nuclear-news

Okinawa island, with no nuclear plants, becoming a refuge for Japanese families

Okinawa prefecture is the largest region in Japan without nuclear plants. Okinawa island, the largest in the group, has beautiful beaches, a slow-food subculture and thriving music and arts scenes. It attracts thousands of sea-changers every year, but only recently has this included worried parents who would never have considered a move to Okinawa before the Fukushima disaster……

Escape to Okinawa, SMH, Jane Barraclough, December 6, 2011 As radiation hot spots emerge in Tokyo and nuclear contamination plagues the country, some Japanese are fleeing to the Okinawa island chain to avoid the fallout from Fukushima. But is it too late?

Mari Takenouchi …and her one-year-old son fled to the Okinawa islands – Japan’s southernmost prefecture, 2000 kilometres south of the unfolding crisis.
……….lack of alarm after the explosions kept Takenouchi and Joe in Tokyo half a day too long to dodge the fallout, which gradually dispersed in a cruel lottery of wind, rain and snow that contaminated homes, farms, wilderness, and eventually a schoolyard in Takenouchi’s neighbourhood.

The Adachi Ward elementary school, where soil taken from a drainpipe emitted 16 times the level of radiation regarded as safe by the local government, is just one among a spate of radiation hot spots to emerge  since March.
In the south of greater Tokyo, a Yokohama resident discovered sediment
containing strontium-90 — which is linked to bone cancer — at nearly
twice the levels of the highest traces mapped in Fukushima and more
than 10 times that remaining from Cold War-era weapons testing.
But the main cause of radiation anxiety is caesium-137, which lingers
in the environment for decades and can increase the risk of cancer if
exposure exceeds certain levels. The total release from Fukushima of
the long-lived radionuclide amounted to about 42 per cent of that
emitted in the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, according to a new Norwegian
study….

In the south of greater Tokyo, a Yokohama resident discovered sediment
containing strontium-90 — which is linked to bone cancer — at nearly
twice the levels of the highest traces mapped in Fukushima and more
than 10 times that remaining from Cold War-era weapons testing.
But the main cause of radiation anxiety is caesium-137, which lingers
in the environment for decades and can increase the risk of cancer if
exposure exceeds certain levels. The total release from Fukushima of
the long-lived radionuclide amounted to about 42 per cent of that
emitted in the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, according to a new Norwegian
study.

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
Based on worldwide data from Nuclear Test Ban Treaty monitoring
stations, the Norwegian research more than doubles the official
Japanese government figure, which did not account for radiation spikes
in other countries or in the ocean.
It also does not include radiation released in recent months, as
workers have tried to stabilise the shattered plant and prevent
nuclear fuel from melting into the ground.
An estimated 20 per cent of this initial fallout ended up on land —
not just countryside but also in densely populated cities…..
While Takenouchi evacuated before the hot-spot scares, she still
worries about damage to her child’s health, damage she fears may be
irreversible.
“No doctor in the world fully understands the effects of low-dose
radiation on adults, let alone on young children. So how can the
government say there is no health risk in Tokyo,” she says.
Coincidentally, on the eve of March 11, Takenouchi was putting the
finishing touches to a Japanese translation of the Petkau effect — a
controversial theory that claims even low levels of radiation can
cause terminal diseases…..
More than 200 people, mostly evacuees from the mainland, took part in
a recent demonstration against nuclear power. The demonstrators are
just some of the 17, 521 Japanese who migrated to Okinawa between
March and August this year – a 12.3 per cent increase from the same
period in 2010.
Okinawa prefecture is the largest region in Japan without nuclear plants.
Okinawa island, the largest in the group, has beautiful beaches, a
slow-food subculture and thriving music and arts scenes. It attracts
thousands of sea-changers every year, but only recently has this
included
worried parents who would never have considered a move to Okinawa
before the Fukushima disaster……

http://www.smh.com.au/world/escape-to-okinawa-20111205-1ofh3.html

December 6, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment, Japan