Japan Clocks Out Of Sync Due to Nuclear Crisis

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The Japan disaster has resulted in various IT-related difficulties, but it’s not just causing dwindling supplies and components. Clocks in Japan are currently out of sync.

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Folks in Japan who own atomic watches might be surprised to find their clocks inaccurate. This is because the radio transmitter responsible for synchronizing atomic clocks throughout most of Japan is offline.

Mount Otakodoya hosts a transmission station for syncing  atomic clocks, and is 16 km from the Fukushima Daiichi power plant that almost had a nuclear meltdown after the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Because of the threat of nuclear radiation, engineers decided to shut down the station when news of the nuclear incident broke.

This is said to affect taxi meters, wristwatches, and other compatible clocks around the country. While most  systems can run on their own internal clocks, some might be inaccurate due to the lack of the syncing pulse.

Engineers are likely to resume broadcast once the threat of radiation has been reduced.