Published: December 14th, 2012 at 2:13 am ET
|
Title: Why Japan’s ‘Fukushima 50′ remain unknown
Source: BBC News
Author: Rupert Wingfield-Hayes
Date: 13 December 2012
Entering the exclusion zone around the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant is an unnerving experience.
It is, strictly speaking, also illegal. It is an old cliché to say that radiation is invisible. But without a Geiger counter, it would be easy to forget that this is now one of the most contaminated places on Earth.
The small village of Tatsuno lies in a valley 15km (9.3 miles) from the plant. In the sunlight, the trees on the hillsides are a riot of yellow and gold. But then I realise the fields were once neat rice paddies. Now the grass and weeds tower over me.
On the village main street, the silence is deafening – not a person, car, bike or dog. At one house, washing still flaps in the breeze. And all around me, invisible, in the soil, on the trees, the radiation lingers. [...]
Back in the 1960s and 70s, getting rural Japanese communities to accept nuclear power plants was hard.
[...] they were promised that nuclear power was completely safe.
Now that the lie has been so tragically exposed, the feeling of betrayal is huge. [...]
See also: Fukushima 3/11 Fallout Figures Released: Over 4,000,000 Bq/m2 in major city -- Contamination did NOT come from much talked about Iodine-131 or Cesium-137
Published: December 14th, 2012 at 2:13 am ET
|
sending...
Nuke is not safe on our HOME PLANET
Here is why to shut them down, indeed a Manifesto
http://nukeprofessional.blogspot.com/p/manifesto-why-shut-them-down.html
Report Comment
"Nuclear power’s lie has been so tragically exposed" – Hasn't it what. Bunch of f'ing criminals!
Report Comment
One minutes silence for our mother Earth…..
http://youtu.be/PXoMcQgJBPY
Report Comment
ELAD, I could hear one or two marbeled murrelets in the background.
Report Comment
Forgot the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marbled_Murrelet
Report Comment
Yes, the nuke monsters have been exposed, and still the media blows hot air out both sides of its mouth. It's like a two-faced Janus is looking in the mirror with first one side of his face showing, then the other. "I love myself! No! I hate myself!" And so on ad nauseum.
"Nuclear power's lie … tragically exposed," juxtaposed against statements like, "ONE OF the worst nuclear accidents," (c'mon who are ya kiddin, budster?) points out the absurdity of this article. It's a "limited hangout" as Majia would say.
I love the follow up articles with titles like this: "What went wrong?" (Answer: corporate greed forces engineers and physicists to throw away any shred of decency and ethics, in favor of serving the corporate masters. End result: pile of S— Mark 1 GE beach bomb machines. Japan does business as usual, earthquake and tsunami happen, things go, "Boom!"
Here's another one: "Nuclear industry scuppered?" Argh, matie, we be wishin' it were so, we were. But not without them's fightin' all us wee'uns to the death over it, nah.
Oh, and you've got to LOVE statements like "reactor cores stabilized." Right, spewing death and filth 24/7, 365. Recent estimates of ongoing nuclear contamination leaving Fuku-Dai are 30 Trillion BQ PER HOUR. That's from the article at Veterans Today.
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/05/28/fukushima-how-many-chernobyls-is-it/ YEAH, CHECK THAT COUNT
http://www.veteranstoday…
Report Comment
I'm just flat out DISGUSTED. Won't even go into my own health issues since 3/11. It suffices to say IMHO it will be a miracle if I'm still living in another five years …. But God (and IMHO there is one) is still in charge, so I can still sleep at night. And look forward to there being a tomorrow, whether that be here or in some nether-world. OK, no further mention of the G _ _ word, don't want to get myself in trouble here. It just helps to keep the eternal perspective in mind. I think I have PTSD from this, too. My lungs have never felt the same since 3/18/11.
Report Comment
HoTaters, I mirror everything you have said. Principally my lungs (well many people's) are NOT THE SAME since this epic event. My heart rhythms in recent EKGs were "variable" from the doctors perspectives. This is only recent (past 2 years) and not anything like the past 15 years. My cardiologist cleared me for upcoming surgery. But I am paying even greater attention.
*note: I do take and recommend Bromelain (pineapple based enzyme) to balance the respiratory tract. Anti-bacterial / viral. Helps to clear the chest of mucus.
Report Comment
The second link (which got lost):
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2012/10/11/what-are-efforts-to-contain-fukushima-2/ Efforts to contain Fukushima! NONE! It's largely a dog and pony show, AKA "preserving corporate viability."
Report Comment
Spewing filth and death 24/7, 365. Stabilized in their state of complete instability. Or maybe if you call a molten blob of nuclear lava moving underground at slightly less than a snail's pace "stable," then the cores are stable. Never mind the phreatic explosions and the forever-poisoned water table and Pacific ocean.
Argh, but we humans be but a fly speck in the eye of geologic time.
Report Comment
GE beach bombs… I'll remember that one for awhile
Report Comment
Hi bwoodfield, I'm not responsible for that one. I borrowed it from someone else here who is a long-time Enenewser, like PU239, or ???? Some other witty person coined that name. We've bandied it about quite a bit here since it's such a fitting name for the Mark 1 reactors.
Report Comment
"I believe in my Industry.
I've University training.
I say 'There's precipitation" instead of 'It's raining.'
The Nuke Industry needs my participation
to grow the economy and power the nation.
I'm a skilled Believer caught in a trap,
between the Execs and their machinations
and low level workers who don't know crap.
I've got wife, kids, old parents and a mortgage.
Am I supposed to put them in storage?
Now the neighbors say what I do is Whore-age.
Well, Fuku them! They can all go wild forage
and suck on a ventstack! I've got the knowledge
and a career! A few more promotions, I'll get out of here,
then consult somewhere, or teach at a College.
I've got too much binding me to "go expat",
too old for carrer-change, too late to change hats
and if I speak out, I'll be blackballed for that.
WHO WILL HELP ME AND MINE IF I BOLT?
So here I stay, with my family sent South.
I've got leave built up so at end of the month
I'll go for a week and take them all to the beach -
one unpounded and scoured by the tsunami
and just try and forget and be happy with family."
Report Comment
or-well, you are the bard of our time. Doubtless, some think you're having a wonderful time penning these words. Truth was never easy to live by, in an age of endless lies. Stay strong…
Report Comment
AFTERSHOCK…thanks. Trying.
Report Comment
The 'Fuku Remainers' -
Tepco loyal retainers?
The Walking Dead eat-your-brainers?
Testosterised no-pain/no-gainers?
More nuclear victims, flushed-down-the-drainers?
Perps walking free, or soon-to-be-painers?
There's plenty of losers, very few winners,
their gains an illusion, mere face-saving spinners.
Some gloried as saints, some painted as sinners.
Shut all nukes down, before Nuke eats Lifes' dinner.
Report Comment
Or-well, sounds like you read D.H. Lawrence's book, Women in Love, where Gerald the industrialist is pondering whether or not he should continue to "prositute …" himself … "to the bitch goddess of success."
Well said.
Report Comment
HoTaters, just trying to walk in the shoes of a Fuku skilled Believer, and point out the lack of actual societal support systems for prospective insider whistleblowers, as well as the trap they find themselves in.
Add to that cultural considerations and Nuclear Village-embedded participants in Media, Academe, Medicine and Education allowed to speak as "leaders" and spokespeople and it's no wonder so few nuke workers come forward.
We can't expect change from the inside out.
Report Comment
Most of our species don't fear what they can't see…..
Report Comment
But, if that is true, why are they so afraid of their gods?
Report Comment
The "limited hangout" aspect really hit me as I read the BBC story. For example:
1. "For help, I turn to psychiatrist Dr Jun Shigemura at Japan's national defense university." (Regular readers know that institution's history on the topic of Fukushima).
2. The photo shows an immaculate, shiny nuke plant in its glory days.
3. The text floats the old "Fukushima 50 as heroes" meme – great diversion – let's all debate that while the radiation spreads.
4. The text pounds away with a subliminal message: the beautiful fall foliage (nothing really wrong, trees are still alive), the farmer and his cows (nothing really wrong, they are still alive), and the young worker who has been there since the beginning (nothing really wrong, the workers are still alive).
5. The story invites us to buy in to the official boundary of the "exclusion zone", eliciting a "tough for them, but at least it isn't really very big" mindset.
Blah, blah. The BBC (and all media) might be inching towards the truth but they've got a very long way to go.
Report Comment
Thinking some more about the "58-year-old Masami Yoshizawa", the farmer with 400 cows living in the exclusion zone….
We hear his story often in media reports. In some reports we were told people donate food and supplies to him since local sources are unusable.
A cow weighs about 1000 pounds (lots of individual variation). It eats about 2% of its body weight daily. Yoshizuwa-san's 400 cows should need about four tons of food daily.
Where does the cattle feed come from? What form does it take (local sources are contaminated)? Who pays for it, how and why?
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_do_cows_weigh
http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/faq7811
Report Comment
Continuing this line of thought… it is very hard to get precise figures online for cattle feed costs in Japan. However, using the price of "cheap hay" from an American source, the extension works out to $90/ton times four tons daily times about 600 days since the crisis began – some $216,000.
http://beefmagazine.com/cattle-market-weekly/hay-prices-set-record-high-levels
Report Comment
I'm still fussing over the farmer/cattle part of the story – it just strikes me as extremely strange (almost two years into the crisis) that a beef-cattle farmer couldn't bring himself to slaughter 400 cattle (any more), but would instead keep them alive at great apparent expense, with no obvious prospects and for no obvious reason. Here's a more believable(?) version from a year ago:
http://bloge.miwako-kurosaka.com/?eid=992309
From it: "Scientific groups say the animals represent the best chance for research on the effects of radiation."
Limited hangout? Definitely, but what's it all about?… Who knows?
Report Comment
hi aigeezer
hope the link below helps to explain this change of pace by the beeb. great breakdown and i posted your comments on
nuclear-news.net.. hope thats cool?
Report Comment
Thanks, arclight. That's never a problem. I'm just head-scratching – trying to figure out apparent contradictions. I hope more detailed information will trickle in over time – such as your link, hehe – haven't found it yet.
Report Comment
Oops. Found it. I just hadn't scrolled far enough.
http://enenews.com/bbc-one-of-the-most-contaminated-places-on-earth-silence-is-deafening-10-miles-from-fukushima-plant-nuclear-powers-lie-has-been-so-tragically-exposed/comment-page-1#comment-314627
Report Comment
good catch,ai!
Report Comment
Aigeezer writes: "Where does the cattle feed come from? What form does it take (local sources are contaminated)? Who pays for it, how and why?"
SP: I assume the cows eat wild forage or the farmer still plants and harvests cattle feed with his tractor and harvester. Radiation contamination comes in different strengths and animals may survive and even breed new generations. But that doesn't mean they are healthy. Radioactivity is a slow and painful bullet wound to carbon forms. Cows can't tell us when they hurt from blood cancer or organ failure. But humans can.
Report Comment
Sickputer, that makes sense. The cattle could well be largely feral, and "his" only by human convention. I thought I was on high alert, but unconsciously fell for a default image of barns, haybales and feedlots – of normalcy.
Report Comment
Aigeezer: "…inching towards the truth but they've got a very long way to go." Well-described and excruciating to notice!
Report Comment
aigeezer, yes, I noticed the nice, shiny, gleaming, bright model of the nuke plant on the splash page of the article. IMHO it's a form of subtle indoctrination and brainwashing. Doublespeak, doublethink.
Report Comment
Yes, and you've got to love how they publish all of this like it's new news. More likely the bureau chief made the lads go scouring about for material to write an article on the "current" situation at Fukushima, and with nuclear power in Japan. Re-hashed old news. Dredged up and spewed out like gunk to gum up the gears of one's thinking mechanism ….
Report Comment
Shigemura – "They experienced…and PERHAPS radiation exposure."
Emphasis mine. Perhaps?
I do hope the workers suffering depression and PTSD are not among those still there working there, for many reasons.
Report Comment
Nothing is more revolting than the betrayal that some people have inflicted upon somewhat trusting and fully innocent others. Certain people have set their worship of corporations and the mammon that they spin off as the highest and best thing to be in their lives. Well, sorry that mammon is blood money that you have worked for.
Instead of valuing self, family, friends, the earth and what one could create with their own hands, time and effort went to furthering corporate mandates. Our children, the future, it is painful to realize that many of them are sent to school in benzene clouds from frack operations close by, or their homes are in those areas because there is no containment; like at Fukushima.
I, we, need something that we have not found here, so far, and that is peace of mind in our lives and peace to prevail over all.
Perhaps it is to be found after we depart this now jaded earth with the many corporation favoring governments serving only conflicts up to the People.
Report Comment
Sol Man: "I, we, need something that we have not found here, so far, and that is peace of mind in our lives and peace to prevail over all." Well said. Much in your post resonates with my thoughts.
I especially like: "I, we, need something that we have not found here, so far, …", and would attach 'vitality' to 'peace' as distant goal. (Or vibrancy? or vibrant life?)
Take care…
Report Comment
Thank you. I have been having a difficult time with the news out of CT today. But, I would say yes, I agree; if only we were not burdened collectively with this massive yoke…
A vibrant life is possible! What is it that we FEEL that truly makes us happy? No, it is not the numbers in the accounts and the checks from donors, but what did we do to make our spinning orb a better place while we had some time here. Keep family close and healthy as possible; teach sons and daughters some wisdom as the days wind on. Giving our progeny a safe and sustainable future should give us some of that peace of mind. If not, we will pass on to be haunted forever, I think.
Report Comment
I too believe that we must work at making this world a better place.
“I expect to pass through the world but once. Any good therefore that I can do, or any kindness I can show to any creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer it, for I shall not pass this way again.”
—Stephen Grellet
Report Comment
Thank you, MaidenHeaven.
Report Comment
Nuclear Accidents, Recycling Nuclear Weapons/Fuel
http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/p/nuclear-accidents-around-world.html
Lists of nuclear disasters and radioactive incidents; via A Green Road http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2012/04/lists-of-nuclear-disasters-and.html
Report Comment
The spread of radiation contamination knows no boundaries.
The insidious nature of radiation transport vectors is horrific and unstoppable.
Considering the fact that the Fukushima Nuclear Facility persists in spewing uncontrolled massive amounts of contamination into the atmosphere and sea with an extreme likelihood of even more severe radioactive releases, (continuous fallout), in the months and years to come, I would say it's past time to evacuate further without haste and bring the perpetrators of these Death Machines to some sort of justice.
___
"…they knew something was wrong, but we didn't. Not until it was too late."
"…something was wrong, something was missing, some old memorable sounds."
– Andrei, a farmer from Belarus
"The original 30-kilometre contaminated exclusion zone has now been expanded to 70 kilometers. This expanded zone is called ‘Death Valley’ by the locals."
– from article
Chernobyl Bee-keeper
http://www.chernobyl-international.com/about-chernobyl/chernobyl-story-details/the-bee-keepers
Report Comment
Silence is deafening here also, with what those people are going through, and what has been coming in with the jet stream.
Report Comment
WSP – "Silence is deafening here also…". Yes, (ENE among the exceptions.)
Report Comment
Fukushima's Daiichi plant is contaminating the Northern Hemisphere.
Report Comment
Very little bird song in Northern California where I live, since 3/11/11. Yes, once the noise of traffic isn't heard, the silence is deafening here, too, even in the city where I live. Not much animal life around these days. Even most of the rats and mice seem to be gone. Not many snails, slugs, but lots and lots of mushrooms, everywhere I go (I walk about three miles per day here, locally). Went to Cherry Lagoon today (near Vacaville) and there seem to be about 1/10 as many migrating birds as two years ago. Maybe it's too early in the migration season to know for sure, but I'm getting the impression wildlife has been severely impacted on the U.S. West Coast. Have seen an awful lot of dead birds, too, everywhere, over time.
Report Comment
It's up to people who know how dangerous nuclear energy is to educate people who don't know.
** Tell everyone. So what if they look at you funny. You're planting the seed.
** Tell everyone about ENENews
** Comment on articles. If you comment at ENENews, comment on other articles, too.
I only see a handfull of people commenting on other articles. Join them.
** Comment on other Forums. If you belong to a football Forum, for example, bring up the subject of nuclear energy.
** Write editors, journalists, etc. Don't be lazy.
** Send ENENews articles in as "hot tips" to on-line news sites.
** E-mail these articles to family and friends. They can't ignore them forever
** Don't give up.
Report Comment
Right on Nuclear not clean you know whats happening. I feel the same way. I have posted over 7000 pictures on my face book with a few vids and notes. https://www.facebook.com/duke.thehazard/photos
If you dont have FB you can check out
http://www.scoop.it/t/nuclear-awareness
Get informed on fb with enenews fukushima diary local scientists activists all posted and talked about.
please join or like these great groups and get information/news.
https://www.facebook.com/EndNuclearBeforeItEndsUs
https://www.facebook.com/pages/福島-Fukushima-311-Watchdogs-福島/408450099201819
https://www.facebook.com/FukushimaReactor4
http://www.facebook.com/groups/HopeforFukushima/
https://www.facebook.com/fukushima311watchdog
https://www.facebook.com/pages/RadChick-Radiation-Research-Mitigation/260610960640885?fref=ts
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Mutation-Watch/330100447017280?fref=ts
keep up the fight nuclearnotclean!
Report Comment
Thank you so much for reminding everyone of all the steps that each of us can take to change our own little corners of the world. Just last night I was at an event and got talking with another person there and gave them the enenews website. Everything we do makes a difference. And each person we speak with may tell another and another and another.
Report Comment
I dont know if you all saw this but the corrupt Japanese govt.is running true to course again..
Japan is in Uzbekistan looking for uranium. Just a few months ago, Japan Oil, Gas, and Metals National Corporation – the government agency responsible for creating stable supplies of key resources – closed a deal to help fund the exploration and production of large uranium deposits in central Uzbekistan. rense.com
Report Comment
Look at this IAEA tour bus drive by at fukushima unit 4 up close and personal
Report Comment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mU12LtR-xpY
Report Comment
Ah, my dream vacation, a trip to Japan and a tour of Fukushima Daichi! Oh, better still, I dream of a job as a tour docent there. Sigh …. Darwin Award candidates, yes. If they're not scientists or academics, why on earth would they go there? Maybe they're real estate investors hired by Tepco's banking kairetsu partner to scope out the territory and plan that luxury hotel and spa. Complete with hot pools supplied by recycled water from the SFP's. Gotta make those assets keep churning out profits, now, don't we?
Report Comment
TM2020
looks like a bus load of candidates for a Darwin award
Report Comment
Before the meltdowns, Seiko Takahashi never thought of activism. Now the middle-aged mother from Fukushima City is a passionate anti-nuclear campaigner.
And she admits there is little sympathy for the Fukushima workers.
fhom the article
little sympathy??
ive been reading here on enenews over the last nearly 2 years that we generaly seem to support these workers because they are doing the most important work at risk to more than their psychology, though that is an important part of the situation the 3 melted down coriums and millions of tons of strontium soaked waste water etc may bbe having an impact on the workers long term effect too
so the japanese press generally supports the great work of these engineers and temporary workers.. even the japanese press has been covering the plight of the health of the missing workers and the need for them to have checkups etc
this aspect has also been covered here on enenews by some caring and informed bloggers.. most of the anti nuke/tepco websites like exskf and fukushima diary are generally supportive of these brave souls..
its funny that the bbc qoute someone who says these brave workers do not have sympathy and support from japanese citizens, even the anti nukers
looks like this is an audous huxley PR catch up piece to make there
the "How plant was stabilised" nk on "more on this story" says it all
stabalised ?? really!!
tim e for a couple of posts here..
Report Comment
anyway it turns out that the bbc trust is annoyed about the disinfo and the bbc is trying to tell the truth whilst leaving copy for the anti nuke yahoo schill group ie "the health physisit that hassles busby, caldicott and likely enenews admin too
heres a link to why we have the above watered down and heavily slanted (thanks aigeezer well said)
BBC1 science show ‘downplayed impact’ of Chernobyl nuclear disaster
“The BBC Trust’s editorial standards committee (ESC) received a complaint on behalf of more than 50 co-signatories that the show was “extremely selective” in the figures it quoted about the impact of radiation released following the Chernobyl disaster and minimised the “more significant and contentious issue” of the secondary effects of health problems such as thyroid cancer.”
Bang Goes the Theory was ‘extremely selective’ in figures used about deaths resulting from Ukraine accident, trust rules
Mark Sweney
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 11 December 2012 15.45 GMT
http://nuclear-news.net/2012/12/12/bbc1-science-show-downplayed-impact-of-chernobyl-nuclear-disaster/
looks like Chime PR is on the case here with the bbc`s band of merry nuker lawyers.. imo
Report Comment
Thanks, arclight. I notice the full complaint including a transcript of the offending program is online:
http://www.nuclearconsult.com/docs/information/bbc/ESC%2812%29_145_Bang_goes_the_Theory-Appeal_by_Dr_Dorfman.pdf
The details are of course consistent with your ongoing posts here. Fascinating stuff. Even as we begin to realize what we are up against… I don't think we have any idea how big and nasty it actually is.
Report Comment