With the United States and other countries advising their citizens to evacuate from wider areas than Japanese officials, a lack of information and contradictory opinions are increasing stress levels among foreigners and Japanese alike.
With the United States and other countries advising their citizens to evacuate from wider areas than Japanese officials, a lack of information and contradictory opinions are increasing stress levels among foreigners and Japanese alike.
People living just outside Japan's advisory "borders" are especially vulnerable to governmental disagreements and are torn over whether to stay in their homes or leave.
The United States on Thursday recommended American citizens evacuate "as a precaution" to areas more than 80 kilometers from the stricken nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture.
The U.S. government was also arranging buses and charter flights to move its citizens outside the 80-km area, or, in some cases, from Japan entirely.
Families of U.S. government officials may voluntarily leave Japan.
South Korea, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Mexico have also advised their citizens to leave the 80-km radius of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, where radioactive materials kept leaking from damaged reactor buildings.
In Tokyo, which is more than 200 km away from the Fukushima plant, at least eight embassies had by Thursday informed the Foreign Ministry that they would temporarily close.
More are believed to have been effectively closed.
The Japanese government has not changed its evacuation instruction, advising residents within a 20-km area to evacuate and those within a radius of 20 km to 30 km to remain indoors.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the United States "has made a more conservative judgment" and that it would not affect the Japanese government's decision.
Monitoring by the science ministry has detected unusually high levels of radioactivity in areas surrounding the plant.
At a point 20 km northwest of the plant, the level was 300 microsieverts per hour Tuesday, much higher than the maximum allowable level when converted to a yearly figure.
In a news conference on Thursday, Edano declined to comment on specific figures.
"We make comprehensive judgments over safety on the basis of the spread of radiodensity as a whole," he said.
A source close to the prime minister said, "It is difficult to strike a balance between whether to issue an evacuation instruction and how to prevent a large-scale panic."
U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel Poneman said in Washington on Thursday that measures recommended by the Japanese government are "prudent and appropriate."
But the U.S. evacuation advisory has also led to restrictions on relief operations by U.S. Navy vessels in the waters near quake-ravaged northeastern Japan, with ships forbidden to enter the 80-km radius.
Kunihisa Soda, a reactor engineering expert and adviser to the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, stressed that the nation's crisis decisions have been based on domestic standards.
"The United States makes its decisions based on U.S. standards," he said. "In Japan, experts have made decisions based on Japanese standards by making multitiered analyses of data obtained."
Soda said experts are following data on the state of nuclear fuel at the plant to predict how the situation will unfold and to decide on evacuation and other measures with an emphasis on safety.
But residents in the 30-km border areas remain uneasy due to a lack of information.
A 66-year-old man who lives 35 km from the plant is keeping his shop open for neighborhood residents who come to buy vegetables and other food.
"I can't close my shop now," he said, adding that "I wonder how much radioactive substance has been detected here. If correct data is provided, I would feel relieved."
He has already sent his family out of the area, but said he will stay for customers who need his store "until an (evacuation) order is issued."
A 68-year-old woman, living 33 km away, said she would leave.
"Radioactive materials are invisible, so I'm concerned," she said. "It's scary."
Meanwhile, some in the United States and Europe distrust information provided by the Japanese government and Tokyo Electric Power Co., the plant's operator.
Reporting from Tokyo, CNN newscaster Anderson Cooper said, "I haven't talked to any Japanese people here who say they believe what the government is telling them."
He also said, "all this information is being filtered through this private company (TEPCO), which has a track record of misleading the public."
The U.S. government initially said Tokyo's instructions were consistent with the assessment by U.S. experts.
But its 80-km evacuation advisory came after it concluded that radiation levels could exceed U.S. safety standards.
When asked whether he was satisfied with Japan's response to the crisis, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu told a House committee that "I can't really say. I think we hear conflicting reports (on the accident)."
A New York Times news analysis said the current crisis highlighted "the lack of a trusted leader capable of sharing information about the scope of the disaster and the potential threats to people's well-being."