hide in our homes and keep these preferably air tight. That could prove fun as we have various windows that we cannot even close.. They will also place tents across the island for the distribution of iodine tablets. That, plus the messages of the US advising all citizens to leave Japan does not sound very reassuring…