Fukushima’s still radiating, self-perpetuating,
immeasurable, and limitless, like a horrible incorrigible Doctor
Who monster encounter in deep space.
Fukushima will likely go down in history as the
biggest cover-up of the 21st Century. Governments and corporations are
not leveling with citizens about the risks and dangers;
similarly, truth itself, as an ethical standard, is at risk of going to
shambles as the glue that holds together the trust and belief in
society’s institutions. Ultimately, this is an example of how societies
fail.
Tens of thousands of Fukushima residents remain in
temporary housing more than four years after the horrific disaster of
March 2011. Some areas on the outskirts of Fukushima have officially
reopened to former residents, but many of those former residents are
reluctant to return home because of widespread distrust of government
claims that it is okay and safe.
Part of this reluctance has to do with radiation’s
symptoms. It is insidious because it cannot be detected by human senses.
People are not biologically equipped to feel its power, or see, or
hear, touch or smell it (Caldicott). Not only that, it slowly
accumulates over time in a dastardly fashion that serves to hide its
effects until it is too late.
Chernobyl’s Destruction Mirrors Fukushima’s Future
As an example of how media fails to deal with
disaster blowback, here are some Chernobyl facts that have not received
enough widespread news coverage: Over one million (1,000,000) people
have already died from Chernobyl’s fallout.
Additionally, the Rechitsa Orphanage in Belarus has
been caring for a very large population of deathly sick and deformed
children. Children are 10 to 20 times more sensitive to radiation than
adults.
Zhuravichi Children’s Home is another institution,
among many, for the Chernobyl-stricken: “The home is hidden deep in the
countryside and, even today, the majority of people in Belarus are not
aware of the existence of such institutions” (Source: Chernobyl
Children’s Project-UK).
One million (1,000,000) is a lot of dead people. But,
how many more will die? Approximately seven million (7,000,000) people
in the Chernobyl vicinity were hit with one of the most potent exposures
to radiation in the history of the Atomic Age.
The exclusion zone around Chernobyl is known as
“Death Valley.” It has been increased from 30 to 70 square kilometres.
No humans will ever be able to live in the zone again. It is a permanent
“dead zone.”
Additionally, over 25,000 died and 70,000 disabled
because of exposure to extremely dangerous levels of radiation in order
to help contain Chernobyl. Twenty percent of those deaths were suicides,
as the slow agonizing “death march of radiation exposure” was too much to endure.
Fukushima- The Real Story
In late 2014, Helen Caldicott, M.D. gave a speech
about Fukushima at Seattle Town Hall (9/28/14). Pirate Television
recorded her speech; here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qX-YU4nq-g
Dr. Helen Caldicott is co-founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility, and she is author/editor of Crisis Without End: The Medical and Ecological Consequences of the Fukushima Nuclear Catastrophe,
The New Press, September 2014. For over four decades Dr. Caldicott has
been the embodiment of the anti-nuclear banner, and as such, many people
around the world classify her as a “national treasure”. She’s truthful
and honest and knowledgeable.
Fukushima is literally a time bomb in quiescence.
Another powerful quake and all hell could break loose. Also, it is not
even close to being under control. Rather, it is totally out of control.
According to Dr. Caldicott, “It’s still possible that Tokyo may have to
be evacuated, depending upon how things go.” Imagine that!
According to Japan Times as of March 11,
2015: “There have been quite a few accidents and problems at the
Fukushima plant in the past year, and we need to face the reality that
they are causing anxiety and anger among people in Fukushima, as
explained by Shunichi Tanaka at the Nuclear Regulation Authority.
Furthermore, Mr. Tanaka said, there are numerous risks that could cause
various accidents and problems.”
Even more ominously, Seiichi Mizuno, a former member
of Japan’s House of Councillors (Upper House of Parliament, 1995-2001)
in March 2015 said: “The biggest problem is the melt-through of reactor
cores… We have groundwater contamination… The idea that the contaminated
water is somehow blocked in the harbor is especially absurd. It is
leaking directly into the ocean. There’s evidence of more than 40 known hotspot areas where
extremely contaminated water is flowing directly into the ocean… We
face huge problems with no prospect of solution.” (Source: Nuclear
Hotseat #194: Fukushima 4th Anniversary – Voices from Japan, March 10, 2015, http://www.nuclearhotseat.com/2468/)
At Fukushima, each reactor required one million
gallons of water per minute for cooling, but when the tsunami hit, the
backup diesel generators were drowned. Units 1, 2, and 3 had meltdowns
within days. There were four hydrogen explosions. Thereafter, the
melting cores burrowed into the container vessels, maybe into the earth.
According to Dr. Caldicott, “One hundred tons of
terribly hot radioactive lava has already gone into the earth or
somewhere within the container vessels, which are all cracked and
broken.” Nobody really knows for sure where the hot radioactive lava
resides. The scary unanswered question: Is it the China Syndrome?
Following the meltdown, the Japanese government did
not inform people of the ambient levels of radiation that blew back onto
the island. Unfortunately and mistakenly, people fled away from the
reactors to the highest radiation levels on the island at the time.
As the disaster happened, enormous levels of
radiation hit Tokyo. The highest radiation detected in the Tokyo Metro
area was in Saitama with cesium radiation levels detected at 919,000
becquerel (Bq) per square meter, a level almost twice as high as
Chernobyl’s “permanent dead zone evacuation limit of 500,000 Bq”
(source: Radiation Defense Project). For that reason, Dr. Caldicott
strongly advises against travel to Japan and recommends avoiding
Japanese food.
Even so, post the Fukushima disaster, Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton signed an agreement with Japan that the U.S. would
continue importing Japanese foodstuff. Therefore, Dr. Caldicott
suggests people not vote for Hillary Clinton. One reckless dangerous
precedent is enough for her.
According to Arnie Gundersen, an energy advisor with 39 years of nuclear power engineering experience, as reported in The Canadian on
August 15, 2011: “The US government has come up with a decision at the
highest levels of the State Department, as well as other departments who
made a decision to downplay Fukushima. In April, the month after the
powerful tsunami and earthquake crippled Japan including its nuclear
power plant, Hillary Clinton signed a pact with Japan that she agreed
there is no problem with Japanese food supply and we will continue to
buy them. So, we are not sampling food coming in from Japan.”
However, in stark contrast to the United States, in
Europe Angela Merkel, PhD physics, University of Leipzig and current
chancellor of Germany is shutting down all nuclear reactors because of
Fukushima.
Maybe an advanced degree in physics makes the
difference in how a leader approaches the nuclear power issue. It
certainly looks that way when comparing/contrasting the two
pantsuit-wearing leaders, Chancellor Merkel and former secretary of
state Clinton.
After the Fukushima blow up, ambient levels of
radiation in Washington State went up 40,000 times above normal, but
according to Dr. Caldicott, the U.S. media does not cover the “ongoing
Fukushima mess.” So, who would really know?
Dr. Caldicott ended her speech on Sept. 2014 by
saying: “In Fukushima, it is not over. Everyday, four hundred tons of
highly radioactive water pours into the Pacific and heads towards the
U.S. Because the radiation accumulates in fish, we get that too. The
U.S. government is not testing the water, not testing the fish, and not
testing the ambient air. Also, people in Japan are eating radiation
every day.”
Furthermore, according to Dr. Caldicott: “Rainwater
washes over the nuclear cores into the Pacific. There is no way they can
get to those cores, men die, robots get fried. Fukushima will never be
solved. Meanwhile, people are still living in highly radioactive areas.”
Fukushima will never be solved because “men die” and
“robots get fried.” By the sounds of it, Fukushima is a perpetual
radiation meltdown scenario that literally sets on the edge of a
bottomless doomsday pit, in waiting to be nudged over.
UN All-Clear Report
A UN (UNSCEAR) report on April 2, 2014 on health
impacts of the Fukushima accident concluded that any radiation-induced
effects would be too small to identify. People were well protected and
received “low or very low” radiation doses. UNSCEAR gave an all-clear
report.
Rebuttal of the UNSCEAR report by
the German affiliate of the International Physicians for the Prevention
of Nuclear War d/d July 18, 2014 takes a defiant stance in opposition to
the UN report, to wit: “The Fukushima nuclear disaster is far from
over. Despite the declaration of ‘cold shutdown’ by the Japanese
government in December 2011, the crippled reactors have not yet achieved
a stable status and even UNSCEAR admits that emissions of radioisotopes
are continuing unabated. 188 TEPCO is struggling with an enormous
amount of contaminated water, which continues to leak into the
surrounding soil and sea. Large quantities of contaminated cooling water
are accumulating at the site. Failures in the makeshift cooling systems
are occurring repeatedly. The discharge of radioactive waste will most
likely continue for a long time.”
“Both the damaged nuclear reactors and the spent fuel
ponds contain vast amounts of radioactivity and are highly vulnerable
to further earthquakes, tsunamis, typhoons and human error. Catastrophic
releases of radioactivity could occur at any time and eliminating this
risk will take many decades… It is impossible at this point in time
to come up with an exact prognosis of the effects that the Fukushima
nuclear disaster will have on the population in Japan… the UNSCEAR
report represents a systematic underestimation and conjures up an
illusion of scientific certainty that obscures the true impact of the
nuclear catastrophe on health and the environment.”
To read the full text of the rejoinder to the UN report, go to:https://japansafety.wordpress.com/tag/saitama/
Fukushima’s Radiation and the Future
Mari Yamaguchi, Associated Press (AP), June 12, 2015:
“Four years after an earthquake and tsunami destroyed Japan’s Fukushima
nuclear power plant, the road ahead remains riddled with unknowns…
Experts have yet to pinpoint the exact location of the melted fuel
inside the three reactors and study it, and still need to develop robots
capable of working safely in such highly radioactive conditions. And
then there’s the question of what to do with the waste… serious doubts
about whether the cleanup can be completed within 40 years.”
“Although the Chernobyl accident was a terrible
accident, it only involved one reactor. With Fukushima, we have the
minimum [of] 3 reactors that are emitting dangerous radiation. The work
involved to deal with this accident will take tens of years, hundreds of
years,” Prof. Hiroaki Koide (retired), Kyoto University Research
Reactor Institute, April 25, 2015. “It could be that some of the fuel
could actually have gone through the floor of the containment vessel as
well… What I’ve just described is very, very logical for anyone who
understands nuclear engineering or nuclear energy,” which dreadfully
spells-out: THE CHINA SYNDROME.
According to the Smithsonian, April 30, 2015: “Birds
Are in a Tailspin Four Years After Fukushima: Bird species are in sharp
decline, and it is getting worse over time… Where it’s much, much
hotter, it’s dead silent. You’ll see one or two birds if you’re lucky.”
Developmental abnormalities of birds include cataracts, tumors, and
asymmetries. Birds are spotted with strange white patches on their
feathers.
Maya Moore, a former NHK news anchor, authored a book about the disaster: The Rose Garden of Fukushima (Tankobon,
2014), about the roses of Mr. Katsuhide Okada. Today, the garden has
perished: “It’s just poisoned wasteland. The last time Mr. Okada
actually went back there, he found baby crows that could not fly, that
were blind. Mutations have begun with animals, with birds.”
The Rose Garden of Fukushima features a collection of
photos of an actual garden that existed in Fukushima, Japan. Boasting
over 7500 bushes of roses and 50-thousand visitors a year, the Garden
was rendered null and void in an instant due to the triple disaster —
earthquake, tsunami, and meltdown.
The forward to Maya’s book was written by John Roos,
former US Ambassador to Japan 2009-13: “The incredible tale of Katz
Okada and his Fukushima rose garden was told here by Maya Moore… gives
you a small window into what the people of Tohoku faced.”
Roos’ “small window” could very well serve as a
metaphor for a huge black hole smack dab in the heart of civilization.
Similarly, Fukushima is a veritable destruction machine that consumes
everything in its path, and beyond, and its path is likely to grow. For
certain, it is not going away.
Thus, TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) is deeply
involved in an asymmetric battle against enormously powerful unleashed
out-of-control forces of E=mc2.
Clearly, TEPCO has its back to the wall. Furthermore,
it’s doubtful TEPCO will “break the back of the beast.” In fact, it may
be an impossible task.
Maybe, just maybe, Greater Tokyo’s 38 million residents will eventually be evacuated. Who knows for sure?
Only Godzilla knows!
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at roberthunziker@icloud.com
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