Quake, nuclear power plant blast fail to shake Japanese

Widespread panic looks different. If it weren't for the slight chill in the air, Saturday night would have made for a very pleasant stroll through the streets of Tokyo. Traffic in the Japanese capital is much lighter than usual with authorities having closed many highways for safety reasons a day after the devastating quake that hit the north-east of the country.
Locals hurry through the night, minds focused on late-night shopping or the mouth-watering smells emanating from noodle stalls under the railway tracks. Even news about an explosion at a nuclear power plant in quake-hit Fukushima prefecture, about 250 kilometres north of Tokyo, fails to shake most people's composure. Katsuke Toda, who is travelling with his family to Osaka, was among the majority who did not appear overly fazed by the magnitude 8.9-magnitude earthquake and the following tsunami which devastated large part of the coastline in north-eastern Japan.
"No, we are not worried at all," he says, settling in his seat on the south-west bound bullet train out of Tokyo. His view was common among commuters at Tokyo station where even the usual rush-hour bustle seemed absent. Tatsuki Hasegawa said he has heard about the explosion, but says he cannot really imagine if and how big that incident could be. And anyway, he has to be back at work on Monday, he says, readjusting his sunglasses and his elaborate hairstyle.
A long but orderly queue snaked through the hall in front of the ticket booths for the Shinkansen bullet trains, which restarted services earlier in the day, but after a less than 10-minute wait tickets for the next train could be easily obtained. Foreign travellers appeared more spooked than locals, who kept pointing out that earthquakes were common in Japan and they knew how to deal with them, even events such as Friday's quake which authorities fear may have cost more than 1,000 lives.
Briton John Sparks says he spent the day glued to the television. "I just came here to see if the trains were working." They do, and he is off to buy a ticket to Kyoto, just in case. But not everyone took things that easy. A young woman, who gave her name only as Mirami, said she was leaving Tokyo because of the earthquake. "I am very scared. I am going to Kyoto for a about a week until this is over."
An elderly couple, carrying big backpacks, said they were on the bullet train out of town because of the tremors. "We were quite worried by the quake, so we decided to go on a longer spring vacation. We have time, so we are going down (south) to my wife's family," the husband said. His wife added that it was not just the quake that had her scared, but also the news about the nuclear plant trouble at Fukushima.
The cooling systems of the Fukushima I and Fukushima II power plants were damaged in Friday's quake, leading to a build-up of pressure, raising fears of a core meltdown. Later on Saturday, cooling efforts apparently led to an explosion of water vapour which blew up the walls of the concrete housing of one of the reactors at the Fukushima I plant, the NHK broadcaster said. Some 210,000 people were evacuated from the area, but for Tokyo residents, aftershocks remained the main concern.
That, and lack of faith in their government. "We don't trust the government. They are downplaying this thing, so that people don't panic" says Emi, who hurriedly packed bags for her husband and 7-month-old baby. "We first wanted to go tomorrow, but then the news about the plant got worse and maybe tomorrow we can't leave."
People have not forgotten the then-government's bungling of an accident at the Tokaimura uranium reprocessing facility in 1999, the country's worst civilian radiation incident so far. The government has informed people too late in the past as well, another young couple nearby agrees. They are not to be trusted. The authorities had to face accusations of information mismanagement and severe breaches of safety policies.