# Expat bankers and finance services workers leaving Japan



## Editor

Expat bankers and finance workers are leaving Tokyo in the aftermath of the severe earthquake and the on-going nuclear crisis. A week since the earthquake and tsunami struck staff from BNP Paribas, Standard Chartered and Morgan Stanley are among the banks whose staff have left. Expat staff at most foreign banks in Tokyo make up [...]

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## pasturesnew

*reply*

Im still in Tokyo and work in Banking Sector !, however I am getting pressure from management outside of Japan to go spend some time in Singapore, I dont think I could rest easy staying at nice hotel, warm climate with whats going on here right now, though I havent had a good nights sleep for some time now given all the aftershocks, thankfully thats starting to settle, oddly my co workers in other countries cant understand why I havent left already, I find there thought process very odd..., each to their own I guess.


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## larabell

The overseas news reports have been somewhat overblown. There are quite a few radiation monitors around Tokyo that have been put online as a result of recent events and none of them are showing anything more than a modest rise in the background radiation levels. A friend of mine who works for the US Navy and who just completed a circuit around the outskirts of Tokyo confirmed that observation. Assuming the folks at TEPCO and the SDF put this situation to bed within the next week or so, the risk associated with an overseas trip will far exceed what you're likely to encounter staying here (a round trip to New York and back runs somewhere in the 2 to 5 mSv range -- the same as standing in front of the Fukushima plant gate for an hour). Of course, the situation changes if you're out on the front lines trying to deal with this thing and, for that, we need to honor those who were willing to take the risk in order to keep the situation from being worse than it might have been.

The US State Department has said that if a similar situation was happening in the States, they would impose a 50 mile evacuation radius, just in case. That's almost four times what the Japanese and IAEA have been recommending but it's still only a third of the distance from Fukushima to Tokyo.

Unless you live in the immediate vicinity, chances are you're OK. There's no guarantee but, then again, there's no guarantee you're not going to be hit by a truck the next time you step outside. The difference is that you can *see* the truck but you can't see radiation. That's what's fueling a lot of the hysteria.


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