” Do not COMPARE Fukushima To Chernobyl”

 

SOURCE

 

It’s time to revise the way nuclear incidents are rated. Failure to do so plays into the hands of anti-nuclear propagandists

EVERYBODY who gets cancer in Japan over the next 40 years will no doubt blame their misfortune on radiation from Fukushima Daiichi. This will probably be the case for many other diseases too, ranging from heart failure to nose bleeds – as happened after the catastrophic explosion in 1986 at Chernobyl, a Soviet nuclear power station in Ukraine. This would be entirely understandable but will have no basis in science.

On 12 April 2011, a month after the tsunami struck, Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency announced that it was raising the grading of the Fukushima Daiichi event from 5 to 7 – the highest level on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES). This helped to create the misleading impression that the event was as bad as Chernobyl, and has since been exploited in anti-nuclear propaganda despite the fact that there is no possibility that the physical health consequences of Fukushima Daiichi will be anywhere near as bad as those of Chernobyl.

As far as anyone knows, no member of the public received a significant dose of radiation attributable to the Fukushima Daiichi reactor emergency and no physical health effects of radiation should be expected.

The INES, introduced by the International Atomic Energy Agency in 1990, rates nuclear incidents and accidents on a scale that runs from 0 to 7. It is based on off-site and on-site effects, and on the degradation of the nuclear plant’s “defence in depth”. Before Fukushima Daiichi, only one accident – Chernobyl – had been rated level 7.

Chernobyl was the worst that could happen. Safety and protection systems failed and there was a full core meltdown in a reactor that had no containment. In the “defence in depth” of nuclear power plants outside the former USSR, containment is an essential engineered safety feature.

The figures tell a story: 237 Chernobyl workers were taken to hospital with suspected acute radiation sickness; 134 of these cases were confirmed; 28 were fatal; about 20 other workers have since died from illnesses considered to have been caused or aggravated by radiation exposure; two workers died from other causes at the time of the accident and another disappeared – presumed dead.

On top of that, it has been estimated that about 4000 people will die (or may already have died) from radiation-induced cancer, including workers exposed directly to radiation, and members of the public exposed to the huge release of radioactive material from the reactor. About 4000 cases of thyroid cancer, which typically kills about 5 per cent of people who get it, have been attributed to inhalation and ingestion of radioactive iodine by children.

At Fukushima Daiichi, the reactors shut down safely when struck by the magnitude-9 Tohoku earthquake, the fourth largest ever recorded. But problems arose after they were inundated by a much larger tsunami than had been anticipated when the nuclear plant was designed. This caused the loss of all power on the site so that cooling systems failed and some of the reactor cores overheated. Radioactive fission products were released and hydrogen was generated by chemical reaction. The reactor containments were partially effective, although they were damaged by hydrogen explosions and possibly by molten fuel.

Again, the casualty figures tell their own story. Severe potential hazards did exist on the reactor sites because of high levels of radiation, but health controls were mainly effective. There were no deaths attributable to radiation. Two workers received burns from beta radiation. They were discharged from hospital after two days. Two workers incurred high internal radiation exposure from inhaling iodine-131, which gives them a significant risk of developing thyroid cancer.

Doses incurred by about 100 other workers have been high enough to cause a small risk of developing cancer after 20 or more years. But the risk is very small indeed. About 25 per cent of the population dies from cancer whether accidentally exposed to radiation or not. This rate might be increased by an additional one or two per cent among the exposed workers.

What is more, exposures to radiation were nowhere near high enough to cause acute radiation sickness. Importantly, there have been no radiation injuries to children or to other members of the public.

The INES was intended to aid public understanding of nuclear safety. In fact, it has caused more confusion. It has also probably added to the mental anguish of the Japanese people.

The accident at Fukushima Daiichi was moved to the top of the scale a month after the tsunami for technical reasons, when the estimate of radioactive material released exceeded the International Atomic Energy Agency’s criterion for level 7. However, the amount of iodine-131 escaping from all the reactors at Fukushima Daiichi was less than 10 per cent of the amount released at Chernobyl, and the release of caesium-137, the next most important fission product, was less than 15 per cent of the Chernobyl total.

Unless it is to be scrapped entirely, the INES should be substantially modified. One possibility is to divide level 7 into several sub-levels. But perhaps a better option might be to start again. A scale based on health effects would mean a lot more to non-specialists than the technical and scientific terminology that is used at present.

 

Fukushima Reactor radiation reached Europe and the MSM never said a word

 

Cover up of Japan Fukushima Nuclear Radiation Fallout Forecasts Exposed!

Source

I previously reported on the steady concentrated stream of Nuclear radioactive fallout heading toward the US and Canada. In that post I pointed out that several censored radiation forecasts have been found but were never released to the public.

We now have for the first time a side by side comparison of two radiation fallout forecasts. On the left is the censored version released to the public downplaying the levels of radiation spreading around the world. On the right is the same uncensored forecast.

Left: Censored Fallout Forecast Released To Public — Right: Uncensored Forecast Hidden From Public

If you have doubt that the censored version is the real forecast then consider this: Notice the censored version doesn’t show radiation hitting Europe.

Now checkout this article from the Independent reporting that the nuclear fallout has hit Europe.

Reactor radiation reaches Europe

AP Wednesday, 23 March 2011

A plume from the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex carrying trace amounts of radioactive iodine has been detected in Iceland, the country’s Radiation Safety Authority said.

However, it added, the concentration was “less than a millionth” of what was found in European countries in the wake of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster that spewed radiation over a large distance.

Recollections of the accident’s aftermath continue to haunt many in European, putting them on edge as they watch the Japanese nuclear crisis unfold.

“We thus conclude that there is no reason to worry about radioactivity levels in Iceland, nor anywhere in Europe, resulting from the nuclear accident in Japan,” said Sigurdur Emil Palsson, head of emergency planning.

Elsewhere, French authorities said very weakly contaminated air is expected to reach France today while Germany’s Federal Office for Radiation Protection said if and when radiation arrived it would be in marginal amounts that would pose neither a risk to humans or the environment.

“The measurements will also be much lower that those after the Chernobyl disaster,” it said.

[…]

Source: The Independent

here are the “public” forecasts… which show “low” levels of Cesium-137 …

http://transport.nilu.no/products/fukushima?searchterm=fuk

however…

This site was sent to me, and it clearly shows the hidden (not shown to public) forecasts! In these shots, we see VERY high levels of Cesium-137 making its way across the pacific to the USA and Canada.

http://squid.nilu.no/~burkhart/sharing/MOVIES/?C=M;O=D

http://squid.nilu.no/~burkhart/sharing/

—————-

http://eurdeppub.jrc.it/eurdeppub/home.aspx#

http://www.csn.es/index.php?option=com_maps&view=mappoints&Itemid=32

http://www.jaif.or.jp/english/

http://www.rivm.nl/milieuportaal/dossier/meetnetten/radioactiviteit/resultaten/

http://www.radiationnetwork.com/

http://www.blackcatsystems.com/RadMap/map.html

http://www.epa.gov (click on radiation update)

http://www.irsn.fr/EN/Pages/home.aspx

http://www.nucleartourist.com/

http://www.stuk.fi/index_en.html

http://www.mext.go.jp/english/radioactivity_level/detail/1303962.htm

http://www.nisa.meti.go.jp/english/index.html

http://www.rivm.nl/milieuportaal/dossier/meetnetten/radioactiviteit/resultaten/

http://www.yle.fi/tekstitv/html/P867_02.html

http://www.mapion.co.jp/topics/genpatu/

http://strahlenbelastung.wo-wann-wer.de/

dutch radiation monitoring:

http://www.rivm.nl/milieuportaal/dossier/meetnetten/radioactiviteit/resultaten/

swiss radiation monitoring:

https://www.naz.ch/en/aktuell/zeitverlaeufe.html

Finland radiation monitoring:

http://www.yle.fi/tekstitv/html/P160_01.html

http://www.yle.fi/tekstitv/html/P867_02.html

French radiation monitoring: (thanks to youtube user: RehKurts ! )

http://sws.irsn.fr/sws/mesure/index

http://www.irsn.fr/FR/Documents/france.htm

jet stream forecasting:

http://squall.sfsu.edu/crws/jetstream.html

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/CT/animate.arctic.color.0.html

http://nowcoast.noaa.gov/

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/srh/tropicalwx/satpix/nwpac_ir4_loop.php

http://www.stormsurfing.com/cgi/display_alt.cgi?a=glob_250

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The biological impacts of the Fukushima nuclear accident on the pale grass bluebutterfly

 

Massive amount of radioactive materials were released from the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant(NPP) to environment due to the Great East Japan Earthquake
1–6
. However, precise information on exactly what occurred and on what is still ongoing is yet to be established
7,8
. This lack of information raises serious concerns about biological influences on living organisms that could ultimately produce long-term destruction of ecosystems and cause chronic diseases. Prompt and reliable evaluation of the biological influences of the artificial radionuclides from the Fukushima Dai-ichi NPP is lacking, and only a few studies have been performed to date
9,10
. In the case of the Chernobyl accident, changes in species composition and phenotypic ration in animals
11–17
and an increase in the incidence of thyroid and lymph cancers in humans
18
have been reported. Similarly, an increase in the incidence of cancers has been reported for atomic bomb survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan
19
. However, the effects of low-dose radiation exposure on animals, including humans, are still a matter of debate
20–22
despite the relatively rigorous documentation of physiological damage to animals from external high-dose radiation exposure. Moreover, one of the greatest concerns is the possible inheritance of the adverse effects of exposure by the offspring of the exposed individuals. However, experimental demonstration of genetic mutations in the germ-line cells that are inherited by the offspring of radiation-exposed parents has been scarce, although the germ-line damage was shown in barn swallows
23

View this document on Scribd

 

Iodine-131 on the rise again in Japan.-The Report [pdf]

 

A recent article published in the Geochemical Journal by Miyake et al. has found that there was 31.6 times as much iodine-129 than iodine-131 released in the early days of the Fukushima catastrophe. Iodine-129 is a long-lived radionuclide with a half-life of 15.7 million years. So it doesn’t go away.

The EPA document “Health Risks from Low-Level Environmental Exposure to Radionuclides”

View this document on Scribd

indicates the mortality risk for I-129 is about 3 times that of I-131. This is mainly from thyroid cancer. European nuclear reprocessing plants (mainly La Hague) release a huge amount of I-129 – they released around 1,800 times as much of it as Chernobyl did (up to the year 2000). Gee, I wonder why there is a worldwide epidemic of thyroid cancer.

 

You Won't be Liking that : the Fukushima Radiation Report 2012

 

Thyroid Examination by Fukushima Prefecture

Fukushima prefecture has been conducting “Prefecture Health Management Survey” including estimation of external radiation exposure dose, thyroid examination, basic medical examination, psychological questionnaire, survey of pregnant women and women with babies.

The result of the initial round of preliminary thyroid examination of 38,114 children, out of approximately 360,000 eligible children, was released in the sixth report of Fukushima Prefecture Health Management Survey on April 26, 2012.

Click to access 240426shiryou.pdf

Further analysis of the same result from these 38,114 children was published in the seventh report of Fukushima Prefecture Health Management Survey on June 12, 2012.

Click to access 240612shiryou.pdf

Please refer to the previous article in regards to the letter from Shunichi Yamashita to Japan Thyroid Association members, dated January 16, 2012, asking them to adhere to the guidelines set by Fukushima University Medical School in managing thyroid abnormalities.

http://fukushimavoice-eng.blogspot.com/2012/05/fukushima-childrens-thyroid-examination.html

Below is the straight translation of the thyroid examination section of the Fukushima Prefecture Health Management Survey.

********************************************************************************************************

The Sixth Report of Fukushima Prefecture Health Management Survey
April 26, 2012

Implementation status for “thyroid examination” in Prefecture Health Management Survey

1. Purpose of survey

The health effects from Tokyo Electric Company Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant accident due to East Japan Great Earthquake are considered to be extremely unlikely, considering the current radiation levels. However, Chernobyl nuclear accident revealed pediatric thyroid cancer from internal radiation exposure due to radioactive iodine.
Thus, children’s health is to be watched on a long-term basis. Thyroid examination was implemented in October 2011 to assess the current thyroid conditions to track children’s lifetime health and to relieve children and parents of worries.

2. Subjects

All Fukushima residents (including those who evacuated out of Fukushima) who were ages 0 to 18 on March 11, 2011. Approximately 360,000 residents. In concrete terms it covers all Fukushima prefecture residents (including those who evacuated out of Fukushima) who were born between April 2, 1992 and April 1, 2011.

3. Implementation plan details

(1) Method:

If thyroid mass (nodular lesion) is detected upon thyroid ultrasound examination, secondary examination (more detailed ultrasound examination, blood test, urine test, and biopsy if needed) at Fukushima University Medical School Hospital.

(2) Implementation schedule:

Preliminary examination (examination for assessment of current status) will be performed on all eligible residents from October 2011 to March 2014.
In addition, after April 2014, standard examination will be done every two years up to age 20 and every five years after age 20, watching over the health of residents for the remainder of their lives.
Also the target group will be expanded to include those who were born before April 1, 2012.

4. Fiscal Year 2011 Implementation status

(1) Subjects:

47,766 residents from evacuated areas specified by the government, including Tamura-city, Minamisoma-city, Date-city, Kawamata-machi, Hirono-machi, Naraha-machi, Tomioka-machi, Kawauchi-mura, Okuma-machi, Futaba-machi, Namie-machi, Katsurao-mura, and Iitate-mura.

(2) Implementation status:

Primary examination: Examination was started at Fukushima University Medical School Hospital on October 9, 2011. Examination was then performed off-site at public facilities in Kawamata-machi, Minamisoma-city, and other places. By the end of fiscal year 2011 (the end of March 2011), 38,114 residents (79.8% of eligible residents) were examined.

Reporting of primary examination result: Assessment Committee established within Fukushima University Medical School evaluated and analyzed the ultrasound images. As for those who received examination within fiscal year 2011 have already received the results by mail.

Secondary examination: For those requiring secondary examination, Fukushima University Medical School officially notified them of the date, time and place of the examination. Specialists have been conducting secondary examination since March 2012 at Fukushima University Medical School Hospital. In regards to the result of the secondary examination, subjects were asked to come back to the hospital one to two weeks later to have the specialists explain the result in person. By this time (April 12, 2012), 14 have undergone secondary examination and 6 have received the result.

(3) Major efforts made to implement examination:

In fiscal year 2011, the following efforts were made in implementing the examination. They were intended to take into consideration the convenience of examination subjects and structure more effective and efficient examination system, so that as many residents could receive examination as possible.

[1] Consideration in securing examination opportunities for subjects

For those not examined, effort was made to secure examination opportunities as much as possible by re-sending new examination schedule.
Examination was performed at locations (16 locations in Fukushima prefecture not including schools) as close to evacuation locations as possible.
For school-age children and older students, examination was performed at their schools.
At the examination site, a fast examination process was made possible by designing an integrated system including reception, actual examination (including explanation) and saving of ultrasound images.
Implementation of examination was made possible for the age 0 to 5 group, which had been anticipated to be difficult examination subjects.

[2] Securing the quality of the examination

Support of thyroid specialists in and outside Fukushima prefecture was obtained by widely publicizing the thyroid examination and asking for cooperation through Japan Thyroid Association, Japan Association of Endocrine Surgeons, Japan Society of Thyroid Surgery, The Japanese Society for Pediatric Endocrinology, The Japan Society of Ultrasonics in Medicine, Japanese Society of Sonographers, and The Japan Association of Breast and Thyroid Sonology.
Quality of examination over a certain standard was secured by direct involvement of thyroid specialists in the examination. Also an effort was made to secure qualified personnel through direct instruction by the said specialists.

*As many as 61 specialists outside of Fukushima University Medical School assisted with examination multiple times during the fiscal year 2011.

[3] Establishing the base for thyroid examination within Fukushima prefecture

In order to solidify the thyroid examination system within Fukushima prefecture, a thyroid examination workshop was held in Fukushima-city on March 4 for physicians and technicians.

5. Fiscal year 2012 implementation plan (proposal)

In fiscal year 2012, examination will be implemented in a planned, effective and efficient manner for subjects living in areas other than the government-specified evacuation areas. In addition, medical facilities outside Fukushima prefecture will be certified to provide thyroid examination so that those who evacuated out of Fukushima will be able to receive the examination in relocated areas.

Summary of examination schedule and target groups:

First examination:

Initial preliminary examination
Date: October 2011 to November 2011
Location: Fukushima University Medical School
Target group: Part of subjects from planned evacuation areas (Yamakiya region of Kawamata-machi, Namie-machi and Iitate-mura)

All prefecture preliminary examination
Date: November 2011 to March 2014
Location: Facilities such as health centers, community centers and schools (Performed by physicians from Fukushima University Medical School and also with cooperation of physicians in and outside Fukushima prefecture.)
Target group: Unexamined residents from planned evacuation areas and all other subjects.

Second examination and beyond:

All prefecture standard examination
Date: April 2014 –
Location: Examination centers in Fukushima prefecture and medical facilities outside Fukushima prefecture.
Target group: All subjects..
*Every two years up to age 20 and every 5 years after age 20.

Fiscal Year 2011 Thyroid Examination Implementation Status
(as of the end of March, 2012)

In the fiscal year 2011, examination was done in residents of evacuated areas.
In the examination period from October 2011 through March 2012, 79.8% (38,114) of eligible residents had thyroid examinations.

Captions for the table from left to right:
Town/village name, number of subjects (A), number of examined residents (B), % examined (B/A), breakdown by age group, number of examined residents living outside Fukushima (C), % out-of-prefecture residents examined (C/B).

Town/Village names from top to bottom: Tamura-city, Minamisoma-city, Date-city, Kawamata-machi, Hirono-machi, Naraha-machi, Tomioka-machi, Kawauchi-mura, Okuma-machi, Futaba-machi, Namie-machi, Katsurao-mura, Iitate-mura.

Fiscal Year 2011 Thyroid Examination Summary (as of the end of March, 2012)

Total Number of children tested: 38,114

Assessment Assessment result definition Number %
results
A (A1) No nodules or cysts 　　　 24,468 　　64.2%
(A2) Nodules smaller than 5.0 mm 13.460 35.3%
or cysts smaller than 20.0 mm
B Nodules larger than 5.1 mm 186 0.5%
or cysts larger than 20.0 mm
C Immediate need for secondary 0 0.0%
examination

Explanation for assessment results:

A1 and A2 will be followed until the next examination (after 2014)
B and C will have secondary examination (They will be notified of date and place.)

*In A2, those in need of secondary examination will be categorized in B.

Summary:
Assessment results Number %
Nodules >5.1 mm 184 0.48% total nodules
<5.0 mm 202 0.53% 386(1.0%) Cysts >20.1 mm 1 0.003% total cysts
<20.0 mm 13,379 35.10% 13,380 (35.1%)

Some cases had both nodules and cysts.

***************************************************************************************************

The Seventh Report of Fukushima Prefecture Health Management Survey
June 12, 2012

Fiscal Year 2012 Thyroid Examination Implementation Status (as of June 8, 2012)

Thyroid examination (primary examination) implementation summary for subjects in Fukushima-city

Beginning May 14, 2012, subjects in Fukushima-city began receiving thyroid examination.
Subjects in Fukushima-city will have thyroid examination until August 31, 2012.
In Fukushima-city, thyroid examinations will be held at elementary and junior high schools, Fukushima-city Active Senior Center (AOZ), National Sports Festival of Japan Memorial Gymnasium, and Fukushima Youth Hall.
In the 20-day implementation period up to June 8, 2012, 11,751 out of expected 13,304 actually received the examination.
Of 53,619 subjects in Fukushima-city, 45,331 (84.5%) already expressed interest in receiving thyroid examination by June 8. (Based on the consent form submission as of June 8)

Primary thyroid examination implementation status (bottom table)

Captions from left to right: number of subjects (A), number of examined residents (B), % examined (B/A), breakdown by age group for B, out-of-prefecture residents in B (C), % of out-of-prefecture residents examined (C/B)

Captions from top to bottom: H24 (Heisei 24 = 2012) Fukushima city, examination status as of June 8, H24 (2012) outside Fukushima-city, examination implemented in H23 (Fiscal year 2011)

*The”outside Fukushima-city” category includes subjects from Minamisoma-city, Date-city, Kawamata-machi, Naraha-machi, Tomioka-machi, Okuma-machi, Futaba-machi, Namie-machi and Iitate-mura.

**************************************************************************************************
Fiscal Year 2011 Thyroid Examination Summary (as of the end of March, 2012)
For original document, please refer to this link so that you may zoom in.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B68f83tqq7Qud05vOWNGaXpkUU0/edit
(Page 12 of the report, which is page 15 of the actual document.)

Note that the first table in this summary is basically the same as one from the 6th report except the number with cysts smaller than 20.0 mm is 13,383 instead of 13,379 for some reason.

Subsequent tables and graphs show more detailed information of the data reported in the 6th report, such as the breakdown by sex, age, and size of nodules and cysts.

otal Number of children tested: 38,114

Assessment Assessment result definition Number %
results
A (A1) No nodules or cysts 24,468 64.2%
(A2) Nodules smaller than 5.0 mm 13.460 35.3%
or cysts smaller than 20.0 mm
B Nodules larger than 5.1 mm 186 0.5%
or cysts larger than 20.0 mm
C Immediate need for secondary 0 0.0%
examination

Explanation for assessment results:

A1 and A2 will be followed until the next examination (after 2014)
B and C will have secondary examination (They will be notified of date and place.)

*In A2, those in need of secondary examination will be categorized in B.

Summary:
Assessment results Number %
Nodules >5.1 mm 184 0.48% total nodules
<5.0 mm 202 0.53% 386 (1.0%) Cysts >20.1 mm 1 0.003% total with cysts
<20.0 mm 13,379 35.10% 13,380 (35.1%)

Some cases had both nodules and cysts.

***************************************************************************************************

Fiscal year 2011 thyroid examination summary (as of the end of March 2012)
For original document, please refer to this link so that you may zoom in.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B68f83tqq7Qud05vOWNGaXpkUU0/edit
(Page 13 of the report, which is page 16 of the actual document.)

1. Assessment status
Captions from left to right: age groups, A1, A2, B, C, Total (Each assessment result subdivided into male/female/total.)
Captions from top to bottom on left: age groups, 0-5 years, 6-10 years, 11-15 years, over 16 years
2. Breakdown by sex and age groups
Left bar graph: male
Right bar graph: female

blue=A1, red=A2, green=B, purple=C

Following data shows the thyroid examination subjects who had nodules in the fiscal year 2011 examination.
For original document, please refer to this link so that you may zoom in.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B68f83tqq7Qud05vOWNGaXpkUU0/edit
(Page 14 of the report, which is page 17 of the actual document.)

The table on bottom left shows breakdown by size of nodules and sex.

Left column shows size.

Of 38,114 examined, 37,729 (19,036 boys and 18,693 girls) had no nodules.
201 had nodules graded A2, smaller than 5.0 mm.
184 had nodules graded B, larger than 5.0 mm.

The graph on right shows further breakdown of size of nodule at 1 mm increments.
Girls shown in red line and boys in green.

Following data shows the thyroid examination subjects who had cysts in the fiscal year 2011 examination.
For original document, please refer to this link so that you may zoom in.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B68f83tqq7Qud05vOWNGaXpkUU0/edit
(Page 15 of the report, which is page 18 of the actual document.)

The table on bottom left shows breakdown by size of cysts and sex.

Left column shows size.

Of 38,114 examined, 24,730 (12,890 boys and 11,840 girls) had no cysts..
12,414 had cysts smaller than 5.0 mm.
969 had cysts graded A2, smaller than 20.0 mm.
1 had cysts graded B, larger than 20.0 mm.

The graph on right shows further breakdown of size of cysts at 1 mm increments.
Girls shown in red line and boys in green.Source

 

26 years after Chernobyl: the KGB/NEA documentation (pdf)

It is 26 years since the Chernobyl disaster, and recently 121 documents dating from 1971 to 1988 have been released, after spending years in the archives of the former KGB in Ukraine, reports El Mundo and BBC News. The documents show that things started going wrong right from the start. According to the released documents, Ukrainian KGB regularly reported systematic security breaches to Moscow under the whole construction period from 1976 to 1979. A report dating back to 1984 also shows abnormalities in the third and fourth reactor, and it was the fourth reactor that exploded in 1986. In addition, reports confirm use of poor quality equipment delivered by Yugoslavian companies. It’s also reported of an incident in 1982 resulting in the release of small doses of radiation.

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The Chernobyl reactor was in use as late as December 2000, when the authorities finally gave in to international pressure and closed the plant, burying it in a sarcophagus of concrete.

Debate between Ukraine and Russia
The released documents have also created a heated discussion between Ukraine and Russia about whether the concrete sarcophagus build to stop radiation is secure or not, reports. Russia’s atomic energy minister Aleksander Rumyantsev stated recently at a press conference that the sarcophagus had a number of leaks, and should be secured as soon as possible in order to prevent a total collapse. This was rejected by the Ukrainian Fuel and Energy Ministry, saying that the problems with the sarcophagus were under control and could be managed until a new storage facility is in place, possibly in 2008.

Russia questions the number of deaths
The explosion on April 26th 1986 in reactor four resulted in 100 times more radiation that the bombs dropped over Nagasaki and Hiroshima combined. 31 workers were killed immediately in the explosion, while it is estimated that between 15 000 and 30 000 later have died at as a result of the disaster. The numbers are elusive and could be much higher. UN reports that six million people continue to live in areas polluted by radioactivity. Russia’s atomic energy minister stated at the press conference that he thought the number were ridiculously high and that the death toll should be around a couple of hundred.

Deepwater and Fukushima : the end of our planet

Compelling evidence of the impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on deep-sea corals will be published online in the Early Edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences during the week beginning March 26. The diverse team of researchers, led by Penn State Professor of Biology Charles Fisher, used a wide range of underwater vehicles, including the research submarine Alvin, to investigate the corals. They also used comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography to determine precisely the source of the petroleum hydrocarbons they found.

Other researchers on the team include the paper’s lead author, Assistant Professor of Chemistry Helen White of Haverford College, Erik Cordes of Temple University, and Timothy Shank and Christopher German of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), which operates the Navy-owned submersible Alvin. Fisher, Cordes, Shank and German are co-authors of the study, along with 10 other scientists from WHOI, Penn State, Temple and the U.S. Geological Survey.

The study’s findings are significant for a number of reasons, White said.

“These biological communities in the deep Gulf of Mexico are separated from human activity at the surface by 4,000 feet of water. We would not expect deep-water corals to be impacted by a typical oil spill, but the sheer magnitude of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and its release at depth make it very different from a tanker running aground and spilling its contents. Because of the unprecedented nature of the spill, we have learned that its impacts are more far reaching than those arising from smaller spills that occur on the surface.”

The study grew out of an initial research cruise to the Gulf, led by Fisher in late October 2010 — approximately six months after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. This expedition was part of an ongoing study funded by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Ocean Exploration and Research program. Using the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Jason II, the team examined nine sites at distances greater than 20 kilometers from the Macondo Well and found deep-water coral communities unharmed. However, when the ROV explored another area 11 kilometers to the south west of the spill site, the team was surprised to discover numerous coral communities covered in a brown flocculent material and showing signs of tissue damage.

“We discovered the site during the last dive of the three-week cruise,” said Fisher, a biologist and the chief scientist of this mission. “As soon as the ROV got close enough to the community for the corals to come into clear view, it was clear to me that something was wrong at this site. I think it was too much white and brown, and not enough color on the corals and brittle stars. Once we were close enough to zoom in on a few colonies, there was no doubt that this was something I had not seen anywhere else in the Gulf: an abundance of stressed corals, showing clear signs of a recent impact. This is exactly what we had been on the lookout for during all dives, but hoping not to see anywhere.”

These coral communities were 4,300 feet deep, in close proximity to the Macondo well, which had been capped three months previously after spilling an estimated 160 million gallons of oil into the Gulf. Because the timing and unprecedented nature of this observation suggested that the damage observed visually resulted from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the scientists rapidly organized a second research cruise, which began on Dec. 8, 2010, barely a month after their return to land following their initial discovery.

Joining this second research cruise, again headed by Fisher, was White, whose expertise as a geochemist was key to the interdisciplinary effort. This rare opportunity for the researchers to return to a deep-water site so quickly for the subsequent study was made possible with funding from the National Science Foundation’s RAPID Collaborative Research grant program, which aids scientists seeking to respond quickly to urgent issues such as natural disasters or crises resulting from human activity.

To examine the deep water, the team used the autonomous underwater vehicle Sentry to map and photograph the ocean floor, and the deep-submergence, 3-passenger, robotic-armed vehicle Alvin to get a better look at the distressed corals. During six dives in Alvin, the team collected sediments and samples of the corals and filtered the brown material off of the corals for analysis.

To identify the oil found in the coral communities, White worked with Christopher Reddy and Robert Nelson at WHOI using an advanced technique called comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography, which was pioneered at WHOI by Reddy and Nelson for use in oil spill research. The method, which separates oil compounds by molecular weight, allows scientists to essentially “fingerprint” oil and determine its source.

This exacting petroleum analysis, coupled with the analysis of 69 images from 43 individual corals at the site — performed by Pen-Yuan Hsing, a graduate student of Fisher’s at Penn State — yielded strong evidence that the coral communities were impacted by oil from the Macondo well spill.

Fisher said these findings confirm a serious impact from the spill on the animal communities in the deep sea more than seven miles from the Macondo well. He added, “Our ongoing work in the Gulf will allow us to better understand the long-term effects of the spill on the deep sea, and to constrain the footprint of the impact zone for deep-water corals around the Macondo well.”

The World is at a critical crossroads. The Fukushima disaster in Japan has brought to the forefront the dangers of Worldwide nuclear radiation.

The crisis in Japan has been described as “a nuclear war without a war”. In the words of renowned novelist Haruki Murakami:

“This time no one dropped a bomb on us … We set the stage, we committed the crime with our own hands, we are destroying our own lands, and we are destroying our own lives.”

Nuclear radiation –which threatens life on planet earth– is not front page news in comparison to the most insignificant issues of public concern, including the local level crime scene or the tabloid gossip reports on Hollywood celebrities.

While the long-term repercussions of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster are yet to be fully assessed, they are far more serious than those pertaining to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the Ukraine, which resulted in almost one million deaths (New Book Concludes – Chernobyl death toll: 985,000, mostly from cancer Global Research, September 10, 2010, See also Matthew Penney and Mark Selden The Severity of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster: Comparing Chernobyl and Fukushima, Global Research, May 25, 2011)

Moreover, while all eyes were riveted on the Fukushima Daiichi plant, news coverage both in Japan and internationally failed to fully acknowledge the impacts of a second catastrophe at TEPCO’s (Tokyo Electric Power Co Inc) Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant.

The shaky political consensus both in Japan, the U.S. and Western Europe is that the crisis at Fukushima has been contained.

The realties, however, are otherwise. Fukushima 3 was leaking unconfirmed amounts of plutonium. According to Dr. Helen Caldicott, “one millionth of a gram of plutonium, if inhaled can cause cancer”.

An opinion poll in May 2011 confirmed that more than 80 per cent of the Japanese population do not believe the government’s information regarding the nuclear crisis. (quoted in Sherwood Ross, Fukushima: Japan’s Second Nuclear Disaster, Global Research, November 10, 2011)

The Impacts in Japan

The Japanese government has been obliged to acknowledge that “the severity rating of its nuclear crisis … matches that of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster”. In a bitter irony, however, this tacit admission by the Japanese authorities has proven to been part of the cover-up of a significantly larger catastrophe, resulting in a process of global nuclear radiation and contamination:

“While Chernobyl was an enormous unprecedented disaster, it only occurred at one reactor and rapidly melted down. Once cooled, it was able to be covered with a concrete sarcophagus that was constructed with 100,000 workers. There are a staggering 4400 tons of nuclear fuel rods at Fukushima, which greatly dwarfs the total size of radiation sources at Chernobyl.” ( Extremely High Radiation Levels in Japan: University Researchers Challenge Official Data, Global Research, April 11, 2011)

Fukushima in the wake of the Tsunami, March 2011

Worldwide Contamination

The dumping of highly radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean constitutes a potential trigger to a process of global radioactive contamination. Radioactive elements have not only been detected in the food chain in Japan, radioactive rain water has been recorded in California:

“Hazardous radioactive elements being released in the sea and air around Fukushima accumulate at each step of various food chains (for example, into algae, crustaceans, small fish, bigger fish, then humans; or soil, grass, cow’s meat and milk, then humans). Entering the body, these elements – called internal emitters – migrate to specific organs such as the thyroid, liver, bone, and brain, continuously irradiating small volumes of cells with high doses of alpha, beta and/or gamma radiation, and over many years often induce cancer”. (Helen Caldicott, Fukushima: Nuclear Apologists Play Shoot the Messenger on Radiation, The Age, April 26, 2011)

While the spread of radiation to the West Coast of North America was casually acknowledged, the early press reports (AP and Reuters) “quoting diplomatic sources” stated that only “tiny amounts of radioactive particles have arrived in California but do not pose a threat to human health.”

“According to the news agencies, the unnamed sources have access to data from a network of measuring stations run by the United Nations’ Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization. …

… Greg Jaczko, chair of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, told White House reporters on Thursday (March 17) that his experts “don’t see any concern from radiation levels that could be harmful here in the United States or any of the U.S. territories”.

The spread of radiation. March 2011

Public Health Disaster. Economic Impacts

What prevails is a well organized camouflage. The public health disaster in Japan, the contamination of water, agricultural land and the food chain, not to mention the broader economic and social implications, have neither been fully acknowledged nor addressed in a comprehensive and meaningful fashion by the Japanese authorities.

Japan as a nation state has been destroyed. Its landmass and territorial waters are contaminated. Part of the country is uninhabitable. High levels of radiation have been recorded in the Tokyo metropolitan area, which has a population of 39 million (2010) (more than the population of Canada, circa 34 million (2010)) There are indications that the food chain is contaminated throughout Japan:

Radioactive cesium exceeding the legal limit was detected in tea made in a factory in Shizuoka City, more than 300 kilometers away from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Shizuoka Prefecture is one of the most famous tea producing areas in Japan.

A tea distributor in Tokyo reported to the prefecture that it detected high levels of radioactivity in the tea shipped from the city. The prefecture ordered the factory to refrain from shipping out the product. After the accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, radioactive contamination of tea leaves and processed tea has been found over a wide area around Tokyo. (See 5 More Companies Detect Radiation In Their Tea Above Legal Limits Over 300 KM From Fukushima, June 15, 2011)

Japan’s industrial and manufacturing base is prostrate. Japan is no longer a leading industrial power. The country’s exports have plummeted. The Tokyo government has announced its first trade deficit since 1980.

While the business media has narrowly centered on the impacts of power outages and energy shortages on the pace of productive activity, the broader issue pertaining to the outright radioactive contamination of the country’s infrastructure and industrial base is a “scientific taboo” (i.e the radiation of industrial plants, machinery and equipment, buildings, roads, etc). A report released in January 2012 points to the nuclear contamination of building materials used in the construction industry, in cluding roads and residential buildings throughout Japan.(See FUKUSHIMA: Radioactive Houses and Roads in Japan. Radioactive Building Materials Sold to over 200 Construction Companies, January 2012)

A “coverup report” by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (May 2011), entitled “Economic Impact of the Great East Japan Earthquake and Current Status of Recovery” presents “Economic Recovery” as a fait accompli. It also brushes aside the issue of radiation. The impacts of nuclear radiation on the work force and the country’s industrial base are not mentioned. The report states that the distance between Tokyo -Fukushima Dai-ichi is of the order of 230 km (about 144 miles) and that the levels of radiation in Tokyo are lower than in Hong Kong and New York City.(Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Impact of the Great East Japan Earthquake and Current Status of Recovery, p.15). This statement is made without corroborating evidence and in overt contradiction with independent radiation readings in Tokyo (se map below). In recent developments, Sohgo Security Services Co. is launching a lucrative “radiation measurement service targeting households in Tokyo and four surrounding prefectures”.

“A map of citizens’ measured radiation levels shows radioactivity is distributed in a complex pattern reflecting the mountainous terrain and the shifting winds across a broad area of Japan north of Tokyo which is in the center of the of bottom of the map.”

“Radiation limits begin to be exceeded at just above 0.1 microsieverts/ hour blue. Red is about fifty times the civilian radiation limit at 5.0 microsieverts/hour. Because children are much more sensitive than adults, these results are a great concern for parents of young children in potentially affected areas.

SOURCE: Science Magazine

The fundamental question is whether the vast array of industrial goods and components “Made in Japan” — including hi tech components, machinery, electronics, motor vehicles, etc — and exported Worldwide are contaminated? Were this to be the case, the entire East and Southeast Asian industrial base –which depends heavily on Japanese components and industrial technology– would be affected. The potential impacts on international trade would be farreaching. In this regard, in January, Russian officials confiscated irradiated Japanese automobiles and autoparts in the port of Vladivostok for sale in the Russian Federation. Needless to say, incidents of this nature in a global competitive environment, could lead to the demise of the Japanese automobile industry which is already in crisis.

While most of the automotive industry is in central Japan, Nissan’s engine factory in Iwaki city is 42 km from the Fukushima Daiichi plant. Is the Nissan work force affected? Is the engine plant contaminated? The plant is within about 10 to 20 km of the government’s “evacuation zone” from which some 200,000 people were evacuated (see map below).

Nuclear Energy and Nuclear War

The crisis in Japan has also brought into the open the unspoken relationship between nuclear energy and nuclear war.

Nuclear energy is not a civilian economic activity. It is an appendage of the nuclear weapons industry which is controlled by the so-called defense contractors. The powerful corporate interests behind nuclear energy and nuclear weapons overlap.

In Japan at the height of the disaster, “the nuclear industry and government agencies [were] scrambling to prevent the discovery of atomic-bomb research facilities hidden inside Japan’s civilian nuclear power plants”.1 (See Yoichi Shimatsu, Secret Weapons Program Inside Fukushima Nuclear Plant? Global Research, April 12, 2011)

It should be noted that the complacency of both the media and the governments to the hazards of nuclear radiation pertains to the nuclear energy industry as well as to to use of nuclear weapons. In both cases, the devastating health impacts of nuclear radiation are casually denied. Tactical nuclear weapons with an explosive capacity of up to six times a Hiroshima bomb are labelled by the Pentagon as “safe for the surrounding civilian population”.

No concern has been expressed at the political level as to the likely consequences of a US-NATO-Israel attack on Iran, using “safe for civilians” tactical nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state.

Such an action would result in “the unthinkable”: a nuclear holocaust over a large part of the Middle East and Central Asia. A nuclear nightmare, however, would occur even if nuclear weapons were not used. The bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities using conventional weapons would contribute to unleashing another Fukushima type disaster with extensive radioactive fallout. (For further details See Michel Chossudovsky, Towards a World War III Scenario, The Dangers of Nuclear War, Global Research, Montreal, 2011)

Fukushima: A Nuclear War without a War

In view of the official cover-up and media disinformation campaign, the contents of the articles and video reports in this Online Interactive Reader have not trickled down to to the broader public. (See Table of contents below)

This Online Interactive Reader on Fukushima contains a combination of analytical and scientific articles, video reports as well as shorter news reports and corroborating data.

Part I focusses on The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster: How it Happened? Part II pertains to The Devastating Health and Social Impacts in Japan. Part III centers on the “Hidden Nuclear Catastrophe”, namely the cover-up by the Japanese government and the corporate media. Part IV focusses on the issue of Worlwide Nuclear Radiation and Part V reviews the Implications of the Fukushima disaster for the Global Nuclear Energy Industry.

In the face of ceaseless media disinformation, this Global Research Online I-Book on the dangers of global nuclear radiation is intended to break the media vacuum and raise public awareness, while also pointing to the complicity of the governments, the media and the nuclear industry.

We call upon our readers to spread the word.

Fukushima Fuel Pool No 4

We noted days after the Japanese earthquake that the biggest threat was from the spent fuel rods in the fuel pool at Fukushima unit number 4, and not from the reactors themselves. See this and this.

We noted in February:

Scientists say that there is a 70% chance of a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hitting Fukushima this year, and a 98% chance within the next 3 years.

Given that nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen says that an earthquake of 7.0 or larger could cause the entire fuel pool structure collapse, it is urgent that everything humanly possible is done to stabilize the structure housing the fuel pools at reactor number 4.

Tepco is doing some construction at the building … it is a race against time under very difficult circumstances, and hopefully Tepco will win.

As AP points out:

The structural integrity of the damaged Unit 4 reactor building has long been a major concern among experts because a collapse of its spent fuel cooling pool could cause a disaster worse than the three reactor meltdowns.

***

Gundersen (who used to build spent fuel pools) explains that there is no protection surrounding the radioactive fuel in the pools. He warns that – if the fuel pools at reactor 4 collapse due to an earthquake – people should get out of Japan, and residents of the West Coast of America and Canada should shut all of their windows and stay inside for a while.

The fuel pool number 4 is apparently not in great shape, and there have already been countless earthquakes near the Fukushima region since the 9.0 earthquake last March.

Germany’s ZDF tv quotes nuclear engineer Yukitero Naka as saying:

If another earthquake occurs then the building [number 4] could collapse and another chain reaction could very likely occur.

(Unit 4 contains plutonium as well as other radioactive wastes.)

Mainchi reported on Monday:

The storage pool in the No. 4 reactor building has a total of 1,535 fuel rods, or 460 tons of nuclear fuel, in it. The 7-story building itself has suffered great damage, with the storage pool barely intact on the building’s third and fourth floors. The roof has been blown away. If the storage pool breaks and runs dry, the nuclear fuel inside will overheat and explode, causing a massive amount of radioactive substances to spread over a wide area. Both the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and French nuclear energy company Areva have warned about this risk.

A report released in February by the Independent Investigation Commission on the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident stated that the storage pool of the plant’s No. 4 reactor has clearly been shown to be “the weakest link” in the parallel, chain-reaction crises of the nuclear disaster. The worse-case scenario drawn up by the government includes not only the collapse of the No. 4 reactor pool, but the disintegration of spent fuel rods from all the plant’s other reactors. If this were to happen, residents in the Tokyo metropolitan area would be forced to evacuate.

Former Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Sumio Mabuchi, who was appointed to the post of then Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s advisor on the nuclear disaster immediately after its outbreak, proposed the injection of concrete from below the No. 4 reactor to the bottom of the storage pool, Chernobyl-style.

***

“Because sea water was being pumped into the reactor, the soundness of the structure (concrete corrosion and deterioration) was questionable. There also were doubts about the calculations made on earthquake resistance as well,” said one government source familiar with what took place at the time. “[F]uel rod removal will take three years. Will the structure remain standing for that long?

Asahi noted last month that – if Unit 4 pool gets a crack from an earthquake and leaks, it would be the end for Tokyo.

Kevin Kamps said last month:

Unit 4 storage pool… The entire building is listing including the pool. What they have is steel jacks underneath the pool to try to keep the floor from falling out or the pool from flipping over.

If that cooling water supply is lost, it will be just a few hours at most before that waste is on fire. 135 tons outside of any radioactive containment. They would be direct releases into the environment. 100% of cesium-137 could be released to the environment.

Former U.N. adviser Akio Matsumura – whose praises have been sung by Mikhail Gorbachev, U.S. Ambassadors Stephen Bosworth and Glenn Olds, and former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State and Goldman Sachs co-chair John C. Whitehead – notes:

The unit suffered enormous damage during the tsunami—a hydrogen explosion blew the roof off, leaving the highly radioactive fuel pool exposed to the open air. If another high level earthquake hits the area, the building will certainly collapse. Japanese and American [seismologists] have predicted that such a strong earthquake is indeed likely to hit this year.

The meltdown and unprecedented release of radiation that would ensue is the worst case scenario that then-Prime Minister Kan and other former officials have discussed in the past months. He warned during his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos that such an accident would force the evacuation of the 35 million people in Tokyo, close half of Japan and compromise the nation’s sovereignty. Such a humanitarian and environmental catastrophe is unimaginable. Hiroshi Tasaka, a nuclear engineer and special adviser to Prime Minister Kan immediately following the crisis, said the crisis “just opened Pandora’s Box.”

The current Japanese government has not yet mentioned the looming disaster, ostensibly to not incite panic in the public. Nevertheless, action must be taken quickly. This website over the last year has published a running commentary from scientists explaining why Reactor 4 must be stabilized immediately, who might be able to accomplish such a task, and why the situation has largely gone unnoticed. We believe an independent, international team of structural engineers and other advisers must be assembled and deployed immediately. Mounting public pressure would force the Japanese government to take action. We hope these resources are helpful in educating the public about the crisis that we face.

As the eminent German physicist Dr. Hans-Peter Durr said ten months ago, if the spent fuel pool spills, we will be in a situation where science never imagined we could be.

Matsumura was told that if the fuel pool at unit 4 collapses or the water spills out, so much radiation will spew out for 50 years that no one will be able to approach Fukushima:

Even more dramatically, Matsumura writes:

Japan’s former Ambassador to Switzerland, Mr. Mitsuhei Murata, was invited to speak at the Public Hearing of the Budgetary Committee of the House of Councilors on March 22, 2012, on the Fukushima nuclear power plants accident. Before the Committee, Ambassador Murata strongly stated that if the crippled building of reactor unit 4—with 1,535 fuel rods in the spent fuel pool 100 feet (30 meters) above the ground—collapses, not only will it cause a shutdown of all six reactors but will also affect the common spent fuel pool containing 6,375 fuel rods, located some 50 meters from reactor 4. In both cases the radioactive rods are not protected by a containment vessel; dangerously, they are open to the air. This would certainly cause a global catastrophe like we have never before experienced. He stressed that the responsibility of Japan to the rest of the world is immeasurable. Such a catastrophe would affect us all for centuries. Ambassador Murata informed us that the total numbers of the spent fuel rods at the Fukushima Daiichi site excluding the rods in the pressure vessel is 11,421 (396+615+566+1,535+994+940+6375).

I asked top spent-fuel pools expert Mr. Robert Alvarez, former Senior Policy Adviser to the Secretary and Deputy Assistant Secretary for National Security and the Environment at the U.S. Department of Energy, for an explanation of the potential impact of the 11,421 rods.

I received an astounding response from Mr. Alvarez [updated 4/5/12]:

In recent times, more information about the spent fuel situation at the Fukushima-Dai-Ichi site has become known. It is my understanding that of the 1,532 spent fuel assemblies in reactor No. 304 assemblies are fresh and unirradiated. This then leaves 1,231 irradiated spent fuel rods in pool No. 4, which contain roughly 37 million curies (~1.4E+18 Becquerel) of long-lived radioactivity. The No. 4 pool is about 100 feet above ground, is structurally damaged and is exposed to the open elements. If an earthquake or other event were to cause this pool to drain this could result in a catastrophic radiological fire involving nearly 10 times the amount of Cs-137 released by the Chernobyl accident.

The infrastructure to safely remove this material was destroyed as it was at the other three reactors. Spent reactor fuel cannot be simply lifted into the air by a crane as if it were routine cargo. In order to prevent severe radiation exposures, fires and possible explosions, it must be transferred at all times in water and heavily shielded structures into dry casks.. As this has never been done before, the removal of the spent fuel from the pools at the damaged Fukushima-Dai-Ichi reactors will require a major and time-consuming re-construction effort and will be charting in unknown waters. Despite the enormous destruction cased at the Da–Ichi site, dry casks holding a smaller amount of spent fuel appear to be unscathed.

Based on U.S. Energy Department data, assuming a total of 11,138 spent fuel assemblies are being stored at the Dai-Ichi site, nearly all, which is in pools. They contain roughly 336 million curies (~1.2 E+19 Bq) of long-lived radioactivity. About 134 million curies is Cesium-137 — roughly 85 times the amount of Cs-137 released at the Chernobyl accident as estimated by the U.S. National Council on Radiation Protection (NCRP). The total spent reactor fuel inventory at the Fukushima-Daichi site contains nearly half of the total amount of Cs-137 estimated by the NCRP to have been released by all atmospheric nuclear weapons testing, Chernobyl, and world-wide reprocessing plants (~270 million curies or ~9.9 E+18 Becquerel).

It is important for the public to understand that reactors that have been operating for decades, such as those at the Fukushima-Dai-Ichi site have generated some of the largest concentrations of radioactivity on the planet.

Many of our readers might find it difficult to appreciate the actual meaning of the figure, yet we can grasp what 85 times more Cesium-137 than the Chernobyl would mean. It would destroy the world environment and our civilization. This is not rocket science, nor does it connect to the pugilistic debate over nuclear power plants. This is an issue of human survival.

There was a Nuclear Security Summit Conference in Seoul on March 26 and 27, and Ambassador Murata and I made a concerted effort to find someone to inform the participants from 54 nations of the potential global catastrophe of reactor unit 4. We asked several participants to share the idea of an Independent Assessment team comprised of a broad group of international experts to deal with this urgent issue.

I would like to introduce Ambassador Murata’s letter to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to convey this urgent message and also his letter to Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda for Japanese readers. He emphasized in the statement that we should bring human wisdom to tackle this unprecedented challenge.

Ambassador Murata’s letter says:

It is no exaggeration to say that the fate of Japan and the whole world depends on NO.4 reactor. This is confirmed by most reliable experts like Dr. Arnie Gundersen or Dr. Fumiaki Koide.

Anti-nuclear physician Dr. Helen Caldicott says that if fuel pool 4 collapses, she will evacuate her family from Boston and move them to the Southern Hemisphere. This is an especially dramatic statement given that the West Coast is much more directly in the path of Fukushima radiation than the East Coast.

Will humanity rise to the occasion, and figure out how to stabilize fuel pool number 4 before catastrophe strikes?

Or will modern civilization win a Darwin award for failing to pay attention to the real threats?
Source

The Most Contaminated Spot on the Planet

In the late 1940’s, about 80 kilometers north of the city of Chelyabinsk, an atomic weapons complex called “Mayak” was built. Its existence has only recently been acknowledged by Russian officials. Mayak, bordered to the west by the Ural Mountains, and to the north by Siberia, was the goal of Gary Powers’s surveillance flight in May of 1960.

For forty-five years, the Chelyabinsk province of Russia was closed to all foreigners. Only in January of 1992 did President Boris Yeltsin sign a decree changing that. As a result, western scientists who studied the region, declared Chelyabinsk to be the most polluted spot on earth.

Forty Years of Nuclear Contamination in Chelyabinsk, Russia
the World

Chelyabinsk, the capital of the Chelyabinsk province in Russia, is located at the eastern foot of the Ural mountains and has a population of 1.3 million. The province has a land area of 90,000 sq. km and a population of 3.6 million.

Abstract
Chelyabinsk was one of the former Soviet Union’s main military production centers, which included nuclear weapons manufacturing. Accidents, nuclear waste disposal and day to day operation of the Mayak reactor and radiochemical plant contaminated a vast area of the province. In the early 1950s there were so many occurrences of death and disease from the nuclear waste dumping in the Techa river that 22 villages along the river banks in a 50 kilometers zone downstream from Mayak were evacuated. In 1957, a nuclear waste storage tank accident released radiation double the amount released by the Chernobyl accident. This accident was kept secret and 10,700 people were evacuated. The severe environmental contamination of this region led to dramatic increases in cancer rates, birth defects, and sterility. Over the past 33 years, there has been a 21% increase in the incidences of cancer, 25% increase in birth defects and 50% of the population of child bearing age are sterile.

Cause of the Environmental Crisis
During World War II, Chelyabinsk was one of the Soviet Union’s major armament production centers. Entire factories on the western side of the Urals were taken apart and reconstructed on the other side of the Urals, the Chelyabinsk province. Chelyabinsk had one of the largest tank factories in the country, as well as one of the major nuclear armament plants. Due to these “strategic industries” the province was closed to visitors until 1989. Following the political and economic transformation in Russia, the tank factory now produces tractors, and the Mayak nuclear armament plant is trying to evolve into a fast breeder recycling plant for foreign spent-plutonium (nuclear wastes).

The Mayak nuclear complex was one of the Soviet Union’s main military production centers. During the last fifty years this complex has contaminated the Chelyabinsk region with highly dangerous nuclear and chemical wastes. The following is a chronological listing of the practices and accidents that caused the environmental crisis:

1949 to 1956: Liquid wastes from the Mayak nuclear complex were dumped into the Techa-Iset-Tobol river system

From 1949 to 1956, medium and high-level radioactive liquid wastes were dumped into the river system Techa-Iset-Tobol. During this period about 76 million m3 of radioactive wastes were released into the Techa river. Over 124, 000 people living along the banks of the river system were exposed to radiation. Protective measures finally began in 1956 when hydrological engineering measures aimed at immobilizing deposited radioactive substances in the upper reaches of the river were implemented. The river system is currently in the process of a natural deactivation that will take a few hundred years. The water downstream is nearly free of excess radioactive caesium, however the riverbed sediment and the riverbanks still contain high levels of caesium and strontium.

1957: Explosion of a nuclear waste storage tank at the Mayak nuclear complex

On September 29, 1957 a liquid radioactive waste storage tank exploded following a failure in the cooling system and polluted an area equal to the size of New Jersey with plutonium and strontium. The explosion formed a radioactive cloud over the provinces of Chelyabinsk, Sverdlovsk and Tyumen. A total area of 23,000 sq. kilometers was contaminated and the area is now called the East Ural Radioactive Trace, the EURT. This accident was kept secret from the outside world for military safety reasons and 10,700 people were silently evacuated. This nuclear accident released twice the amount of curies that were released by the Chernobyl accident.

1967: The Lake Karachay accident

Two self-contained natural lakes near the plant were chosen to divert waste dumping in the river-system – lake Karachay for high-level waste and lake Staroe Boloto for medium level waste. During the long, hot summer of 1967, lake Karachay dried up and radioactive waste from the exposed lake blew over an area of 2,200 sq. kilometers. Other accidents, irresponsible nuclear waste disposal and day-to-day operations of the Mayak nuclear-chemical facility have contaminated an area with a diameter of 400 km.

In addition to pollution from the nuclear complex, the metallurgical industry has heavily contaminated this region. The Ural mountains are rich in iron ore, chromium, copper and nickel and the region has an enormous metallurgical industry. The amount of lead in the air in Chelyabinsk city is equal to the total amount of lead pollution in the Netherlands (population of 15 million) in 1982, before unleaded petrol and catalytic converters were introduced. Any improvement of air quality in the Urals has been due to the economic downturn and closing of factories. Hardly any investments have been made by the government to reduce pollution levels.

Impact of the Environmental Crisis
Soon after the Mayak nuclear complex became operational, death and diseases in the region increased dramatically due to the dumping of medium and high level radioactive waste into the river system. As a result, 22 villages on the riverbanks, in a 50 km downstream zone from the complex, were evacuated. The village of Muslymova, just outside the 50 km zone was particularly contaminated, but it was never evacuated. Muslyumova lies 45 km north west of Chelyabinsk city and has 4,000 inhabitants. The village had no wells and until recent years depended on the river Techa, for drinking water.

The villagers of Muslyumova grew increasingly ill following contamination of their water. The number of birth defects and cancer deaths soared, but the authorities refused to take remedial measures. Statistics show that gene-mutations in the villages just outside the evacuated zone were 15 times the average for the Russian Federation. The local authorities attributed the high level of birth defects among newborns and the high mortality rates to a low standard of living.

A report on the health of the people living on the banks of the Techa River was published in 1991, which showed that the incidence of leukemia increased by 41% since 1950. From 1980 to 1990, all cancers in this population rose by 21% and all diseases of the circulatory system rose by 31%. These figures are probably gross under-estimations, because local physicians were instructed to limit the number of death certificates they issued with diagnosis of cancer and other radiation-related illnesses. According to Gulfarida Galimova, a local doctor who has been keeping records in lieu of official statistics, the average life span for women in Muslyumovo in 1993 was 47, compared to the country average of 72. The average life span of Muslyumovo men was 45 compared to 69 for the entire country.

Chelyabinsk regional hospitals were not allowed to treat the villagers and they were sent to the Ural Centre for Radiation Medicine. The medical data of the UCRM was classified until 1990. Records of the UCRM chart the decline in health of 28,000 people along the Techa and all of them are classed as seriously irradiated. Since the 1960s, these people have been examined regularly by public health officials.

According to the head of the UCRM clinical department the rate of leukemia has doubled in the last two decades. Skin cancers have quadrupled over the last 33 years. The total number of people suffering from cancer has risen by 21%. The number of people suffering from vascular diseases has risen 31%. Birth defects have increased by 25%. Kosenko carried out a small epidemiological study of 100 people selected at random. From this group 96% had at least five chronic diseases (heart diseases, high blood pressure, arthritis and asthma), 30% had as many as ten chronic conditions. Local doctors estimate that half the men and women at child bearing age are sterile.

Even today, the local population still does not know the actual levels of radioisotopes in its home grown products. German scientists who did a field study in Muslumova in 1996 have measured some food samples in the villages and found astonishing levels of radioactivity, 17,000 becquerrel per kg in fish, and 8,000 per kg in vegetables (in Europe, products with more than 600 bequerrel are taken off the market). Only since 1989, the villagers have started to get information about the dangers of the radioactive contamination of their river.

After the 1957 storage tank accident, 10,700 people were permanently evacuated from the EURT. Half of these people were evacuated eight months after the accident. These people had been consuming contaminated food without restriction, since the accident and until their evacuation. The Karachay accident from 1967 affected 63 populated areas with a population of 41,500 with 3.7 kBq/sq m (0.1Ci/sq km) The 4800 residents nearest to the lake received an average dose of 13mSv. At the time of the Karachay accident, the International Commission for Radiological Protection (ICRP) had set the safe limit on radiation at 5mSv per year. At present, the ICRP standard is 1mSv per year.

According to the Russian Scientific Centre Kurchatov and the Obninsk Institute of Radiology, a total of 437,000 people have been affected by the three accidents at Mayak. Of the total 437,000 people affected, very few were ever evacuated from the area. Very often the evacuees were moved to areas not far from the contaminated zone and the people continued to use their gardens within the contaminated areas.

Other people exposed to elevated levels of radiation in Chelyabinsk region are workers of Mayak, people living in the districts in the vicinity of Mayak and participants during cleanup and restoration activities. At the beginning of operation of Mayak, the average annual exposures for reactor workers and chemical plant workers was 940 mSv and 1,130mSv respectively. (At present, the ICRP safety standard is 1mSv per year.) The workers from Mayak lived in Chelyabinsk-65 and Chelyabinsk-70, both closed cities situated about 80 km from Chelyabinsk city, and close to the Mayak complex. Chelyabinsk-65 and -70 were nicknamed chocolate city, because these cities were among the few cities in USSR where chocolate was available in abundance.

In the early 1990s, Ivan Druzhko, a Mayak plant official, told reporters from a US television show that he believed nearly 8,000 Mayak workers were exposed to doses exceeding 1,000mSv. L.A. Buldakov, deputy director of the institute of biophysics in Moscow presented data on a conference in Paris in 1991 that showed a total of 1,812 Mayak workers were exposed to least 2,450mSv over the period 1949-1954 and another 1,286 people were exposed to at least 1,220mSv. These exposure levels are horrifying when you compare these levels with the ICRP’s present safety standard, which is 1mSv per year. In the 1980s, Ural Medical Radiation Center started registering diseases caused by radiation. In 1989 a booklet was published stating that 935 workers at the Mayak complex were suffering from chronic radiation syndrome. This number later came down to 66 but was changed back to the former figure after campaigns by local organizations.

While the rural communities in Chelyabinsk suffer from the effects of radioactive contamination, the urban populations face the effects of the chemical and metallurgical industries. In 1994 the Chelyabinsk Provincial Institute for Public Health and Environment did a survey on non-infectious diseases in the cities of Karabash, Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk, Zlatoust, Kopeisk and Miass. The survey showed considerable increases of various diseases in the Chelyabinsk region. The results from Karabash and Magnitogorsk were so bad that the provincial Ministry for the Environment classified these cities as ecological disaster zones. (SOE rep. P. 195) Children from Karabash were found to be considerably smaller than children from the control group; they had 3.5 times more birth defects; 2.7 times more skin diseases; streptodermia 10 times more, and 2.1 times more diseases of the digestive organs.

Cancer rates in the metallurgical district of Chelyabinsk are four to five times higher than the Russian average. Children’s morbidity and mortality rates in the metallurgical district are three times higher than the average for the city. Lead intoxication from the metallurgical factories causes blood diseases and brain damage. Chromium is another major pollutant. U.S. studies have shown that the incidences of lung cancer for chromium factory workers are 28 times than the average rates. Workers barely survive until their retirement age and male life expectancy has gone down to 57.

Statistics from the neighboring province of Ekaterinaburg show that in the early 1990s the number of women workers in the metallurgical and electrical engineering industry doubled, and their numbers in light industry tripled. Statistics in Chelyabinsk, if available, would probably show the same trend. After the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, unemployment soared and Russia’s social security system became more and more insecure. Today, most women cannot afford to lose their jobs and will keep on working as long as possible. The women work even though the working conditions badly affect their own health and their children’s health. Maternity leave with pay was well taken care for under the Soviet system but now for fear of losing their jobs, women keep silent about their pregnancy as long as possible. Many women work more than one job. Apart from working under very unfavorable conditions women also have to take care of their families. Wages are low and poverty is increasing.

Even in the “workers paradise”, as the former Soviet Union was called, working conditions were not always favorable. In the late 1980’s, 20-50% of workplaces did not meet Soviet standards. By the end of the Soviet era, 14.5 million women worked in industry and 3.4 million, about one-fifth of them, worked under hazardous conditions such as toxic fumes, extreme high or low temperatures, and excessive noise and vibrations.

Chelyabinsk has long been a region of strategic military importance and has a history of secrecy. Even today it is not easy to obtain environment or health information. Obtaining information from independent sources is even more difficult.

Response to the Environmental Crisis
In 1992, Movement for Nuclear Safety (MNS), in co-operation with local authorities, organized an international conference on the consequences of nuclear industry in the South Urals. This was the first time that the public gained access to classified information concerning the health of the population affected by radionucleides from the nuclear military complex, Mayak. In the same year MNS began campaigns to register people affected by nuclear contamination in Muslyumovo. By the end of 1993 the democratic process was interrupted and the co-operation with authorities became less effective. By then, however, MNS had obtained a large group of voluntary workers and support from the local population.

During the 1995 UN Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, Natalya Mironova of MNS met with Women in Europe for a Common Future and partners in Uzbekistan and the Ukraine and discussed setting up a joint project on women, health and environment. In 1996, a project entitled Women Join Forces for Health and Environment, was launched to better understand the health effects of the environmental contamination in the Chelyabinsk region, particularly effects on women and children. MNS offered courses to women on healthy living and on strengthening their immune system. The NGO also sponsored seminars on how to reduce the effects of contamination of the human body caused by bioaccumulation of radionucleides. Women received information from a dietician and were taught how to cook to retain vitamins.

MNS also started publishing a series of brochures titled ‘Simple Answers to Complicated Questions,’ on the immune system and healthy food in a region contaminated with radionucleides. The brochures were widely distributed among the villages just outside the evacuated area near Mayak.

Together with other NGOs, MNS has been campaigning for resettlement of the village of Muslyumovo. In 1997 these actions finally became effective: the province administration decided to resettle the village. It is still unclear, however, when this will happen and where the villagers will go. MNS is also active in local politics and has been campaigning against the development of plutonium recycling facilities at Mayak to treat imported plutonium waste from abroad, particularly from Germany and the U.S.A. MNS promotes sustainable economic alternatives including energy-saving, alternative energy sources and organic farming.

Recommendations for Action
Most of the information about plutonium contamination and plutonium impacts is still classified, although plutonium contamination has affected a geographical area 10 times larger and 100 times more intensely than expected. Despite this, the local administration is eagerly looking at potential revenues from plutonium recycling. Plutonium recycling is not a sustainable solution. Chelyabinsk needs assistance from the international community to identify viable alternatives to polluting industries.

When the Cold War ended Russian women wrote letters to the UN asking for assistance and tried to force the Russian authorities to listen to the voices of the NGO community. The international community can support the fight for a healthy and sustainable future by endorsing our demands to:

Set up an international institution to set new health standards for radiation protection, because 1950 standards are no longer adequate or relevant;

Disseminate information about the health effects of the nuclear industry;

Support the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and make sure that victims get adequate compensation;

Stop the export of nuclear waste;

Collect data on environmental health problems;

Promote research and development of medical detoxification methods and promote the exchange of knowledge on successful methods;

Fund long-term epidemiological research in regions adversely affected by environmental pollution; and

Establish health care and health monitoring programs for victims of environmental pollution and people living in hazardous zones.

Source

USA Nuclear meltdown Santa Susana