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Radiation expert back from Fukushima: Radioactivity still very high… not declining — Health risk played down since it can’t be dealt with — Children’s playgrounds at 200 times normal levels

Published: March 7th, 2013 at 12:58 pm ET
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Title: Greenpeace: Fukushima victims are victims once again
Source: DW
Author: Gui Hao
Date: March 7, 2013

[...] Heinz Smital, of Greenpeace, believes residents are being kept in the dark over the dangers.

You recently measured the radioactivity in and around Fukushima for Greenpeace Germany. What were your findings?

The radioactivity there is still very high. In the city of Fukushima, which has some 300,000 inhabitants, there are still children’s playgrounds that are highly contaminated. The values we measured there on the ground were 200 times higher than before the nuclear accident. In the evacuated ghost towns where there has been a great effort to clean things up, we have found that the radiation has not declined. It simply isn’t going away. [...]

Have people been given enough information by the authorities about how great the risk is?

The health risks are played down, in part because it is something that can’t be dealt with. It’s not possible to decontaminate whole swathes of land, mountains, rivers and riverbanks. You can’t get rid of that contamination. Now there is an effort underway to get people to accept the higher radiation levels. They say it doesn’t have any effects, to stop people from worrying. In this respect, the victims of the disaster are becoming victims once again in that they are being encouraged to accept living in areas where the radiation levels are too high. [...]

See also: Headline: "Rising doubts about Japan's official radiation figures" -- Large cities still exposed to high levels of radioactivity from Fukushima plant

Published: March 7th, 2013 at 12:58 pm ET
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32 comments

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March 7th, 2013 | Category: Children, Japan (Fukushima)
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32 comments to Radiation expert back from Fukushima: Radioactivity still very high… not declining — Health risk played down since it can’t be dealt with — Children’s playgrounds at 200 times normal levels

  • PhilipUpNorth PhilipUpNorth
    March 7, 2013 at 1:28 pm

    "It’s not possible to decontaminate whole swathes of land, mountains, rivers and riverbanks."
    So, if it is not possible to decontaminate the land.
    And, if the level of radiation remains very high.
    Then, you must remove the people from Japan.

    Ghost cities of China, anyone? Plenty of brand new rentals are available. (60minutes, last Sunday.)


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  • bwoodfield
    March 7, 2013 at 2:32 pm

    You know what comes to mind, back in the early 90s a movie came out called "Escape from LA" where after a major earthquake hit California the city of LA became an island in the pacific. A huge wall was put up around the entire island and it became a prison.

    This is what I forsee a large part of Japan becoming. A huge exclusion zone with a massive wall around it. People sentenced to death will be forced to live their lives out in this zone, slowly dying from radiation poisoning while cleaning up the mess that TEPCO made.


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  • Sickputer
    March 7, 2013 at 3:57 pm

    The government wants to restart nuclear reactors because of the mounting trade imbalance buying fossil fuel. They are too broke to pay evacuees on the order of 300,000 or more added to the 160,000 already living in pauper villages outside Fukushima Prefecture.

    Solution: lie to the people and let many die. The residents should make family decisions to stay and die or leave their homes and move several hundred miles away. 90% have so far trusted the government lies. You can't force a government to become benevolent. Protests mean nothing against big money forces. They control the government. You can't even vote out the scum when they field all the candidates.

    Green Party Japan would be nice. But here's their representation:

    0 / 242 Councillors
    0 / 480 Representatives


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  • razzz razzz
    March 7, 2013 at 4:37 pm

    That headline should read, 'No Mention Of Radioactive Plutonium Strontium Cesium Found In Fukushima'


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  • Pu239 Pu239
    March 7, 2013 at 4:55 pm

    This just out:

    MARCH 07, 2013

    Two Years Later, the Battle for Truth Continues
    Fukushima’s Nuclear Casualties
    by JOSEPH J. MANGANO
    http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/03/07/fukushimas-nuclear-casualties-2/

    "Exactly two years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, perhaps the most crucial issue to be addressed is how many people were harmed by radioactive emissions.

    The full tally won’t be known for years, after many scientific studies. But some have rushed to judgment, proclaiming exposures were so small that there will be virtually no harm from Fukushima fallout.

    This knee-jerk reaction after a meltdown is nothing new. Nearly 12 years after the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, there were no journal articles examining changes in local cancer rates. But 31 articles in publications like the Journal of Trauma and Stress and Psychosomatic Medicine had already explored psychological consequences.

    Eventually, the first articles on cancer cases showed that in the five years after the accident, there was a whopping 64% increase in the cancer cases within 10 miles of Three Mile Island. But the writers, from Columbia University, concluded radiation could not account for this rise, suggesting stress be considered instead. While this was later contested by researchers from the University of North Carolina, many officials still subscribe to the slogan “nobody died at Three Mile Island.”"


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  • nedlifromvermont
    March 7, 2013 at 5:40 pm

    Isn't nuclear power wonderful?? Thanks be to GE.

    peace …


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  • obewanspeaks obewanspeaks
    March 7, 2013 at 7:08 pm

    Pu239..you are very wise!

    The research papers and the facts reside and are found all around us, but the thing that is still lacking for most Americans/Scholars/Educators/Politicians/Scientists are the "Critical Thinking" skills!

    I want it right now Daddy…I want it right now! How foolish and spoiled we have all become.

    There will be a price to be paid for all this folly!

    Most of your friends, neighbors and family will die from some form of cancer!


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    • hbjon hbjon
      March 8, 2013 at 6:36 am

      Critical Thinking is being bred out of the population. Do you watch a magic show with a feeling of "awe"? Or are you tortured by it, trying to figure out what kind of conspiracies the magician has formulated? Here's the trick. Slowly change the situation by reinterpreting observed facts that fit into your new paradigm. This will reenforce the new belief systems of the individual. End result? The flu epidemic decimated the region and people needed to be quarantined. Every hundred years or so that one comes around. Have a nice day all.


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  • toadvine
    March 8, 2013 at 12:03 am

    Sickputer. The Japanese government is so broke that they are trying to host the 2020 Olympics.


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    • Sickputer
      March 8, 2013 at 12:22 am

      They print worthless government IOUs quicker than their puppet master. We were dumbasses and didn't learn a damn thing from their bank bailouts in the 1990s. But we are catching up fast at being the next Greece or Italy. The Japanese and Chinese do have some tallies they can exercise to hasten our collapse.


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  • SmokinSess SmokinSess
    March 8, 2013 at 3:26 am

    why does he always saying "still"? decontamination doesn't work PERIOD! half life of cesium137 ~30 years! Strontium90 ~30 years! Plutonium239 ~24.000 years!! chernobyl is >still< highly contaminated. so shut your trap Greenpeace! i'm sorry to say that but i hate them because of disinformation like this! Not even a single word about fish contamination here in german MSM!! how insane is that? i can't hear it anymore. pacific still contaminated.. playgrounds still… fish still… no sh*t you morons? take a look on half lifes of radioactive elements!


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    • eatliesndie eatliesndie
      March 8, 2013 at 3:51 am

      …and half life is just that. half life. So, for example, in 30 years there will be half as much Cs137. That leaves half, which is no great thing. Then over the next 30 years the level will halve again down to 1/4 of the original ammount… still bad after 60 years and only slightly better after 90. So it will take more like 300 years for that Cs137 to be "gone"…. Nuclear reactors are a really stupid, dangerous and costly way to boil water. Totally fucking CRAZY!


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      • anne anne
        March 8, 2013 at 4:36 am

        Actually, around Chernobyl, the cesium isn't half gone after 30 years. Recriticalities manufacture more cesium. And bioaccumulation creates more cesium. And other nuclear reactors create more cesium.


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        • anne anne
          March 8, 2013 at 4:56 am

          Chernobyl Exclusion Zone Radioactive Longer Than Expected
          “Chernobyl, the worst nuclear accident in history, created an inadvertent laboratory to study the impacts of radiation — and more than twenty years later, the site still holds surprises.
          “Reinhabiting the large exclusion zone around the accident site may have to wait longer than expected. Radioactive cesium isn’t disappearing from the environment as quickly as predicted, according to new research presented here Monday at the meeting of the American Geophysical Union. Cesium 137′s half-life — the time it takes for half of a given amount of material to decay — is 30 years. In addition to that, cesium-137’s total ecological half-life — the time for half the cesium to disappear from the local environment through processes such as migration, weathering, and removal by organisms is also typically 30 years or less, but the amount of cesium in soil near Chernobyl isn’t decreasing nearly that fast. And scientists don’t know why.
          “It stands to reason that at some point the Ukrainian government would like to be able to use that land again, but the scientists have calculated that what they call cesium’s “ecological half-life” — the time for half the cesium to disappear from the local environment — is between 180 and 320 years.


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  • japan guinea pig
    March 11, 2013 at 12:38 am

    "Childrens playgrounds 200 times normal level" the headline reads.
    However lets worry more about the children rather than their play areas….where they are not allowed to play anyway,because of nuclear contamination. The Japanese government is trying to insult peoples intelligence by suggesting that the reasosn that the children of Fukushima are suddenly and mysteriously becoming Obese,is because the cant play outside …BULLSHIT !!.Listen,the real reason that Fukushima kids are becoming obese is because of THYROID damage caused by the fallout form Fukushima. Check out HYPOTHYROIDISM and OBESITY !! When the thyroid gland is damaged its function becomes low…Causing Hypothyroidism leading to Obesity…check it out on any medical page on the inter-net….Japan Government STOP LYING !!!!!


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