Fukushima people in a massive non-consensual experiment on radiation exposure 大規模な放射能被爆による実験を強いられている福島の人たち

 (Source) http://enenews.com/tv-japanese-are-part-of-a-massive-non-consensual-experiment-on-radiation-exposure-everywhere-now-is-radioactive-we-cant-escape-it-say-fukushima-locals-at-beach-video

TV: “The Japanese are part of a massive non-consensual experiment on radiation exposure” — “Everywhere now is radioactive, we can’t escape it,” say Fukushima locals at beach (VIDEO) Title: Concern over Fukushima leaks persists

Source: Al Jazeera  Date: August 25, 2013

Concern over Fukushima leaks persists

Anita McNaught, Reporter: At the local beach, despite news that highly radioactive water’s leaching into the sea, locals are cooling off.  They told us they were philosophical — Everywhere now is radioactive, they can’t escape it.

The stricken Daiichi nuclear plant is 35 kilometers up the coast that way.

This beach only opened to the public in July. Back then authorities said that radiation in the seawater had fallen to acceptably low levels.

But when Yoshiro Watanabe took sand samples for analysis, he found levels there were far higher.

No one here knows what a safe background level is anymore — The Japanese are part of a massive non-consensual experiment on radiation exposure.

The 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident was just the beginning of a continuous disaster ２０１１年３月に起こった爆発は、その後も、続いていた福島事故の始まりでしかなかった。

(Source) http://theconversation.com/is-fukushima-the-new-normal-for-nuclear-reactors-17391

http://nuclear-news.net/2013/08/27/the-2011-fukushima-nuclear-accident-was-just-the-beginning-of-a-continuous-disaster/#more-56524

text-Fukushima-2013-1We can see this same “continuous” trend with the accident at Fukushima. The triple meltdown itself at Fukushima in March 2011 was just the beginning

Nuclear power accidents are no longer one-off events. Instead, they can span years or even decades, creating a sort of “continuous accident”.

Is Fukushima the new normal for nuclear reactors? the Conversation, Benjamin Sovacool, 27 Aug 13,  ”…..In the early 1980s, Yale sociologist Charles Perrow argued that the partial meltdown of a nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island was a “normal accident”. The crux of his argument was that complicated technological systems have unavoidable problems that can’t be designed around.

Perrow’s argument — still relevant today — rested on three pillars. First, people are fallible, even at nuclear reactors. Operator error is still a very common factor in incidents and accidents.

Second, big accidents almost always have very small beginnings. Nuclear power plants are so complex that relatively simple things — shirt tails, fuses, light bulbs, mice, cats, and candles — can disrupt the entire system.

And finally, many failures are those of organisations more than technology. Given the right event, all these factors can lead to system-wide failure. Perrow concludes that such high-tech, dangerous systems are hopeless and should be abandoned, as the inevitable risks of failure outweigh any conceivable benefits.

Nuclear reactors do have inherent advantages over fossil fuels, but Perrow’s argument raises serious questions about nuclear safety.

Never-ending accidents

Even so, Perrow was writing in the 1980s. Surely things have improved since then? Well, perhaps not. Read more »

Russia repeats offer to help Japan in the international crisis of Fukushima radiation

(Source) http://nuclear-news.net/2013/08/27/russia-repeats-offer-to-help-japan-in-the-international-crisis-of-fukushima-radiation/

The idea of pumping water for cooling was never going to be anything but a “machine for generating radioactive water,”

flag_Russiaflag-japanRussia Offers Fukushima Cleanup Help as Tepco Reaches Out By Yuriy Humber & Jacob Adelman - Aug 25, 2013   Russia repeated an offer first made two years ago to help Japan clean up its accident-ravaged Fukushima nuclear station, welcoming Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501)’s decision to seek outside help.

Fukushima-water tank-leaking

As Tokyo Electric pumps thousands of metric tons of water through the wrecked Fukushima station to cool its melted cores, the tainted run-off was found to be leaking into groundwater and the ocean. The approach to cooling and decommissioning the station will need to change and include technologies developed outside of Japan if the cleanup is to succeed, said Vladimir Asmolov, first deputy director general of Rosenergoatom, the state-owned Russian nuclear utility.

“In our globalized nuclear industry we don’t have national accidents, they are all international,” Asmolov said. Since Japan’s new government took over in December, talks on cooperating between the two countries on the Fukushima cleanup have turned “positive” and Russia is ready to offer its assistance, he said by phone from Moscow last week.

After 29 months of trying to contain radiation from Fukushima’s molten atomic cores, Tokyo Electric said last week it will reach out for international expertise in handling the crisis. The water leaks alone have so far sent more than 100 times the annual norms of radioactive elements into the ocean, raising concern it will enter the food chain through fish……..

Vast Volumes

The sheer quantity of water used is the most at a nuclear accident since the 1972 London convention banned the dumping of waste and radioactive water into the sea, said Peter Burns, formerly Australia’s representative on the United Nations scientific committee on the effects of atomic radiation.

“Until they figure out how to deal with such vast volumes of water, how to manage it, the problem” including of leaks will persist, Burns, a retired radiation physicist, said from Melbourne.

Retaining thousands of tons of radioactive water in tanks was the wrong strategy from the start and Tepco’s handling of the task is a “textbook picture of a failure of management,” Michael Friedlander, who has 13 years of experience running nuclear stations in the U.S., said in an interview with Bloomberg TV in Hong Kong.

Pumping Water

The idea of pumping water for cooling was never going to be anything but a “machine for generating radioactive water,” Asmolov said. Other more complex methods such as the use of special absorbents like thermoxide to clean contaminated water and the introduction of air cooling should be used, he said……. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-25/russia-offers-to-help-clean-up-fukushima-as-tepco-calls-for-help.html

Nuclear accident evacuees to sue government, TEPCO for damage

(Source) http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201308270069

By GEN OKAMOTO/ Staff Writer August 27, 2013

OSAKA–Residents of Fukushima Prefecture and other areas who evacuated after the onset of the nuclear accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant are planning to file lawsuits in district courts in the Kansai region against the central government and Tokyo Electric Power Co., the plant operator.

About 140 plaintiffs will seek a total of about 1 billion yen ($10 million) as compensation for psychological stress suffered due to the nuclear accident and for the upending of their daily lives.

These will be the first lawsuits to be filed in western Japan. On March 11, 2013, the second anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake, 1,650 residents and evacuees filed lawsuits in district courts in eastern Japan.

According to lawyers for the plaintiffs, those who will join in the lawsuit will be 12 residents of Minami-Soma, Namie and Tomioka of Fukushima Prefecture where evacuation instructions were issued after the nuclear accident, as well as about 130 other residents of Fukushima, Miyagi and Ibaraki prefectures.

Lawsuits will be submitted to the district courts in Osaka and Kyoto on Sept. 17, and to Kobe District Court in late September.

The lawyers will argue that the central government failed to take necessary safety measures, even though it recognized the danger of an accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant. The compensation will be for being forced to evacuate, as well as expenses incurred in the process of leading lives as evacuees and leaving some family members behind in Fukushima.

Some plaintiffs also plan to seek compensation for damage to their homes.

According to officials of the Reconstruction Agency, as of Aug. 12, there were a total of 61,355 residents of Fukushima, Miyagi and Iwate who fled their prefectures after the natural disasters and nuclear accident.

A number of prospective plaintiffs met with the media on Aug. 26 to explain their decision to sue the government and TEPCO.

Katsutoshi Sato, 52, had a home in Soma, Fukushima Prefecture, that was 45 kilometers from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant. However, due to health concerns, Sato evacuated with his 76-year-old mother, 52-year-old wife and 17-year-old daughter to Ritto, Shiga Prefecture, where his younger brother lives. March 11, 2011, when the Great East Japan Earthquake hit, was the date for his daughter’s graduation ceremony at her junior high school.

After the nuclear accident, Sato made round trips between Fukushima and Shiga on a weekly basis to try to maintain the equipment company that he owned. However, sales dropped by about 70 percent and his wife was hospitalized with post-traumatic stress disorder.

In spring 2012, Sato decided to abandon plans to rebuild his company and shifted his residence to Ritto. Although he now works as a temporary worker at a citizens’ activity center in neighboring Otsu, his income has decreased sharply.

“My life was destroyed by the accident,” Sato said at the Aug. 26 news conference. “I want to pursue the responsibility of the central government and TEPCO through the lawsuit.”

Akiko Morimatsu, 39, who will head the plaintiffs’ group, evacuated from Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture, to Osaka with her 5-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter.

“I want the case to serve as a way to protect the health and future of my children,” Morimatsu said.

Lawmaker: Declare ‘State of Emergency’ right away and intervene at Fukushima Fukushima — Japan Professor: Issue S.O.S. now, it’s really an emergency… Gov’t is utterly lost, international help is needed

http://enenews.com/lawmaker-japan-should-declare-state-of-emergency-right-now-and-intervene-at-fukushima-kyoto-professor-govt-should-issue-s-o-s-its-really-an-emergency-they-are-utterly-lost-internati

New York Times,s, August 23, 2013: Opposition lawmakers here have demanded that [Prime Minister Shinzo] Abe stay home and declare a state of emergency. “The nuclear crisis is real and ongoing, yet the government continues to look the other way,” said Yoshiko Kira of the opposition Japan Communist Party, which made significant gains in parliamentary elections last month. “The government should declare a state of emergency right now, and intervene to stop the outflow of contaminated water,” Ms. Kira said at an anti-nuclear rally outside Mr. Abe’s office in Tokyo. Mr. Abe remains popular, and it is uncertain how large a liability the crisis at the Fukushima plant will become for him. But it has become increasingly clear that the latest problems may be too large for the plant’s operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, or Tepco, to handle. Radio Free Europe, Aug 24, 2013: Komei Hosokawa, professor of environmental sociology at Kyoto Seika University in Japan, says that international assistance will be needed to deal with the mounting issues. “TEPCO hasn’t been working very [well] to handle the situation, and the Japanese government is sort of utterly lost,” he says. “The government at the moment is very reluctant to issue an SOS, but I think we should. It’s really an emergency going on.” See also: Asahi: Japan officially in “state of nuclear emergency” still — Clearly shows Fukushima disaster on going — Crisis far from over… gov’t far too late, commitment far too weak

    […] Lawmakers urge PM Abe to stay in Japan, declare State of Emergency (nuclear-news.net) […]

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