I've done some more digging, and waving of teh science degree, and I've come up with the following conclusion:

The main problem in Fukushima is due to the reactor cores containing large quantities of radioactive material. The actual nuclear fission probably ceased immediately, so there are no new neutrons coming in and thus the reactor is no longer producing large amounts of energy. The radioactivity still produces energy but it is quite small compared to what comes out of the fission itself.

* The energy level of the radioactivity witnessed now will depend of the half-time of the material used. Today a very common material is Xenon-133 which has a half-time of about 5 days. If this is what's used, the energy production, and thus radiation, is already halved.

* The radiation levels that are reported for the Tokyo area are probably air radiation. However, we receive only a minute amount of total radiation from the air, so it is very unlikely that the air radiation itself is a significant concern. A more pressing concern would be buildings and food.

* In chernobyl the reactor flat out exploded while fully operational. The encapsulation was blown away, literally, and the radioactive material which included parts of the reactor core spread unchecked throughout the surrounding area. In Fukushima the reactors stopped after a short period, and the encapsulation seems to be relatively intact. Thus, even if the encapsulation should break, which is unlikely at this point, the radiation poisoning of the surrounding area will be virtually negligible compared to that of the chernobyl disaster.

As usual we can call bullshit on the world's media and conclude that there will be no nuclear catastrophe in Japan.

Well, there are still issues with sheep and reindeer meat in Norway due to radiation from the Chernobyl disaster. And we're pretty far away from Chernobyl (though we were very unlucky with the wind and weather when the disaster hit).

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10393-chernobyl-haunts-the-norwegian-uplands.html

Yes, but they are speaking specifically in regards to human health.

Yeah, ok. The immediate radiation probably won't turn you all into mutants. Just watch what you eat and drink...

Yeah I think they won't worry about the health of the local wildlife until the human problems are solved. And that's likely to be a decade at least.

Of course, the problem with contaminated animals, water and plants is that it will eventually become a human problem as the contamination moves through the food chain.

That's the situation over here; in 2006 (20 years after the incident) it was estimated that the Chernobyl incident some 1500 km away have caused or will cause up to 500 cases of cancer in our population over a 50 year period.

Chernobyl is a totally different situation. Like previously mentioned, it blew up during operation. These reactors were already in shut down mode the second the earthquake hit. Second, Chernobyl did not have the containment case around the reactor. Fukushima blew the roof off the building around the containment case, but the containment wasn't breached. In chernobyl, when the roof blew, that was it and the radioactive materials blew sky high. It's not good, but nothing close to Chernobyl is going to happen here.

So where does that leave you personally then?

Most western journalists are bloodhounds, no doubt about that. Since you know both the Japanese and French media well, is it you impression that the Japanese media is more civilized than the French in general? (Obviously, the earthquake disaster is handled different since it is a national tragedy in Japan.)

Asides from wishing I was back in the UK with a totally different career path, who knows? All we can do is wait and see until the true extent of the damage and its effects can be assessed.

The effect the damage has had, rather than the damage itself, will undoubtedly be the most significant factor. If food is scarce then I don't see how you can be expected to focus on any other concerns.

Actually, for the wildlife in general, a disaster comparable to that of Chernobyl happening to one of our densely populated areas, would be a blessing to the wildlife. Just look what happened to Pripyat. It could be argued that nuclear power is very nature friendly technology, just not very people friendly when something goes wrong in an unexpected way.

Uh ... teh what?

I assume you're referring to the fact that the area would be abandoned by humans, allowing nature to take it back Life After Humans-style?

Here is an article all about it: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/04/0426_060426_chernobyl.html

Yes. In most of the world the area were wildlife can live is rapidly decreasing, day for day. (Except for some species that have adapted to us like crows and rats.) If something really bad happened in a nuclear plant somewhere that would actually be a good thing for the natural world, though not for us.

As to the aftermath of the current disaster I think the Japanese people will solve the upcoming challenges very well.