Counting the dead at Hiroshima and Nagasaki
This is a very long, well-researched, and amply illustrated article. Below are a few snatches to give a sense of the work involved in seeking an answer to this question.
Bulletin, By Alex Wellerstein, August 4, 2020
How many people died as a result of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
There is one thing that everyone who has tackled this question has agreed upon: The answer is probably fundamentally unknowable. The indiscriminate damage inflicted upon the cities, coupled with the existing disruptions of the wartime Japanese home front, means that any precise reckoning is never going to be achieved.
Earliest estimates……………………………………………………………………………………….
Occupation estimates………………………………….
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. One of the most useful sources they consulted was also one of the most grim: schools and schoolchildren, which kept meticulous attendance records. Not only were there good records, but “the headmasters in many instances had made earnest efforts to trace families by letter, messenger, or personal contact.” Even better, the researchers found that many of the children were not in their classrooms at the time of the bombing, but had been detailed into “patriotic work parties” throughout the city, working in factories or working on firebreaks. So this provided data for many different distances from the bombing, and different types of structures. In this tragic fashion, the most vulnerable of those who died at Hiroshima and Nagasaki played a key role in establishing the total death counts…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Japanese-led reconsiderations………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
So what numbers should one use?
Given all of the above, and the disagreements about source terms that can dramatically alter the totals, what numbers should people who want to discuss the victims of the bombings use when doing so?
There is, I think it should be clear, no simple answer to this. In practice, authors and reports seem to cluster around two numbers, which I will call the “low” and the “high” estimates. The “low” estimates are those derived from the estimates of the 1940s: around 70,000 dead at Hiroshima, and around 40,000 dead at Nagasaki, for 110,000 total dead. The “high” estimates are those that derive from the 1977 re-estimation: around 140,000 dead at Hiroshima, and around 70,000 dead at Nagasaki, for a total of 210,000 total dead. Given that the “high” estimates are almost double the “low” estimates, this is a significant difference. There is no intellectually defensible reason to assume that, for example, an average (105,000 dead at Hiroshima, 55,000 dead at Nagasaki) would be more accurate or meaningful.
My qualitative sense is that historians who want to emphasize the suffering of the Japanese (and the injustice of the bombing) tend to prefer the “high” numbers, while those who want to emphasize the military necessity of the attack tend to prefer the “low” numbers. And therein lies the real question: What do these estimates do for us, rhetorically? It is clear that numbers, stripped from their technical contexts, are deployed primarily as a form of moral calculus. And this should not surprise us, given that so much of the argument defending the atomic bombs relies on another casualty estimate: how many people might have died in a full-scale land invasion of Japan (numbers that have been similarly contested for decades, ranging from tens of thousands of casualties, to the more imaginative millions).
Separately, the number of dead at Hiroshima and Nagasaki have also been explicitly compared to the estimated dead from the devastating firebombing attacks against both Germany (notably Dresden) and Japan (notably Tokyo) that preceded them. This argument is again part of the justification of atomic bombings, an attempt to show that they were not “special” in any particular moral sense when put up against “conventional” Allied activity. Whether this is or isn’t a strong argument is out of scope for this article, but it is just worth keeping in mind what work the “low” numbers do, for they pale in comparison with the highest estimates of the Tokyo bombing dead, and with the estimates for a land invasion of Japan.
Given that there is no satisfactory way to decide whether the “low” or “high” estimates are more accurate, it is fairly clear there is no “neutral” choice to be made. It ultimately comes down to which sort of authority one wishes to go with: the official estimates of the United States military in the 1940s, or the later estimates by a group of anti-nuclear weapons scientists, largely spearheaded by Japan. Both made legitimate points in making their estimations; neither show any apparent perfidy or obvious intellectual dishonesty.
Short of choosing one or the other, is there an elegant way to talk about the range? Saying “between 70,000 and 140,000 people died at Hiroshima” captures some of it, but does not really capture the reasons for the variance in these numbers. I might suggest, if there is space to do so, saying something like:
“The United States military estimated that around 70,000 people died at Hiroshima, though later independent estimates argued that the actual number was 140,000 dead. In both cases, the majority of the deaths occurred on the day of the bombing itself, with nearly all of them taking place by the end of 1945.”
This makes the authorship claims more explicit (even as it generalizes quite a bit into “the United States military” and “independent estimates”), and also makes it clear that this range is the cause of two entirely different assessments, not the errors of a single assessment. And it clarifies the question of timing, if the latter clause is allowed in. It is a wordy explanation—journalists will no doubt question whether it is worth the space in an article where they probably just wanted a simple number to quote—but if we are going to invoke such uncounted dead, it is worth the effort to do it in a way that is respectful of the uncertainties involved.
Decades Later, the U.S. Government Called Hiroshima and Nagasaki ‘Nuclear Tests’
The military was able to test both a uranium-fueled bomb on Hiroshima and a second plutonium bomb on Nagasaki to gauge their effects on big cities.
Today, in some elite circles of Russia and the United States, normalized talk of using “tactical” nuclear weapons has upped the madness ante.
NORMAN SOLOMON, AUG 1, 2023 https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/2663585/posts/4838936867
In 1980, when I asked the press office at the U.S. Department of Energy to send me a listing of nuclear bomb test explosions, the agency mailed me an official booklet with the title “Announced United States Nuclear Tests, July 1945 Through December 1979.” As you’d expect, the Trinity test in New Mexico was at the top of the list. Second on the list was Hiroshima. Third was Nagasaki.
So, 35 years after the atomic bombings of those Japanese cities in August 1945, the Energy Department—the agency in charge of nuclear weaponry—was categorizing them as “tests.”
Later on, the classification changed, apparently in an effort to avert a potential P.R. problem. By 1994, a new edition of the same document explained that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki “were not ‘tests’ in the sense that they were conducted to prove that the weapon would work as designed…or to advance weapon design, to determine weapons effects, or to verify weapon safety.”
But the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki actually were tests, in more ways than one.
Take it from the Manhattan Project’s director, Gen. Leslie Groves, who recalled: “To enable us to assess accurately the effects of the bomb, the targets should not have been previously damaged by air raids. It was also desirable that the first target be of such size that the damage would be confined within it, so that we could more definitely determine the power of the bomb.”
A physicist with the Manhattan Project, David H. Frisch, remembered that U.S. military strategists were eager “to use the bomb first where its effects would not only be politically effective but also technically measurable.” The military was able to test both a uranium-fueled bomb on Hiroshima and a second plutonium bomb on Nagasaki to gauge their effects on big cities.
For good measure, after the Trinity bomb test in the New Mexico desert used plutonium as its fission source on July 16, 1945, in early August the military was able to test both a uranium-fueled bomb on Hiroshima and a second plutonium bomb on Nagasaki to gauge their effects on big cities.
Protests held in Tokyo against nuclear water discharge
By Jiang Xueqing in Tokyo | chinadaily.com.cn 2023-07 https://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202307/31/WS64c7b5d8a31035260b819829.html
—
Japanese and South Korean civic groups gathered in front of the Japanese Prime Minister’s official residence on Monday in opposition to the administration’s plan to discharge nuclear-contaminated water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the ocean.
People attending the rally said the Japanese government’s insistence on discharging nuclear-contaminated water into the sea is an irresponsible move.
They raised doubts about the Japanese government’s claim the nuclear-contaminated water will be diluted before being released. Whether diluted or not, the protesters said, the overall radioactive substance level in the water remain unchanged.
They stressed discharging the water into the ocean will have a significant impact on the global marine environment.
Last week, a similar protest was held by Japanese people in front of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in Tokyo.
Protesters said on Friday the ocean discharge plan is unacceptable because it poses a significant danger of radioactive contamination and will adversely affect the marine ecosystem and human health.
Some expressed concerns about Japan’s economy, which they believe will be affected by a boycott movement in neighboring countries and regions.
Failed Fukushima System Should Cancel Wastewater Ocean Dumping
The global ban on ocean dumping of radioactive waste adopted in 1993 applies only to barrels. It has allowed Britain and France to pump billions of gallons of radioactive wastewater into the Irish Sea and the North Sea respectively, for decades.
BY JOHN LAFORGE, 25 July 23 https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/07/25/failed-fukushima-system-should-cancel-wastewater-ocean-dumping/
From the Fukushima-Daiichi triple-reactor meltdown wreckage, Japan’s government and “Tepco,” the owner, are rushing plans to pump 1.37 million tons (about 3 billion pounds) of radioactive wastewater into the Pacific.
Their record is poor. Their lies are documented. This is not safe, at all.
To keep the three meltdowns’ wasted fuel from melting again, Tepco continuously pours cold water over 880 tons of “corium,” the red-hot rubblized fuel amassed somewhere under three devastated reactors. “That water leaks into a maze of basements and trenches beneath the reactors and mixes with groundwater flowing into the complex,” Reuters reported Sep. 3, 2013.
Most of this water is collected and put through Tepco’s jerry-rigged mechanism dubbed ALPS, for Advanced Liquid Processing System, which it turns out hasn’t processed much of anything.
Tepco, Japan’s Nuclear Regulatory Authority, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and much of the media endlessly repeat that ALPS removes over 62 radioactive materials from the ever-expanding volume of wastewater. Reports regularly claim the planned dumping is routine, safe, and manageable.
This unverified PR loop has fooled a lot of people, but the ALPS is a fraud. As early as 2013, the filter system stalled and the IAEA reported that April that ALPS had not “accomplished the expected result of removing some radionuclides,” Reuters reported.
In September 2018, the ALPS was revealed to have drastically failed, forcing Tepco to issue a public apology and a promise to re-filter huge volumes of the waste.
According to Reuters, Oct. 11, 2018, documents on a government committee’s website show that 84 percent of water held at Fukushima contains concentrations of radioactive materials higher than legal limits allow to be dumped.
Among the deadly isotopes still in the waste are cesium-137, strontium-90, cobalt-60, ruthenium, carbon-14, tritium, iodine-129, plutonium isotopes, and more than 54 more.
In a June 14, 2023 op/ed for the China Daily, Shaun Burnie, the Senior Nuclear Specialist at Greenpeace East Asia, reported that the ALPS “has been a spectacular failure,” and noted:
“About 70 percent or 931,600 cubic meters of the wastewater needs to be processed again (and probably many more times) by the ALPS to bring the radioactive concentration levels below the regulatory limit for discharge. Tepco has succeeded in reducing the concentration levels of strontium, iodine, and plutonium in only 0.2 percent of the total volume of the wastewater, and it still requires further processing. But no secondary processing has taken place in the past nearly three years. Neither Tepco nor the Japanese government has said how many times the wastewater needs to be processed, how long it will take to do so, or whether the efforts will ever be successful. … none of these issues has been resolved.”
Tepco says it will re-filter more than 70 percent of the wastewater through ALPS again, a process that itself leaves massive amounts of highly radioactive sludge that must be kept out of the environment for centuries.
Hoping to slow the rush to dump, Professor Ryota Koyama from Fukushima University, said in an interview with China Media Group last May, “If the Japanese government or the Tokyo Electric Power Co. really wants to discharge contaminated water into the sea, they need to explain in more detail whether the nuclides have really been removed.”
International law governing state-sponsored or corporate pollution of the seven seas is relatively useless in challenging Tepco’s outrageous transfer of private industrial poison into the public commons. The global ban on ocean dumping of radioactive waste adopted in 1993 applies only to barrels. It has allowed Britain and France to pump billions of gallons of radioactive wastewater into the Irish Sea and the North Sea respectively, for decades.
Japan Doesn’t Want to Fight for Taiwan and Neither Do Other US Allies
if Japan fought alongside the US in a hypothetical conflict with China over Taiwan, the Japanese civilians and economy would suffer greatly. What’s more, in a conflict between two nuclear powers, China and the US, Japan may itself become a nuclear target,
22.07.2023 Ekaterina Blinova https://sputnikglobe.com/20230722/japan-doesnt-want-to-fight-for-taiwan-and-neither-do-other-us-allies-1112066099.html
Despite Japan bolstering its military capabilities under the nation’s new Defense Buildup Program, it appears to have zero appetite to engage in direct confrontation with China over Taiwan, Western media and think tanks say.
US military facilities in Okinawa, Japan, might play a central role in any Taiwan crisis, according to the Western press. Moreover, American military analysts have almost unanimously agreed that Japan is “the most likely US ally to contribute troops” in a potential US conflict with China over the island.
Back in October 2021, War on the Rocks, a US online media outlet, quoted a Japanese poll which appeared to indicate that 74% of respondents would support their government’s military engagement in the Taiwan Strait against China. The report further speculated about the possibilities of circumventing the country’s Constitution, which limits Japan’s ability to participate in conflicts.
Bold statements made by some Japanese officials also seemed to confirm Tokyo’s resolve. One of them, former Minister of Defense Yasuhide Nakayama, insisted in June 2021 that Taiwan is a “red line” and that “we have to protect Taiwan as a democratic country.” Japan and Taiwan are geographically close and any possible military actions over the island could potentially affect Japan’s Okinawa prefecture, Nakayama argued at the time.
Is China Going to Take Taiwan by Force?
The People’s Republic of China, which considers Taiwan its inalienable part, has repeatedly stated that it is going to reunite with the island peacefully, referring to years of fruitful collaboration with the former Taiwanese government formed by members of Kuomintang Party.
The Kuomintang can make a spectacular comeback during the Taiwanese general elections, scheduled for January 2024. The party’s victory could nip the fuss around Taiwan’s secessionism and potential conflict in the bud. Even US lawmakers admit it, considering the Kuomintang’s win a potential “threat” to Washington’s plans in the Asia-Pacific.
Biden Fast-Tracks Arming of Taiwan
For their part, the Biden administration and American legislators have repeatedly issued provocative statements with regard to the island, with the US president claiming time and time again that Washington is ready to “protect” Taiwan “militarily.” The US has also bolstered arms sales to the island.
In late June, Biden approved two potential arms sales totaling $440 million to Taiwan, including ammo and other military equipment. Earlier, in March, the US State Department approved a $619 million sale of hundreds of missiles to Taiwan to arm its new US-made F-16 jet fighters. Moreover, the Biden administration has started to use fast-track authority for accelerating the pace of the arming of Taiwan. The same mechanism has been used by Biden to speed-up Ukraine’s militarization.
Japanese Leadership Seems Unhappy With US Bellicosity
The unfolding situation has apparently given shivers to the Japanese leadership. The Wall Street Journal broke on Monday that the Japanese government is ready to give permission to the US to use bases in Japan in the case of conflict over Taiwan, but Tokyo’s own participation is unlikely.
Per the report, Washington invited Tokyo to consider using its Self-Defense Forces, especially the Maritime Self-Defense Force for hunting for Chinese submarines around the island of Taiwan and for other military missions.
Presently, Japan is home to about 54,000 US troops, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. It also hosts the headquarters of the US Navy’s 7th Fleet and the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit.
Tokyo’s concerns have certain grounds. In May, Japanese scholar Kiyoshi Sugawa wrote for Responsible Statecraft, the online magazine of the Quincy Institute (a DC-based think tank), that if Japan fought alongside the US in a hypothetical conflict with China over Taiwan, the Japanese civilians and economy would suffer greatly. What’s more, in a conflict between two nuclear powers, China and the US, Japan may itself become a nuclear target, Sugawa warned.
The DC-based think also refers to the recent Japanese polls which indicate that just 11% of Japanese respondents consider it possible to fight alongside the US against China, while 27% said that their forces should not cooperate with the US military at all. The majority (56%) said that providing logistical support to the US would be more than enough in the event of the conflict.
Nobody Wants to Die for Uncle Sam
What’s more, Japan is not the only US ally unwilling to fight with China over Taiwan. The Australian government has recently signaled that it gave no promises to Washington about military participation in a potential conflict. The Philippines does not want to get dragged into the conflict, either.
When it comes to South Korea, it also lacks any enthusiasm of joining the US in a combat operation in the Taiwan Strait. Western observers draw attention to the fact that South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol avoided meeting with then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in Seoul after her controversial tour to Taiwan. The Diplomat suggested that Seoul has at least three reasons to avoid a possible war over the island. First, the China market accounts for 30% of South Korea’s total trade; second, Seoul fears that a Taiwan conflict would increase “the North Korean threat”; third, for Seoul friendly relations with Beijing is a guarantee against a conflict with Pyongyang.
Still, there is yet another US regional treaty ally, Thailand. However, according to the DC-based think tank, it’s completely impossible to force Bangkok to fight against China for the sake of Taiwan.
While muddying the waters of the Taiwan Strait, the US risks staying face-to-face with China which would mean a defeat in a possible military standoff, judging from the US’ earlier war game simulations.
Hong Kong tightens radiation inspection of Japanese seafood imports
Hong Kong has started strengthening radiation inspections of seafood
imports from Japan, sources said Saturday, amid concerns in China over a
plan to discharge treated radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima
nuclear plant into the ocean. The tighter inspections started in mid-June
and customs clearance of Japanese seafood was delayed by about three hours
compared with earlier clearance times.
Hong Kong on Friday reiterated its
concerns over the water plan. The Japanese government has confirmed that
some shipments of Japanese seafood have been held up at China’s customs.
Hong Kong is Japan’s second-largest market for agricultural and fisheries
exports, while mainland China is its biggest.
Japan Times 22nd July 2023
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/07/22/national/hong-kong-food-fukushima-treated-water/
Cesium 180 times limit found in fish at Fukushima nuke plant 12 years after disaster.
July 19, 2023 (Mainichi Japan)
FUKUSHIMA — Radioactive cesium 180 times Japan’s legal maximum has been found in fish caught in the port at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, revealing that the March 2011 triple meltdown there continues to impact the local ecosystem.
The cesium in the black rockfish caught in May measured 18,000 becquerels per kilogram. The legal limit under the Food Sanitation Act is 100 becquerels per kg. According to plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) Holdings Inc., the fish was captured inside the inner breakwater, close to the No. 1 to No. 4 reactors at the seaside plant, where decommissioning work continues.
When it rains, the rainwater streams into the “K drainage” — one of several drainpipes at the plant — after running through debris and over the ground, both contaminated with radioactive substances. It is then discharged into the station’s small port.
TEPCO claims that it has confirmed the cesium levels in the discharged rainwater are below the government criteria of 60 becquerels per liter for cesium-134 and 90 becquerels for cesium-137. But compared with other drainages at the plant, runoff with higher concentrations of radioactive materials has been discharged within the inner breakwater. The seabed sediment in the area was also found to contain cesium-137 up to 130,000 becquerels-plus per kilogram and cesium-134 up to 3,400 becquerels-plus as of the end of January this year………………………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………….”We urge that TEPCO take thorough measures to prevent radioactive materials from getting into the ocean, even within the port,” a fisheries federation official urged, refering to the black rockfish with more than 100 becquerels per kg caught in May at the nuclear complex’s port.
Toshihiro Wada, an associate professor of fish ecology at Fukushima University, said of the heavily contaminated fish, “It’s likely that cesium was concentrated within the fish from the food chain, confined as it is by the inner breakwater where radioactive substances have accumulated from the drainages flowing into the port.”
He continued, “Unless fundamental measures are taken to lower the concentrations of radioactive materials discharged from the ‘K drainage,’ fish surpassing the maximum will likely keep being found,” even as TEPCO has stepped up measures to prevent fish from getting away…………………………………
Radioactively contaminated water has been swelling daily at the plant as water injected to cool nuclear fuel debris that melted down in the 2011 disaster has been accumulating with groundwater and rainwater mixing into it. TEPCO processes the contaminated water using ALPS, or multi-nuclide removal equipment, and stores the treated water in tanks after reducing the radioactive levels apart from tritium, which is difficult to remove from water.
‘Set treated water aside’
The Japanese government plans to release treated water from the Fukushima plant into the ocean around the summer, after diluting it to get tritium concentrations below 1,500 becquerels per liter, or one-fortieth of the national standard. It plans to release the water about 1 kilometer offshore via an undersea tunnel.
“Unlike cesium, tritium does not concentrate in fish even if they ingest it, according to data,” associate professor Wada said. “Experimental results have shown that if treated water is put into regular seawater, the concentration (of tritium) is reduced. We need to consider (tritium) separately from cesium.”
(Japanese original by Riki Iwama, Fukushima Bureau, and Hideyuki Kakinuma, Iwaki Local Bureau) https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20230718/p2a/00m/0na/019000c?fbclid=IwAR2R-0GtuaSlHvGQZ13yqRzQdZ1HUr3RNu4yHWzLBLytboJldZs2eMLHmxM
China’s blanket radiation testing could spell trouble for Japanese seafood imports
Japan Times, BY ERIC JOHNSTON, STAFF WRITER, 19 jul 23
China has begun testing all seafood imports from Japan for radiation, Japanese media reported Wednesday, in a move that could create further diplomatic headaches for Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
The news comes ahead of Japan’s plan to begin releasing treated radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 plant into the sea. It follows a July 7th announcement by China’s customs agency that seafood products from 10 prefectures, including Fukushima, would continue to be banned due to radiation concerns.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told reporters in Tokyo on Wednesday that there have been cases where some Japanese seafood exports are being held up by Chinese customs. The reason for this is seen as a result of China’s tightened radiation inspections in response to the planned release of treated water from the nuclear power plant…………. (subscribers only) more https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/07/19/national/china-radiation-test-japan-seafood-trouble/
Japan to Release 1.3 Million Tonnes of Water Used During Fukushima Nuclear Accident
The water used to cool damaged reactor cores from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident in March 2011.
David Krofcheck, The Wire 16 Jul 23
“…………………………………………This year the Japanese government plans to release 1.3 million tonnes of water – used to cool the damaged reactor cores from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident in March 2011 – into the Pacific Ocean
Between 2011-2013, approximately 300,000 tonnes of untreated wastewater had already flowed into the ocean off Fukushima. These first two years were the most dangerous time because long-lived heavy nuclei, like cesium-137, strontium-90 and shorter-lived iodine-131, from nuclear fission in the reactors ended up in the ocean.
Since 2013, the stored water has also accumulated flushed seawater goundwater which leaked into the three damaged reactor cores.
The big challenge is how to manage 1.3 million tonnes of unsafe radioactively-tainted water………………………………………………………………………….
“As Low As Reasonably Achievable” or ALARA – filtering out the nuclear fission nuclei from the stored wastewater may be the best that can be done. The ALARA approach to reduce nuclear fission nuclei released resulted in a 2013 effort to develop and employ an advanced liquid processing system, or ALPS. A series of filters was designed to remove 62 fission nuclei leaving both tritium and carbon-14 in the water. It only partially worked.
Potentially, this water could be run through more cycles of the ALPS before extra dilution and later release into the ocean.
The other 30% of treated water could also be diluted with seawater by factors of several hundred to one thousand and then released into the ocean. Any remaining tritium from the Fukushima reactor may find its way into the food chain as organically bound tritium via build-up in underwater plants and organisms.
The second option for managing the Fukushima water was to hold it on site in an ever-increasing number of tanks.
If the water is properly filtered to leave only tritium and carbon-14, then the natural decay of tritium can be used to reduce overall radioactivity. Since the radioactive half-life of tritium is 12.4 years, holding the water in tanks for seven half-lives, about 85 years, would reduce the tritium content to less than 1% of its current value. This option leaves the carbon-14 which would still roughly have the same radioactivity due to its 5,730-year half-life.
However, storing a tremendous volume of water for an entire human lifespan has never been tried. Even more water and storage tanks would need to be added as decommissioning the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor cores proceeds. This is problematic.
A third option was to evaporate the water on land near Fukushima.
A 1979 nuclear accident at Three Mile Island Nuclear Station in the United States resulted in a similar radioactive water storage problem. About 9,300 tonnes of tritiated water, about 140 times less than that currently held in the Fukushima storage tanks, was electrically evaporated over two years. The tritium was released into the atmosphere, resulting in a radiation dose to people in the surrounding area of about one-hundredth of the natural background radiation.
Japan and TEPCO would need to deal with even larger amounts of water and tritium emitted into the atmosphere if the 30-year timeline for the reactor core clean-up is followed……………….. https://thewire.in/environment/japan-to-release-1-3-million-tonnes-of-water-used-during-fukushima-nuclear-accident
China says Japanese govt’s fund subsidizing local fishing industry ‘hush money’
The Chinese Embassy in Japan said the fund the Japanese government has set aside to subsidize the fishing industry in Fukushima area is “hush money,” which shows the Fukushima discharge plan is really “problematic.”
It’s reported that Japan has set up a special fund of 80 billion yen (around $581 million) to subsidize the fishing industry in Fukushima, which will be damaged by the discharge of nuclear-contaminated water.
It must be pointed out that the Japanese side’s move only compensates the affected domestic industries and ignores the safety and interests of its neighbors and the people of Pacific island countries, said a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Japan, according to an announcement on the embassy’s website on Thursday.
“This will surely arouse stronger doubts and condemnation from the international community,” said the embassy spokesperson.
The Japanese side should immediately halt the Fukushima discharge plan, consult with all stakeholders and the international community, dispose of nuclear-contaminated water in a scientific, transparent and safe manner, and stop transferring the risk of nuclear pollution to all mankind, the embassy spokesperson said.
How the world’s most radioactive man cried blood while his skin melted as he was kept alive in 83-day nightmare after horror accident at Japanese nuclear power plant
- Hisashi Ouchi, 35, became the world’s ‘most radioactive man’ in 1999
- He was the worst affected by Japan’s 1999 Tokaimura nuclear accident
- Ouchi – reportedly left with ‘melted skin’ and ‘crying blood’ – died after 83 days
Daily Mail , By MATTHEW COX, 14 July 2023
A Japanese nuclear disaster on September 30, 1999, was the world’s worst since Chernobyl, and left the world’s ‘most radioactive’ man with ‘melted skin.’
That victim was Hisashi Ouchi, a worker at the uranium processing plant in Tokaimura – 70 miles northeast of Tokyo – who was exposed to a massive dose of radiation resulting in severe burns.
This was to be the first of 83 days of unimaginable suffering in critical condition for the 35-year-old who died on December 21, after begging doctors to stop treating him months earlier.
The accident was a result of a series of fatal mistakes while he and his colleagues were preparing uranium for use as reactor fuel in the privately-run plant, including carrying the uranium in buckets, and not wearing appropriate protective equipment.
Technicians Ouchi and Masato Shinohara, with supervisor Yutaka Yokokawa, were speeding up the conversion process by putting 16kg of uranium in a vat which had a maximum limit of 2.4kg, when a chain-reaction was caused as Ouchi was ‘draped over’ the tank.
He was exposed to 17 Sieverts of radiation – for comparison, emergency responders at Chernobyl were exposed to 0.25 – over double what is seen as a lethal dose.
That is also the record amount of radiation in any living person, making him the most irradiated man ever, sometimes referred to as the world’s ‘most radioactive.’
He and his co-workers reported seeing a blue flash above the vat, the indication that a reaction similar to that inside an atomic bomb has happened, releasing deadly neutron radiation.
The colleagues rapidly lost consciousness as alarms blared inside the plant and radiation levels shot to 4,000 times typical levels.
The surrounding area was evacuated, with many not having even been aware that the unassuming building was a nuclear facility.
Ouchi was rushed to the University of Tokyo Hospital, where doctors found that he had almost no white blood cells and was in need of extensive skin grafts and multiple blood transfusions.
Local reports at the time claimed that he was also left ‘crying blood,’ and begged doctors to stop treating him.
However, he was resuscitated after multiple heart attacks on his 59th day in hospital.
Ouchi eventually died on December 21, 1999, and a few months later in April 2000 Shinohara, his fellow technician, died of multiple organ failure aged 40………………………. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12299235/How-worlds-radioactive-man-cried-blood-kept-alive-83-day-nightmare.html
12 years on, Fukushima’s citizen-scientists continue to test local fish for radioactive substances.
2 In a white coat and gloves, Ai Kimura is cutting up a fish sample at the
Tarachine lab, about an hour’s drive from the now-crippled Fukushima
Daiichi nuclear power plant on Japan’s eastern coast.
Four times a year, Ms Kimura and her team of volunteers collect samples of fish from the waters around the plant. They have been doing this since the lab was founded in
2011, just months after a devastating tsunami flooded the reactors, causing
a radiation leak. Except Ms Kimura is not a scientist – and neither are any
of the women who run the non-profit lab, whose name Tarachine is derived
from the term for “mother” in old Japanese.
Shaken after the tsunami, Ms Kimura says locals started the lab to find out what was safe to feed their children because it was hard to come by information on the risks of
radiation. So they asked technical experts to train them on how to test for
radioactive substances and log the readings, raised funds and began
educating themselves. It was the decision of a shattered community that
never thought an accident at the nuclear power plant was possible.
Now, 12 years on, they again find themselves struggling to trust the Japanese
government as it insists it’s safe to release treated radioactive water
from the plant into the Pacific Ocean.
BBC 13th July 2023
Dumping Doubts: Releasing Fukushima’s Waste Water
Australian Independent Media, July 13, 2023, Dr Binoy Kampmark
Nothing said from the nuclear industry can or should be taken for face value. Be it in terms of safety, or correcting defects or righting mistakes; be it in terms of construction integrity, there is something chilling about reassurances that have been shown, time and again, to be hollow.
The 2011 Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP) disaster has forever stained the Japanese nuclear industry. Since then, the site has been marked by over 1,000 tanks filled with contaminated water that arises from reactor cooling. The attempts by the Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc (TEPCO) to decommission and clean the plant has also seen a daily complement of 150 tons arising from groundwater leakage into the buildings and systems involved in the cooling process.
According to Japan’s Nuclear Regulatory Authority, the gradual 1.3 million or so tons kept in those tanks into the Pacific over three decades is something that can be executed without serious environmental consequences. This was a view that was already entertained in 2021, expressing confidence that the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) being used in cleaning the contaminated water would be effective. Of primary concern here is the presence of a radioactive form of hydrogen called tritium, the presence of which is a challenge to remove.
There are various questions arising from this, not least the assumption that the levels of radioactivity arising from tritium will be significantly reduced by 1/40th of regulatory standards through the use of seawater. But as has been pointed out by such scientists as Ken Buesseler, Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress and Antony M. Hooker, there are also nontritium radionuclides that “are generally of greater health concern as evidenced by their much higher dose coefficient – a measure of the dose, or potential human health impacts associated with a given radioactive element, relative to its measured concentration, or radioactivity level.”
The International Atomic Energy Agency neither recommends nor endorses the plans – a curious formulation that does little for confidence……………………………………….
the inherent clandestine air that has surrounded TEPCO, scepticism should not only be mandatory but instinctive. Why not, ask such voices as Hooker and Buesseler, consider other disposal methodologies, such as solidifying the ALPS treated wastewater within concrete? No, counter the Japanese authorities, citing insuperable technical and legal problems. https://theaimn.com/dumping-doubts-releasing-fukushimas-waste-water/
Japan’s Radioactive Fukushima Water Release – Media Propaganda, Reports from Vanuatu in South Pacific
Nuclear Hotseat, 12 July 23
SPECIAL REPORTS:
With Japan’s pending release of 1.3 million tons of Tritium-contaminated radioactive water from Fukushima into the Pacific Ocean, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) approval of that plan, it is time for an examination of the issues behind this wrongheaded assault upon people and the environment. To find out various hidden aspects of the issue, Nuclear Hotseat provides five separate segments.
Nuclear Hotseat Hot Story with Linda Pentz Gunter considers that the IAEA’s vested interest in promoting nuclear power should disqualify the agency as a nuclear safety watchdog.Marine Biologist Tim Deere-Jones takes on the whistleblower leak of an internal IAEA document from June 21, which shows collusion between the agency and the government of Japan over how the announcement of approval of the water release was to be handled to minimize public fear and response. Japan has dismissed the document as a “fraud;” neither TEPCO nor IAEA has said anything else. What’s the bigger story?Filmmaker Philippe Carillo (The Fukushima Disaster: The Hidden Side of the Story) lives in Vanuatu and talks about Japan’s campaign to propagandize south Pacific journalists into only believing the talking points they’ve been fed and not to look further.
The Honorable Andrew Solomon Napuat, a Member of Parliament for Vanuatu, an island nation in the south Pacific, explains how his country and others have been manipulated to not speak out against the water release or risk “friendly” relations with Japan…………… https://nuclearhotseat.com/podcast/japan-radioactive-fukushima-water-dump/?_thumbnail_id=11643
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