It's not going to blow up as in: "fissile chain reaction nuclear explosion blowing up". Right? It's really not. That's not my assessment, by the way. That's the assessment of experts (buried somewhere down in paragraph 19 of most reports) - hat tip to Ben Goldacre for that memorable phrase.

So would everyone mind just skating past the dumbfuck headlines saying "ooh there's been an EXPLOSION and NUCLEAR something something something HEAD FOR THE HILLS WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE" - (tiny print: experts say very little risk mumble mumble).

A nuclear power plant is a highly complex structure with mixed vulnerabilities and redundant protection systems, carefully tailored to the risks they are designed to manage. It has been massively analysed and heavily engineered. Hardly surprising, given the potential for thousands of years of contamination if something goes wrong.

The power plant will, for example, have gas supplies for its kitchens, that may go bang if a gas pipe is fractured, say, by a 8.8 earthquake. That does NOT mean that the bit you really should care about--the fissile material protection and the systems that would prevent dispersal into the environment--is built to the same standards as the kitchens. Or that it is the bit that has exploded.

GET A GRIP. It's not 1954. We should know better by now. Our media, in keeping these wild headlines running, and in glossing over details in reporting (exclusion zone introduced, sure: but how far? 1km, 10km or 100km? It DOES matter) do a disservice to our intelligence and to the people who really do need the headline space: those suffering from very real, very deadly, non-NUCLEAR catastrophe.

*wipes foam from mouth*

PS. I don't know quite why this one has made me so angry. It's not like stupid reporting is new. But this isn't a batshit crazy story like that Mail thing about the Moon buggering up our geology by coming too close (no, I'm not linking to it), or good old homeopathy. This is a proper bit of news obsession with something that actually hasn't happened yet. And almost certainly won't. But still gets described in terms of its potential horror, with a disturbing glee. One realises that many watching and reporting have a fascination which borders on the unhealthy. Setting aside rationality and evidence to revel in gory descriptions of unimaginable carnage etc. etc. And that's just plain ghoulish.

PPS. It will no doubt go up in a big mushroom as I hit "Publish" on this. And I'll look like a right arse.