Monday, April 18, 2011

Fukushima: looking even worse

I know this is depressive but I also know it is for real and will have a transgenerational impact, most likely leaving a permanent radioactive scar on Earth. So, while I may space my notes on this almost unprecedented catastrophe, I feel that I must keep documenting this historical atrocity. 

Even the strongly pro-nuclear and autocratic North Korea is now airing their fears of this disaster, which will surely affect the Korean peninsula in one way or another. What really seems to worry them the most is that, after a whole month of the beginning of the disaster, the risk is only increasing, while radioactive pollution keeps affecting air, sea and land. (Kyodo).

It is not any exaggeration: all three active reactors are in total meltdown having penetrated the reactors' containers in all three cases (Global Security Newswire), while they keep pumping freshwater (which ends up as radioactive vapor or groundwater) into all four damaged units, at least in reactor 1 this has become useless because there is so much mud that water cannot reach the core anymore (Global Post's interview with nuclear expert A. Gundersen). But worst is that the Japanese Government (or TEPCO, a private company which seems to be the one making the decisions) do not seem to have any coherent plan but rather seem to be improvising and lying all along. The citizens do not believe the government anymore (USA Today). 

They are now talking of a whole year (6-9 months according to Yahoo News). A whole year of radioactivity leaking to the environment? A whole year of homelessness for those few evacuated and uncertainty for the residents in half Japan? A whole year of radioactive materials being transported across the globe into North America, China, Korea and other places (all the Northern hemisphere eventually)? A whole year of an already exhausted and probably agonizing "liquidator" crew working in that extremely radioactive destroyed plant?

In addition there are still new problems, probably caused by the aftershock earthquakes, which are still happening. They have affected Fukushima I, causing new leaks (Mirror) but even far away, in Niigata, another nuclear plant has got some sort of technical problems (Kyodo), making it five power plants (all them in North Honsu) having problems since the Sendai earthquake last month.

In the USA, more than potentially affected by atmospheric pollution from Fukushima, which crosses the Pacific Ocean in few days, usually to settle down in North America, diverse agencies are passing each other the ball on who has the responsibility of monitoring food safety. The notorious Food and Drugs Administration (FDA), so nitty-picky when it comes to defend the privileges of the Big Pharma industry, has declared that there is no need to test fish from the Pacific Ocean for radioactivity (Anchorage Daily News). Caveat emptor! Get yourself a Geiger counter if you want your kids to be any safe. NOAA and FDA pass each other the ball in this matter.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Maju,
    It is getting worse and we have to keep becoming more informed about the ramifications of this whole event..
    It(fallout) of Xe-133 has even crossed the equator into the Southern Hemisphere, which is something the "experts" said it would not do, and has been found, in trace air samples in darwin Australia.

    see here:
    http://thirteenthmonkey.blogspot.com/2011/04/xe-133-in-darwin-australia.html

    keep up your great posts.
    Cheers.
    from down under A13

    ReplyDelete
  2. I don't know what to think. Of course it's worrisome but, as happens with the uranium detected in pine needles in Vietnam, it may well be from some other source.

    Fukushima is not the only (even if it is the most severe by far) nuclear problem on Earth: every day nuclear-powered and nuclear-weapons-carrying ships cross the oceans (including Australian territorial waters and harbors), there are some 600 nuclear plants (though most are in the Northern hemisphere) and there are other sources like nuclear tests and depleted uranium weapons.

    For example they may be just random remnants of nuclear tests in Australia itself (1950s) or in the South Pacific (up to the 1980s), or even from fallen satellites, raised to the atmosphere by storms or wildfires. This seems a plausible explanation to me, more plausible than Fukushima, considering that wind conditions have been intensively monitored since the accident.

    Cheers.

    ReplyDelete

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