Japan, China to discuss food ban
BEIJING — The Japanese and Chinese governments have agreed to hold negotiations aimed at easing China’s restrictions on imports of Japanese foodstuffs, measures put in place following the outbreak of a nuclear crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
The relevant bureau directors general from both sides met in Beijing on Friday, it has been learned. The event marked the first such talks since the crisis began and a move toward compromise by China.
A bureau director general of the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry participated in the Friday meeting, as did China’s director general in charge of food inspections. The Japan side said it thoroughly supervised agricultural products and urged China to ease its restrictions, saying Japanese agricultural products are safe and that resolving the issue of import restrictions would contribute to the development of both nations.
China agreed to continue talks on the subject.
In addition to banning the imports of foodstuffs from 10 prefectures, including Fukushima, China requires the submission of a “radiation inspection certifi-cate” for the import of certain items from the other 37 prefectures, such as vegetables, fruit, dairy products and tea leaves.
Because the form of this certificate has not been decided, however, imports have been effectively halted.
About 50 countries and regions had curbed imports of Japanese foodstuffs at one point in the wake of the nuclear crisis. But 13 countries have lifted such rules entirely, and the trend toward easing restrictions is growing.
Source: Yomiuri
Radioactive cesium levels in Fukushima river seasonal: study
Radioactive cesium contamination levels in a river near the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant rise in the spring and fall in the autumn, a new study shows.
The researchers believe the rise is attributable to very large numbers of leaves containing radioactive substances falling into rivers in the spring. In one year, the radioactive cesium level in the river in springtime was up to five times that in autumn.
Hirokazu Ozaki, research team leader and assistant professor at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, said, “There is a possibility that radioactive substances are concentrated in the bodies of fish through the food chain, so it’s important to grasp what’s happening in the rivers. This study is unprecedented, and we’d like to continue.”
A group of Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology researchers analyzed sediment samples taken at 35 locations along the middle reaches of the Abukuma River in Fukushima Prefecture, 40-50 kilometers from the atomic power station, in spring and autumn from 2012 to 2014.
The average density of radioactive cesium-137 per kilogram of sediment was 1,450 becquerels in spring 2012, 1,270 becquerels in autumn 2012, 2,700 becquerels in spring 2013, 451 becquerels in autumn 2013, 1,080 becquerels in spring 2014 and 600 becquerels in autumn 2014.
The highest level was 22,800 becquerels at one location in spring 2013, and there is a wide variation from location to location.
According to researchers, fallen leaves and carcasses of animals containing concentrated radioactive materials fall into the river in spring, increasing the amount of radioactive cesium in the river. Then the rainy season from June to mid-July, along with the typhoons that tend to strike during summer and early autumn, causes the amount of water in the river to surge, sweeping sediment to the river’s lower reaches and decreasing cesium levels in the fall, they say.
Source: Mainichi
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20150620p2a00m0na003000c.html
Fukushima Fallout: Bird Mutation, Possible Tokyo Evacuation?
The real picture of the seriousness of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan is being covered up by governments and corporations putting people’s lives further at risk.
Fukushima will most probably go down in history as the biggest cover-up of the 21st Century as citizens are not being informed about the actual risks and dangers. The real picture of the seriousness of the situation is being covered up by governments and corporations, according to Robert Hunziker, an environmental journalist.
Tens of thousands of Fukushima residents fled the area after the horrific disaster of March 2011. Some areas on the peripheries of Fukushima have reopened to former residents, but many people are hesitant to return home because of widespread distrust of government claims that it is safe.
One reason for such reluctance has to do with the symptoms of radiation. It is sinister because it cannot be detected by human senses. People are not biologically capable of sensing its effects, according to Dr. Helen Caldicott, as reported by Global Research.
She further added that radiation slowly accumulates over time without showing effects until it is too late.
It was reported by Ben Mirin that bird species around Fukushima are in sharp decline, and it is getting worse over time. Some of the developmental abnormalities of birds include cataracts, tumors, and asymmetries. Birds were spotted with strange white patches on their feathers, Smithsonian reported.
Dr. Helen Caldicott, co-founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility, writes that Fukushima is literally a time bomb in dormancy and right now the situation 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.”
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’, media reported.
“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 stated there is no problem with the Japanese food supply and we will continue to buy it. So, we are not sampling food coming in from Japan,” Arnie Gundersen, energy advisor told Global Research.
However, unlike the United States, Germany is shutting down all nuclear reactors because of Fukushima. In comparison to the horrible Chernobyl accident, which involved only one reactor, Fukushima has a minimum of three reactors that are emitting dangerous radiation.
http://sputniknews.com/asia/20150619/1023584984.html#ixzz3dn4AcYxE
News coverage of Fukushima disaster minimized health risks to general population
Date: March 11, 2015
Source: American University
Summary: A new analysis finds that U.S. news media coverage of the Fukushima disaster largely minimized health risks to the general population. Researchers analyzed more than 2,000 news articles from four major U.S. outlets.
Four years after the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, the disaster no longer dominates U.S. news headlines, though the disabled plant continues to pour three tons of radioactive water into the ocean each day. Homes, schools and businesses in the Japanese prefecture are uninhabitable, and will likely be so forever. Yet the U.S. media has dropped the story while public risks remain.
A new analysis by American University sociology professor Celine Marie Pascale finds that U.S. news media coverage of the disaster largely minimized health risks to the general population. Pascale analyzed more than 2,000 news articles from four major U.S. outlets following the disaster’s occurrence March 11, 2011 through the second anniversary on March 11, 2013. Only 6 percent of the coverage — 129 articles — focused on health risks to the public in Japan or elsewhere. Human risks were framed, instead, in terms of workers in the disabled nuclear plant.
Disproportionate access
“It’s shocking to see how few articles discussed risk to the general population, and when they did, they typically characterized risk as low,” said Pascale, who studies the social construction of risk and meanings of risk in the 21st century. “We see articles in prestigious news outlets claiming that radioactivity from cosmic rays and rocks is more dangerous than the radiation emanating from the collapsing Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.”
Pascale studied news articles, editorials, and letters from two newspapers, The Washington Post and The New York Times, and two nationally prominent online news sites, Politico and The Huffington Post. These four media outlets are not only among the most prominent in the United States, they are also among the most cited by television news and talk shows, by other newspapers and blogs and are often taken up in social media, Pascale said. In this sense, she added, understanding how risk is constructed in media gives insight into how national concerns and conversations get framed.
Pascale’s analysis identified three primary ways in which the news outlets minimized the risk posed by radioactive contamination to the general population. Articles made comparisons to mundane, low-level forms of radiation;defined the risks as unknowable, given the lack of long-term studies; and largely excluded concerns expressed by experts and residents who challenged the dominant narrative.
The research shows that corporations and government agencies had disproportionate access to framing the event in the media, Pascale says. Even years after the disaster, government and corporate spokespersons constituted the majority of voices published. News accounts about local impact — for example, parents organizing to protect their children from radiation in school lunches — were also scarce.
Globalization of risk
Pascale says her findings show the need for the public to be critical consumers of news; expert knowledge can be used to create misinformation and uncertainty — especially in the information vacuums that arise during disasters.
“The mainstream media — in print and online — did little to report on health risks to the general population or to challenge the narratives of public officials and their experts,” Pascale said. “Discourses of the risks surrounding disasters are political struggles to control the presence and meaning of events and their consequences. How knowledge about disasters is reported can have more to do with relations of power than it does with the material consequences to people’s lives.”
While it is clear that the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear meltdown was a consequence of an earthquake and tsunami, like all disasters, it was also the result of political, economic and social choices that created or exacerbated broad-scale risks. In the 21st century, there’s an increasing “globalization of risk,” Pascale argues. Major disasters have potentially large-scale and long-term consequences for people, environments, and economies.
“People’s understanding of disasters will continue to be constructed by media. How media members frame the presence of risk and the nature of disaster matters,” she said.
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/03/150311124202.htm
Japanese imports lead to charges
Two business executives on Tuesday were charged with illegally importing and falsely labeling food from areas of Japan affected by its 2011 nuclear disaster.
Each a manager of a local food importer, they are accused of importing snacks and soy sauce to Taiwan from the affected areas.
Authorities said one has done so since last year, while the other began the imports this year.
Neither reported their imports to the Food and Drug Administration or Keelung Customs officials, as legally required, authorities added.
Prosecutors said the defendants knew that they were not allowed to import food products from Japan’s Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma and Chiba prefectures, and intentionally hid the origin of their products from downstream firms.
Food products from those prefectures have been banned in Taiwan since the areas are suspected of radiation contamination as a result of a meltdown at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in March 2011 after an earthquake and tsunami on March 11.
In March this year, authorities found that products from the five restricted areas had made their way into Taiwan under false labels.
The two managers, surnamed Teng (鄧) and Cho (卓), were charged with falsifying documents and making profits by false pretenses respectively, prosecutors said.
As for potential Japanese accomplices, prosecutors said that they have asked Japan to assist the investigation, but have not yet received a reply.
Prosecutors called on Japan to assist with the investigation to jointly protect customers’ food safety.
Source: Taipei Times
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2015/06/18/2003620995
Fukushima town decides to preserve pro-nuclear signs as negative legacys
IWAKI, Fukushima Prefecture–The government of what became a ghost town in the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster has decided to preserve signboards featuring slogans boasting a bright future from nuclear energy.
The decision, announced by Futaba Mayor Shiro Izawa at the town assembly operating in Iwaki on June 17, followed a campaign to keep the two pro-nuclear signboards in Futaba as a negative legacy of nuclear energy.
One sign over the main street of the town reads, “Genshiryoku–Akarui Mirai no Energy” (Nuclear power is the energy of a bright future).
The town government received a petition with 6,502 signatures calling for preservation of the signboards. The petition was led by Yuji Onuma, who came up with the slogan in 1988, when he was a sixth-grader at Futaba Kita elementary school.
His homework project received an award, and the slogan became a fixture on the signboard that welcomes visitors to the center of the town.
Futaba was completely evacuated after the disaster started at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in March 2011. The plant straddles Futaba and Okuma.
Evacuees are still unable to return to their homes.
The Futaba government initially planned to remove the signboards but decided they were worth saving as a testament to the pre-disaster myth of nuclear safety.
The town is considering exhibiting the signs to the public.
Source : Asahi Shimbun
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201506180068
Goverment proposes lifting evacuation order for town of Naraha by mid-August
FUKUSHIMA – The government on Wednesday proposed lifting by around mid-August the evacuation order for one of the towns in Fukushima Prefecture that has stood empty since the nuclear crisis began in 2011.
Most of the town of Naraha sits within 20 km of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, but radiation cleanup efforts have been under way in a bid to return around 7,500 residents to their homes.
Naraha is one of 10 remaining municipalities still subject to evacuation orders. The government estimated as of last October that about 79,000 people were unable to return to their homes.
The proposal for Nahara came after the government decided recently to lift all evacuation orders by March 2017 except for areas radiation levels are expected to remain high.
The government told the Naraha Municipal Assembly on Wednesday that it hopes to lift the evacuation order by the mid-August Bon holidays. Yosuke Takagi, senior vice industry minister who is dealing with nuclear disaster issues added that the government does not intend to “force” residents to return home.
“Whether to return is up to each person. . . . Even if we lift the order, we want to continue working substantially on measures to rebuild Nahara,” he said.
A local assembly member said the plan to lift the order by Bon was “abrupt,” while another member pointed out that the town has not recovered to a point where people can return without worrying about food safety or their homes.
As part of preparations, residents have already been allowed to enter the town and stay there for short periods, officials said.
Source : Japan Times
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/06/17/national/goverment-proposes-lifting-evacuation-order-town-naraha-mid-august/#.VYMI_UbJrIV
Fukushima radioactive waste storage operator’s intranet infected by virus
The internal computer network of the state-run Japan Environmental Storage & Safety Corp., which manages temporary storage sites for decontaminated waste from the Fukushima nuclear disaster, has been infected by a computer virus, the Environment Ministry said Wednesday.
The operator also known as JESCO, an Environment Ministry affiliate, is investigating whether any information has been leaked, ministry officials said.
JESCO will run interim facilities to be set up on land in Fukushima Prefecture to store radioactive soil and other waste. Facility buildings have yet to be built amid slow progress in negotiations with landowners.
JESCO’s computers do not store information on the landowners, which is kept at the Environment Ministry, the officials said.
JESCO shut down the network’s external communications Tuesday night after a firm monitoring the network detected unintended data transmission, they said.
The Environment Ministry temporarily halted transportation of waste scheduled for earlier Wednesday, but the operation resumed later, the officials said.
The Japan Pension Service and the Tokyo chamber of commerce recently announced their respective computer networks had been hacked, causing data leaks of confidential information.
Source : Japan Times
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/06/17/national/fukushima-radioactive-waste-storage-operators-intranet-infected-by-virus/#.VYMqK0bJrIV
Fukushima to end housing aid for voluntary evacuees
FUKUSHIMA – The Fukushima Prefectural Government said Monday it will stop providing free housing at the end of March 2017 to nuclear evacuees whose homes are in official evacuation zones.
Housing assistance to the voluntary evacuees, currently set to expire in March 2016, will be terminated after a one-year extension.
The program was instituted after the 2011 catastrophe at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant forced thousands to flee.
The prefectural government is considering offering financial assistance for home moves, as well as rent subsidies for low-income households, after the end of the free housing program.
Gov. Masao Uchibori said that emergency assistance under the disaster relief law is getting harder to justify after progress in the restoration of infrastructure, contamination work and the construction of public housing.
The prefectural government estimates there are about 25,000 voluntary evacuees, 20,000 of whom are residing outside Fukushima.
The free housing program for voluntary evacuees was originally a two-year measure, but it has been extended annually for a further 12 months.
Housing assistance for those who have evacuated from designated zones will also remain in place through fiscal 2016. The prefecture will consider on an individual basis whether to continue help when evacuation orders are lifted.
For people who lost their houses in the tsunami, Fukushima will discuss an extension for each household after fiscal 2016, depending on the progress of public housing construction.
Source: Japan Times
7,000 Tochigi residents seek compensation over Fukushima nuclear disaster
Some 7,000 people living in Tochigi Prefecture sought compensation Monday worth ¥1.85 billion through an out-of-court settlement with Tepco over the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant.
In the first collective appeal by residents who have not been compensated by Tokyo Electric Power Co., 7,128 people from Tochigi, located some 100 km from the Destroyed plant, argue that they should be eligible for compensation even though they were not living in #Fukushima at the time of the 2011 nuclear disaster.
The residents, who were living at the time in Otawara, Nasushiobara, and Nasu are also demanding an apology and the establishment of a fund to pay for decontamination work and health checks, their lawyers said. The combined population of the two cities and town stands at around 218,000.
The appeal was filed Monday with the Nuclear Compensation Dispute Resolution Center under an alternative dispute resolution system that enables quicker settlements with the participation of a third party that has expertise.
Lead lawyer Koji Otani said it is “irrational” to treat his clients differently from the Fukushima residents who decided to evacuate on a voluntary basis and received compensation, as the same amount of radiation was detected in Tochigi.
“We want Tepco to take seriously the fact that over 7,000 people raised their voices,” Otani told a news conference at the Tochigi Prefectural Government office.
The residents are demanding sums ranging from ¥120,000 to ¥720,000 per person — equivalent to the amount awarded for voluntary evacuees in Fukushima — as compensation for mental suffering and extra living expenses caused by the nuclear disaster, according to the lawyers.
More than 30% of those seeking compensation were under 18 at the time of the Fukushima meltdowns, or were born afterward, they said.
“I let my (elementary school) child play in the garden without knowing radiation levels immediately after the accident,” said Mako Tezuka, 45, one of the residents who filed the appeal.
“Four years later, I still haven’t received any explanation or apology from Tepco and I’m only left with worries about the future and health of my child,” she said.
Source: Japan Times
What’s Really Going on at Fukushima?
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.”1
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 on September 28, 2014. Pirate Television recorded her speech. (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.2
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.”3. 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 September 28. 2014 speech 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 dated 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.
Read the full text of the rejoinder to the UN report here. (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.
According to Prof. Hiroaki Koide (retired), Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute, April 25, 2015:
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. 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!
Source: Dissident Voice
Reconstruction in Japan’s tsunami-hit region remains slow
Crane is seen working at the debris of buildings devastated by the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami at Ofunato city, Iwate Pretecture, Japan, March 2, 2012.
TOKYO, June 14 (Xinhua) — Reconstruction of the regions in northeastern Japan, which were struck four years ago by a devastating earthquake and ensuing tsunami, remains slow.
Reconstruction work in the hardest-hit regions of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima Prefectures has been inexplicably slow. In Iwate prefecture, 1,049 publicly funded homes for refugees had been built as of January, only 18 percent of some 6,000 units planned to be constructed by late 2018.
The situation in the rest two prefectures were also pessimistic. Only 17.4 percent of a total of 15,484 units planned to be built by March 2018 had been completed in Miyagi by January and 5 percent of merely 5,000 had been built in Fukushima as of January due to delayed decontamination work in the prefecture.
In March 2011, a magnitude-9.0 struck off northeastern Japan, triggering a massive tsunami with waves as high as 20 meters washing away entire towns and villages, with the Tohoku region being one of the worst hit.
Black bags containing buildup of contaminated wastes are seen in the town of Iitate, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, March 7, 2015. The scenes from the towns and villages still abandoned four years after an earthquake triggered tsunami breached the defenses of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, would make for the perfect backdrop for a post-apocalyptic Hollywood zombie movie, but the trouble would be that the levels of radiation in the area would be too dangerous for the cast and crew. (Xinhua/Liu Tian)
The massive tsunami knocked out key cooling functions at the Fukushima Daichi nuclear facility, causing three reactors to melt down within what has recently been revealed as shoddily constructed reactor buildings. The plant’s operator Tokyo Electric Power has, indefensibly, failed to bring the ongoing nuclear crisis under control.
With the amount of radioactive materials released into the environment being twice as much as the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, the calamity at the Daiichi plant has become the worst civilian nuclear disaster in history.
A total of some 470,000 people had to be evacuated after the earthquake and tsunami struck, with around 120,000 still living in temporary housing and makeshift shelters due to the nuclear crisis, many of which look like internment, or asylum seekers’ camps, with families of up to four or five people forced to share a single room in a wood hut and having no idea when they can return home or be rehoused into permanent residences.
The refugees in the camps struggle to live meaningful and healthy lives, with instances of obesity and other health problems plaguing the younger evacuees, who have nowhere to play, including mental issues such as chronic depression and post traumatic stress.
According to official figures, 3,244 of those living in temporary shelters have died from diseases, old age, suicide, and other causes, since being evacuated four years ago.
Abandoned fields and houses are seen in the town of Iitate, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, March 7, 2015. (Xinhua/Liu Tian)
Fishery, a main industry in the three prefectures, has not fully recovered yet and seafood production remained sluggish.
About 53 percent of facilities in Iwate Prefecture were operating at 80 percent or above of their pre-disaster levels, while in Miyagi and Fukushima, the number is even lower, at 50 percent and 25 percent, respectively, according to a survey by Japan’s Fisheries Agency between November and January.
The Japan Times noted that the percentage of facilities at or above the 80-percent production threshold hasn’t changed much since last year’s survey, which recorded 57 percent in Iwate, 49 percent in Miyagi and 24 percent in Fukushima.
So far, decontamination work in and around the leaking nuclear plant has been blamed to be “rudimentary”, “unscientific”, and “painfully slow”, as contaminated waste in black refuse bags are seen piled up alongside deserted streets and rice fields, both in and outside the “no go” zone. Industrial equipment for the decontamination work lied idle and a handful of part-timers and day laborers were sprinkling new soil by hand and with hose.
It would take 35 years to finally disable the reactors in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, according to Japnese experts and media.
Source: Xinhua
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2015-06/14/c_134325431.htm
Fukushima Fallout: Not In My Backyard
A rural community in eastern Japan opposes a government project to build a storage facility for radioactive waste generated by the Fukushima disaster.
Source: Nippon TV News 24
Plan to end rent subsidies for some Fukushima evacuees under fresh fire
One expert knowledgeable about the evacuees says, “The reason that a plan to end these subsidies has arisen even though the financial burden is not large may be that government officials want to try and force voluntary evacuees to return to their homes, without respecting the evacuees’ own judgments on the matter.”
A plan to end rent subsidies for some evacuees from the Fukushima nuclear disaster has come under fresh fire, as it emerged that those subsidies are costing at most 8.09 billion yen this fiscal year.
The evacuees under consideration for having their subsidies cut — at the end of fiscal 2016 — are voluntary evacuees living in homes other than temporary housing structures built for evacuees. The total Fukushima Prefecture relief budget for disaster evacuees this fiscal year, including non-voluntary evacuees, is over 28.8 billion yen, so the subsidies being considered for being cut account for less than 30 percent of the relief budget.
One expert knowledgeable about evacuees says, “The reason that a plan to end these subsidies has arisen even though the financial burden is not large may be that government officials want to try and force voluntary evacuees to return to their homes, without respecting evacuees’ own judgments on the matter.”
Voluntary evacuees are people who evacuated from areas outside of those where the government ordered evacuations. Until November 2012, Fukushima Prefecture did not allow them to use emergency temporary housing set up for evacuees in the prefecture, and many voluntary evacuees moved outside of the prefecture.
According to the Fukushima Prefectural Government, for this fiscal year it allocated about 20.73 billion yen for the temporary homes of non-voluntary evacuees within the prefecture, and 8.09 billion yen for those of evacuees outside the prefecture. The evacuees outside the prefecture include non-voluntary evacuees, but the exact numbers are not known. A Fukushima Prefectural Government official says, “Non-voluntary evacuees have been using compensation for their lost real-estate to buy homes, and most of the people getting rent subsidies outside of Fukushima Prefecture are probably voluntary evacuees.”
Within the prefecture, voluntary evacuees live in around 300 homes, which are not temporary housing structures, but subsidies for their rent are included in the “out-of-prefecture” budget, so the 8.09 billion yen covers all voluntary evacuees from the prefecture.
According to the Cabinet Office, as of April 1 this year, there were evacuees living in 18,742 homes in Fukushima Prefecture other than temporary housing structures, and according to the Fukushima Prefectural Government, evacuees were living in around 10,000 such homes outside of the prefecture. Both numbers include voluntary and non-voluntary evacuees. Neither the Fukushima Prefectural Government nor the central government has yet released exact figures on the number of homes for voluntary evacuees other than temporary housing built after the disaster, nor have they released exact numbers for the total rent paid for them.
Currently, evacuee homes are set to be subsidized until the end of March 2016, with a decision on whether to extend this to be made soon after discussions between the Fukushima Prefectural Government and the Cabinet Office. A plan to end subsidies for voluntary evacuees would extend the deadline for one more year, to the end of March 2017, after which voluntary evacuees would no longer receive them. Although Fukushima Prefecture has money budgeted for subsidizing voluntary evacuees, this money is in effect all paid for by the central government. Tokyo Electric Power Co. has expressed reluctance to pay for voluntary evacuees’ rent, and so far the central government has not billed them for such.
Meanwhile, this fiscal year’s Fukushima Prefecture budget for radiation decontamination measures is 64.39 billion yen, up 13.35 billion yen from the previous fiscal year. The Ministry of the Environment released an estimate in December 2013 that the total costs for decontamination and mid-term storage for radioactive waste would be 3.6 trillion yen.
Source: Mainichi
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20150609p2a00m0na006000c.html
Fukushima Businesses Compensation Payments Terminated, Youth Unwilling to Return
Side Note: While the government continues to try to compel people to return to the evacuation zone, they have turned a section of Tomioka into a permanent high level radioactive waste dump. The dump will take anything over 8000 bq/kg in contamination including trash, contaminated plant matter and building rubble from the evacuation zone. This is in addition to the temporary soil dump being built in Futaba and Okuma.
A new plan was announced by TEPCO and the Japanese government that would terminate compensation payments to businesses impacted by the disaster. The plan includes giving businesses a lump sum payment to cover compensation through fiscal 2016. If a business still needs compensation after that date they will need to take up a new fight against TEPCO who said they would consider more payments on a case by case basis.
This cut off times with the government plan to reopen large sections of the evacuation zone even though radiation levels remain unsafe. At the same time they announced the payment cut off they stressed that they would be putting money into “revitalization” efforts in the evacuated areas.
New polling found a majority of younger residents originally from the towns in the evacuation zone have no intention of returning and see themselves living somewhere else as adults.
While the government continues to try to compel people to return to the evacuation zone, they have turned a section of Tomioka into a permanent high level radioactive waste dump.
Sources:
Fukushima youths ready to desert irradiated hometowns, survey finds
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/06/05/national/fukushima-youths-ready-desert-irradiated-hometowns-survey-finds/#.VXf-AEZZNBS
Ministry to nationalize Fukushima site to bury radioactive waste
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201506060036
Fukushima business owners at a loss over plan to terminate compensation
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201506080034
1 This Month
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
of the week–London Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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