RE: Y2K TV fiction: "meltdown at a Seattle nuclear power plant"

["Franta, Jaroslav" <frantaj@aecl.ca>]

> ...first of all, "the U.S. Marshall Islands" are NOT  U.S. -- see the web
> site of the Republic of the Marshall Islands at
> http://www.rmiembassyus.org/
> secondly, as we have seen at TMI in 1979, a meltdown is NOT the end of the
> world, if your NPP happens to have a containment dome, like all western
> NPPs
> - indeed, even uncontained Chernobyl wasn't "the end of the world !"
> ....more people (53) were trampled to death at a rock concert in nearby
> Belarus in May this year, and hundreds of coal miners die each year in the
> Ukraine (see both stories below at bottom).
> Jaro
> 
> posted at
> http://www.cnn.com/SHOWBIZ/TV/9911/18/nbc.y2k.ap/
> 'Y2K: The Movie' -- new year meets Murphy's Law
> Ken Olin stars in "Y2K: The Movie" 	
> November 18, 1999
> Web posted at: 12:52 p.m. EST (1752 GMT)
> NEW YORK (AP) -- The premise behind "Y2K: The Movie" is simple: If
> everything can go wrong, it will.
> Murphy's Law is the star of this show, a fictional account of coming Y2K
> havoc that includes food and cash shortages, power outages, a plane
> falling
> out of the sky, even a prison riot.
> Never mind all those pronouncements from government and the private sector
> that widespread mishaps are unlikely. The movie devises as many as it can.
> "Y2K: The Movie" airs Sunday at 9 p.m. EST on NBC. That's 40 days before
> the
> Year 2000 computer bug potentially will be swarming.
> For those who still need a briefing: The Y2K bug stems from the
> programming
> practice of using only two digits to represent the year. If that oversight
> is left uncorrected, some computers may interpret "00" to mean 1900 rather
> than 2000. That could be a problem if those computers happened to be
> responsible for running electric power grids, control air traffic or keep
> track of money.
> Electric utilities, phone companies, airlines, banks and other industries
> have joined government agencies in updating their computers during the
> past
> few years. Y2K analysts are generally confident that any disruption in the
> United States would be relatively minor and localized.
> Plot assumes nothing works
> But don't let confidence get in the way of the plot.
> Nick Cromwell (Ken Olin) is a government consultant who specializes in
> system failures. He watches from a control center in Washington, D.C., as
> a
> military fighter mysteriously crashes at the U.S. Marshall Islands (the
> first region to observe the new year).
> Pilot error or computer failure? Cromwell isn't willing to take chances.
> He
> persuades the government to ground all flights at midnight local time.
> Cromwell and crew watch as midnight arrives in different parts of the
> nation
> and world each hour.
> In New York City, banks limit cash withdrawals; one man complains of
> getting
> only $20 of the $200 he requested. (So what happened to the extra $200
> billion in cash that the Fed has stockpiled to prevent shortages?)
> Lights go out in Sydney, Australia, Paris, and most of the Eastern
> seaboard.
> Computer-controlled doors swing open at a maximum security prison in
> Texas.
> Inmates there riot and take hostages. Boston's 911 emergency system shuts
> down, as do New York City subways.
> The second half of the film has less to do with Y2K as it becomes more of
> a
> traditional thriller, with Cromwell risking his life to prevent a meltdown
> at a Seattle nuclear power plant as residents try to evacuate.
> Though NBC plans to run a disclaimer to assure audiences that the story is
> purely fictional, the movie does its best to seem authentic. Indeed,
> during
> one scene, a radio announcer refers to a real-life glitch in Maine, where
> owners of model year 2000 cars got titles to "horseless carriages," the
> designation the state used for pre-1916 vintage vehicles.
> "There are 1.2 trillion lines of potentially lethal software in the
> world,"
> Cromwell says in the movie. "There are over 30 billion chips embedded in
> everything from coffee machines to cars to jumbo jets and nuclear
> reactors.
> ... If anyone says they know what's going to happen tomorrow, they are
> lying."
> Could movie fuel public fears?
> With declarations like that, a number of groups are worried the film will
> fuel public paranoia.
> The Edison Electric Institute, representing investor-owned utilities, sent
> letters to NBC affiliates urging them to find substitute programming to
> "Y2K: The Movie" or to run a disclaimer during the entire broadcast,
> rather
> than only before the opening credits.
> Laurence Brown, the electric group's senior lawyer, said power outages
> depicted in the film are unlikely. Circuit breakers are in place, he said,
> to prevent overloaded generators and lines from disrupting the grid.
> Government reports echo the optimism, based on research and testing done
> over the past several months and years.
> "Entertainment is entertainment," said Don Meyer, a spokesman for the
> Senate's Y2K advisory committee. "I think most people recognize the
> difference between what is portrayed in a made-for-TV movie and what is
> likely to happen in the real world."
> But don't let experts spoil your fun.
> Copyright 1999 The Associated Press. 
> <><><><><><><><><><><><><>
> 
> http://www.newsworld.cbc.ca/news/cp/world/990531/w053155.html
> Belarus mourns dozens of deaths in rock concert stampede
> MINSK, Belarus (AP) - Mourners poured into an underground passage in Minsk
> on Monday, laying carnations and lilacs along the steps where 50 teenagers
> and three police officers were trampled to death as a crowd tried to leave
> an outdoor concert. 
> About 150 others were injured in the stampede Sunday night and 78 were
> hospitalized, said Vladimir Yermoshin, the head of the Minsk city council.
> 
> Seven victims were in critical condition Monday night and 32 were in
> intensive care, the Health Ministry said. 
> Parents and friends mobbed hospital waiting rooms, calling out the names
> of
> people they feared had been caught in the panic. Every hour, TV and radio
> stations broadcast telephone hot-line numbers for parents anxious to find
> their missing children. 
> Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko offered condolences to the victims'
> families and friends. 
> "Please do not accuse or judge anybody. ... This is a mournful occasion
> for
> the whole country, as well as for the families of the dead," he said.
> "Please do not allow this to split society or become an object of a
> political game." 
> He announced two days of national mourning, and appointed Premier Sergei
> Ling to head a commission investigating the tragedy. 
> Later in the evening, however, he said that the casualties were due to
> "carelessness." 
> "We've treated these gatherings, rallies, too carelessly," Lukashenko said
> on state television, adding that democracy led to an attitude of "let's
> rally and walk until someone gets suffocated somewhere." 
> At least 2,500 teenagers had been crowded onto a lawn outside Minsk's
> Sports
> Palace on Sunday, and some witnesses put the crowd at closer to 10,000. 
> Many were attracted by leaflets, posters and newspaper ads promising free
> beer, gym bags, TV sets and other prizes. 
> The party started at noon Sunday and was supposed to go on until after
> sunset, with a rock concert on a grassy area outside the stadium. As the
> concert got under way, teenagers danced and drank. 
> Then the rain and hail started, and hundreds of young people made a run
> for
> the nearby Nemiga metro station. But somebody fell on the rain-slickened
> concrete of the underground passage - police said teenage girls in
> high-heels were the first to fall - and others followed. 
> The crowd kept surging in, running over those who had fallen. Some were
> trampled to death, while others suffocated. Forty-two of the dead were
> girls. 
> "There was such a huge crowd. I was carried away by it when it rushed to
> the
> underpass," said Vitaly Milentyev, 19. "I was lucky. I managed to get out
> of
> the crowd literally by going between the legs of other people. 
> "I will remember a young girl who died in my arms for the rest of my
> life." 
> Milentyev said most of the crowd appeared drunk. 
> Leonid Okulish, one of the heads of the company that organized the
> concert,
> appeared close to tears in a TV interview Monday. "I do not understand how
> it could have happened," he said. 
> 
> http://www.online.com.ua/news/flash_out_e.html?news=k9040909.txt
> Miners dying in Ukraine 
> 
> 71 miners died at Ukrainian mines in 1999, 11 of them died of heart
> failure.
> 10 miners died in April. Last year 350 miners died in Ukraine. 
> Source: Ukraine Online 
> 
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