ARLA/CLUSTER: Crise nuclear japonesa faz parar os Rádio Relógios.

[João Gonçalves Costa]

* The transmitter on Mt Otakadoya operates on 40 kHz, and the transmitter in W Japan (Mt Hagane) operates on 60 kHz.

Nuclear crisis ’stopped time’ in Japan

The problems at Japan’s Fukushima-1 nuclear plant have had an unexpected impact on the country’s ability to keep time: a transmitter that sends the national time signal to many thousands of clocks and watches has been forced offline making the timepieces a little less reliable than usual. 

The transmitter is on top of Mount Otakadoya in Fukushima prefecture, about 790 metres above sea level and 16km from the stricken Fukushima-1 power station. The radio station, callsign JJY, sends a signal that reaches most of Japan including the capital, Tokyo.

The site is well within a government-mandated 20km evacuation zone and engineers were forced to abandon it on the evening of 12 March 12 (at 7:46pm JST to be precise - they were keeping time). As they left, they powered down the transmitter and that left some devices without a reference time signal. The devices, which include things like watches, traffic signals, and taxi meters, have internal clocks that keep running in the absence of the radio signal, but the ability of some to auto correct has been lost.

A second transmitter exists in western Japan on the island of Kyushu. Its signal also covers most of Japan, but it transmits on a different frequency*. Some devices don’t have a tuner for the second frequency while others might be hampered by the signal, which is weaker in Tokyo and east Japan.

The National Institute of Information and Communications and Technology that runs the transmitter sites said it doesn’t know when JJY service from Fukushima will resume. 

The evacuation zone around the Fukushima-1 plant remains in place as work continues to bring the plant under control. Airborne radiation levels have been steadily dropping over the last few days, but the situation at the plant remains serious.

It could be some time before engineers are allowed back to the station and JJY returns to the air.