Nuclear Meltdown Watch

Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff

Re: Nuclear Meltdown Watch

Postby seemslikeadream » Mon Nov 20, 2017 8:10 pm

smoking since 1879 » Mon Nov 20, 2017 3:41 pm wrote:SLAD Dumps More Than Nuclear Industry - SHOCK REPORT AT 10



oh you were just kidding! :lovehearts: :hug1: :lovehearts:

smoking since 1879 » Mon Oct 31, 2016 11:43 am wrote:

http://www.reuters.com/article/france-nuclear-market-idUSL8N1CX395?feedType=RSS&feedName=rbssEnergyNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A%20reuters%2FUSenergyNews%20(News%20%2F%20US%20%2F%20Energy)

Thu Oct 27, 2016 | 7:59am EDT
French nuclear problems shake European power market, boost prices
* French nuclear fleet restricted, causing tight supply

* Prices up across Europe's medium-, long-term curve

* Germany, others to plug gaps, see their prices rise

* Problems increase importance of winter weather

By Vera Eckert and Oleg Vukmanovic

FRANKFURT/MILAN, Oct 27 Deepening setbacks to France's nuclear reactors have shaken confidence in Europe's wholesale electricity markets as traders push winter prices to new highs in anticipation of fresh outages and tight supply.

The month-long rally intensified this week after French nuclear safety watchdog ASN warned its sprawling probe into forged quality control reports on reactor parts would turn up more irregularities.

This leaves traders guessing as to how many more reactors could be shut.

The scale of forced closures in nuclear power-reliant France - 19 reactors offline and 12 more due to shut - is the biggest since the Fukushima disaster in 2011 crippled Japan's entire nuclear sector.

It has driven mid-term prices higher and posed questions about the sustainability of long-term supply in Europe as France drains surrounding countries' output via five large power interconnectors.

"Overall, I would expect a tight fourth quarter where high prices will stay in place, especially if the weather is cold," said Giacomo Masato, research analyst at brokerage Marex Spectron.

However, he tied price moves to weather patterns, as long cold periods amplify demand whereas wind and sunshine levels play a big role in deciding supply availability from renewable plants.

"Weather, both wind generation and electricity demand, will determine the scale of the impact but the market is currently pricing in the risk of a cold or average winter," said James Cox of consultancy Poyry.

Traders said other fuels that interact with power such as coal, oil, gas and EU carbon emissions respond to different drivers and were only partially bullish because of the French nuclear situation.

"Panic plays a great role today but the question is how many people are really still short," said a German trader. "Maybe the rallies were exaggerated and will collapse when the winter weather turns out warmer."

But concerns are adding up.

On Tuesday, a delayed restart at the Civaux-2, Dampiere-3 and Gravelines-2 plants added to nervousness as much as a French government decision to maintain a mechanism under which main utility EDF must sell supply cheaply to rivals.

Apart from facilitating speculative re-selling into the tight market, this also stirs more demand. "EDF is in the market to buy to supply to others," one trader said.

In addition, there have been more irregularities detected at EDF reactor Gravelines 5.

French wholesale 2017 power prices hit a contract high of 45.6 euros per megawatt hour (MWh) on Thursday amid gains on coming weeks and months.

"Would France stop all the faulty nuclear plants in case it means shutting down factories in the country and have people freezing?" asked one trader.

Prices in Europe's largest power supplier Germany with its vast installed renewable capacities are also rallying.

Its 33 gigawatt coal capacity can also be revved up to help when other markets are short, thanks to a high level of interconnection.

German Year Ahead power hit a two-year high of 33.65 euros. (additional reporting by Bate Felix in Paris, editing by William Hardy)


:partydance:

[EDIT TO ADD]


http://www.french-nuclear-safety.fr/Information/News-releases/Irregularities-concerning-components-manufactured-in-its-Creusot-Forge-plant

AREVA has informed ASN of irregularities concerning components manufactured in its Creusot Forge plant

04/05/2016 11:00 am Note d'information

Following the detection of an anomaly on the Flamanville EPR reactor vessel, and at the instigation of ASN, AREVA initiated in April 2015 a quality review on the manufacturing work carried out in its Creusot Forge plant. Its conclusions were sent to ASN in October 2015.

ASN considered that this relatively superficial review, which only went back as far as 2010, was insufficient and did not give a complete picture of the organisation and practices at Creusot Forge, the quality of the parts produced and the safety culture prevailing within the plant. At the end of 2015, ASN asked AREVA to take the process further and go back to at least 2004, which was when the first parts intended for the EPR were manufactured.

On 25th April 2016, AREVA informed ASN of the initial results of this additional analysis. They revealed irregularities in the manufacturing checks on about 400 parts produced since 1965, about fifty of which would appear to be in service in the French NPPs. These irregularities comprise inconsistencies, modifications or omissions in the production files, concerning manufacturing parameters or test results.

ASN asked AREVA to send it the list of parts concerned as rapidly as possible, along with its assessment of the consequences for the safety of the facilities, jointly with the licensees concerned.

The review process will need to be seen through to completion in order to assess all the anomalies which may have affected past manufacturing operations and draw any relevant conclusions regarding the safety of the facilities.
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
User avatar
seemslikeadream
 
Posts: 32090
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2005 11:28 pm
Location: into the black
Blog: View Blog (83)

Re: Nuclear Meltdown Watch

Postby seemslikeadream » Tue Nov 21, 2017 9:44 am

Russian nuclear facility denies it is source of high radioactivity levels

Greenpeace calls for investigation after levels of ruthenium-106 in atmosphere near Urals site found to be 986 times norm

Hannah DevlinFirst published on Monday 20 November 2017 20.59 EST
Russian radioactive label
Nuclear experts have said there was no evidence to suggest the leak posed a significant hazard to human health or the environment. Photograph: Martin Argles for the Guardian

A secretive Russian nuclear facility has denied it was behind high atmospheric concentrations of the radioactive isotope ruthenium-106, after Russia’s meteorological service confirmed levels several hundred times the norm were found in several locations in the country during tests in late September.

Greenpeace has called for an investigation into a potential cover-up of a nuclear accident after Russia’s nuclear agency had denied European reports of increased ruthenium-106 levels. Rosgidromet, the weather monitoring service, released test data on Monday that showed levels were indeed much higher than normal. The most potent site was Argayash in the south Urals, where levels were 986 times the norm.

Argayash is about 20 miles from Mayak, a facility that reprocesses spent nuclear fuel. The plant facility issued a denial on Tuesday. “The contamination of the atmosphere with ruthenium-106 isotope registered by Rosgidromet is not linked to the activity of Mayak,” a statement said.

It went on to reassure people that the measurements were well below dangerous levels: “The measurements which Rosgidromet has released suggest that the dose people might have received is 20,000 times less than the allowed annual dose and presents no threat at all to health.”


Russian workers process spent fuel from nuclear submarines at a facility in Severodvinsk. Photograph: Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters
Nuclear experts also said there was no evidence to suggest the leak posed a significant hazard to human health or the environment.

A report earlier this month from France’s Institute for Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) said ruthenium-106 had been detected in France between 27 September and 13 October.

In mid-October, the state nuclear agency Rosatom issued a statement saying that samples from across Russia during the same period showed no trace of ruthenium-106 after European agencies had reported levels that were higher than usual.

Greenpeace Russia called on Rosatom to open “an in-depth inquiry and publish the results about the incidents at Mayak”, and the group also said it would ask prosecutors to look into the potential concealment of a nuclear incident.

Neil Hyatt, professor of nuclear materials chemistry at the University of Sheffield, said: “This isotope comes from recycling of nuclear fuel or medical isotope targets. It’s quite short-lived so that means it must be relatively young fuel. It must have come out of a reactor recently and been reprocessed recently.”

Ilya Yarmoshenko, a scientist, told a Russian news agency that the high levels of ruthenium-106 were harmless, and levels 10 times higher of other radioactive substances could be found inside normal homes. He said there was no need to evacuate any of the residents of the affected areas but added that the most important thing now was to identify the source of the radiation.

Hyatt agreed: “It’s certainly not a major health concern based on what we know at the moment. If it’s concentrated you would certainly want to limit access to that area. If it’s not ingested then the hazard is going to be lower.”

Prof Paddy Reagan, a nuclear expert at the University of Surrey, said: “When they say this was 900 times the background level it’s a surprising number, but the background level is basically zero. I don’t think there’s any radiological danger from it.

“The measurement of this highlights how sensitive radiation detectors are. It’s basically impossible to hide a leak. If it was a weapon explosion or a reactor leak there’d be other radioisotopes, so it looks like a leak from waste reprocessing.”

A decommissioned Russian nuclear submarine at the Arctic base of Severomorsk.
Earlier this year the Mayak facility began receiving shipments of spent fuel from decommissioned nuclear submarines in the Arctic. Photograph: STR/AP
Hyatt said that it was unusual that other radioisotopes had not been detected as normally waste fuel would contain a mix of different nuclear materials. One possibility is that the fuel was being processed and concentrated for use in nuclear batteries, which are used in satellites.

“If the plant that’s making those has sprung a leak it might explain why they’ve detected that and nothing else,” he said.

Evgeny Savchenko, the top health and safety official in Chelyabinsk region, where the Mayak facility is located, dismissed health fears as “hysteria” and said the fact that the information came from abroad was suspicious, noting that France also has a nuclear fuel processing site “that competes with our Mayak”.

Savchenko said there was absolutely no reason for the population to fear health effects. “Note that officials and their families don’t have injections against radiation ... so you’d have to be a total fool to hide dangerous information and not take steps to save people,” he said.

In 1957 Mayak was the site of one of the worst nuclear disasters in history, which at the time was covered up by the Soviet regime. Earlier this year shipments of spent nuclear submarine fuel that had been left at an Arctic naval base since the Soviet period began to be shipped to Mayak, where it will be reprocessed and repurposed for use in civilian nuclear reactors. Much of the plant’s operations remain shrouded in secrecy.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/ ... dent-claim
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
User avatar
seemslikeadream
 
Posts: 32090
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2005 11:28 pm
Location: into the black
Blog: View Blog (83)

Re: Nuclear Meltdown Watch

Postby seemslikeadream » Sun Nov 26, 2017 11:47 am

NOVEMBER 22, 2017
Fukushima Darkness
by ROBERT HUNZIKER

The radiation effects of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant triple meltdowns are felt worldwide, whether lodged in sea life or in humans, it cumulates over time. The impact is now slowly grinding away only to show its true colors at some unpredictable date in the future. That’s how radiation works, slow but assuredly destructive, which serves to identify its risks, meaning, one nuke meltdown has the impact, over decades, of 1,000 regular industrial accidents, maybe more.

It’s been six years since the triple 100% nuke meltdowns occurred at Fukushima Daiichi d/d March 11th, 2011, nowadays referred to as “311”. Over time, it’s easy for the world at large to lose track of the serious implications of the world’s largest-ever industrial disaster; out of sight out of mind works that way.

According to Japanese government and TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) estimates, decommissioning is a decade-by-decade work-in-progress, most likely four decades at a cost of up to ¥21 trillion ($189B). However, that’s the simple part to understanding the Fukushima nuclear disaster story. The difficult painful part is largely hidden from pubic view via a highly restrictive harsh national secrecy law (Act on the Protection of Specially Designated Secrets, Act No. 108/2013), political pressure galore, and fear of exposing the truth about the inherent dangers of nuclear reactor meltdowns. Powerful vested interests want it concealed.

Following passage of the 2013 government secrecy act, which says that civil servants or others who “leak secrets” will face up to 10 years in prison, and those who “instigate leaks,” especially journalists, will be subject to a prison term of up to 5 years, Japan fell below Serbia and Botswana in the Reporters Without Borders 2014 World Press Freedom Index. The secrecy act, sharply criticized by the Japanese Federation of Bar Associations, is a shameless act of buttoned-up totalitarianism at the very moment when citizens need and in fact require transparency.

The current status, according to Mr. Okamura, a TEPCO manager, as of November 2017: “We’re struggling with four problems: (1) reducing the radiation at the site (2) stopping the influx of groundwater (3) retrieving the spent fuel rods and (4) removing the molten nuclear fuel.” (Source: Martin Fritz, The Illusion of Normality at Fukushima, Deutsche Welle–Asia, Nov. 3, 2017)

In short, nothing much has changed in nearly seven years at the plant facilities, even though tens of thousands of workers have combed the Fukushima countryside, washing down structures, removing topsoil and storing it in large black plastic bags, which end-to-end would extend from Tokyo to Denver and back.

As it happens, sorrowfully, complete nuclear meltdowns are nearly impossible to fix because, in part, nobody knows what to do next. That’s why Chernobyl sealed off the greater area surrounding its meltdown of 1986. Along those same lines, according to Fukushima Daiichi plant manager Shunji Uchida: ”Robots and cameras have already provided us with valuable pictures. But it is still unclear what is really going on inside,” Ibid.

Seven years and they do not know what’s going on inside. Is it the China Syndrome dilemma of molten hot radioactive corium burrowing into Earth? Is it contaminating aquifers? Nobody knows, nobody can possibly know, which is one of the major risks of nuclear meltdowns, nobody knows what to do. There is no playbook for 100% meltdowns. Fukushima Daiichi proves the point.

“When a major radiological disaster happens and impacts vast tracts of land, it cannot be ‘cleaned up’ or ‘fixed’.” (Source: Hanis Maketab, Environmental Impacts of Fukushima Nuclear Disaster Will Last ‘decades to centuries’ – Greenpeace, Asia Correspondent, March 4, 2016)

Meanwhile, the world nuclear industry has ambitious growth plans, 50-60 reactors currently under construction, mostly in Asia, with up to 400 more on drawing boards. Nuke advocates claim Fukushima is well along in the cleanup phase so not to worry as the Olympics are coming in a couple of years, including events held smack dab in the heart of Fukushima, where the agricultural economy will provide fresh foodstuff.

The Olympics are PM Abe’s major PR punch to prove to the world that all-is-well at the world’s most dangerous, and out of control, industrial accident site. And, yes it is still out of control. Nevertheless, the Abe government is not concerned. Be that as it may, the risks are multi-fold and likely not well understood. For example, what if another earthquake causes further damage to already-damaged nuclear facilities that are precariously held together with hopes and prayers, subject to massive radiation explosions? Then what? After all, Japan is earthquake country, which defines the boundaries of the country. Japan typically has 400-500 earthquakes in 365 days, or nearly 1.5 quakes per day.

According to Dr. Shuzo Takemoto, professor, Department of Geophysics, Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University: “The problem of Unit 2… If it should encounter a big earth tremor, it will be destroyed and scatter the remaining nuclear fuel and its debris, making the Tokyo metropolitan area uninhabitable. The Tokyo Olympics in 2020 will then be utterly out of the question,” (Shuzo Takemoto, Potential Global Catastrophe of the Reactor No. 2 at Fukushima Daiichi, February 11, 2017).

Since the Olympics will be held not far from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident site, it’s worthwhile knowing what to expect, i.e., repercussions hidden from public view. After all, it’s highly improbable that the Japan Olympic Committee will address the radiation-risk factors for upcoming athletes and spectators. Which prompts a question: What criteria did the International Olympic Committee (IOC) follow in selecting Japan for the 2020 Summer Olympics in the face of three 100% nuclear meltdowns totally out of control? On its face, it seems reckless.

This article, in part, is based upon an academic study that brings to light serious concerns about overall transparency, TEPCO workforce health & sudden deaths, as well as upcoming Olympians, bringing to mind the proposition: Is the decision to hold the Olympics in Japan in 2020 a foolish act of insanity and a crude attempt to help cover up the ravages of radiation?

Thus therefore, a preview of what’s happening behind, as well as within, the scenes researched by Adam Broinowski, PhD (author of 25 major academic publications and Post Doctoral Research Fellow, Australian National University): “Informal Labour, Local Citizens and the Tokyo Electric Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Crisis: Responses to Neoliberal Disaster Management,” Australian National University, 2017.

The title of Dr. Broinowski’s study provides a hint of the inherent conflict, as well as opportunism, that arises with neoliberal capitalism applied to “disaster management” principles. (Naomi Klein explored a similar concept in The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, Knopf Canada, 2007).

Dr. Broinowski’s research is detailed, thorough, and complex. His study begins by delving into the impact of neoliberal capitalism, bringing to the fore an equivalence of slave labor to the Japanese economy, especially in regards to what he references as “informal labour.” He preeminently describes the onslaught of supply side/neoliberal tendencies throughout the economy of Japan. The Fukushima nuke meltdowns simply bring to surface all of the warts and blemishes endemic to the neoliberal brand of capitalism.

According to Professor Broinowski: “The ongoing disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station (FDNPS), operated by Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), since 11 March 2011 can be recognised as part of a global phenomenon that has been in development over some time. This disaster occurred within a social and political shift that began in the mid-1970s (ed. supply-side economics, which is strongly reflected in America’s current tax bill under consideration) and that became more acute in the early 1990s in Japan with the downturn of economic growth and greater deregulation and financialisation in the global economy. After 40 years of corporate fealty in return for lifetime contracts guaranteed by corporate unions, as tariff protections were lifted further and the workforce was increasingly casualised, those most acutely affected by a weakening welfare regime were irregular day labourers, or what we might call ‘informal labour.”

In short, the 45,000-60,000 workers recruited to deconstruct decontaminate Fukushima Daiichi and the surrounding prefecture mostly came off the streets, castoffs of neoliberalism’s impact on “… independent unions, rendered powerless, growing numbers of unemployed, unskilled and precarious youths (freeters) alongside older, vulnerable and homeless day labourers (these groups together comprising roughly 38 per cent of the workforce in 2015) found themselves not only (a) lacking insurance or (b) industrial protection but also in many cases (c) basic living needs. With increasing deindustrialisation and capital flight, regular public outbursts of frustration and anger from these groups have manifested since the Osaka riots of 1992.” (Broinowski)

The Osaka Riots of 25 years ago depict the breakdown of modern society’s working class, a problem that has spilled over into national political elections worldwide as populism/nationalism dictate winners/losers. In Osaka 1,500 rampaging laborers besieged a police station (somewhat similar to John Carpenter’s 1976 iconic film Assault on Precinct 13) over outrage of interconnecting links between police and Japan’s powerful “Yakuza” or gangsters that bribe police to turn a blind eye to gangster syndicates that get paid to recruit, often forcibly, workers for low-paying manual jobs for industry.

That’s how TEPCO gets workers to work in radiation-sensitive high risks jobs. Along the way, subcontractors rake off most of the money allocated for workers, resulting in a subhuman lifestyle for the riskiest most life-threatening jobs in Japan, maybe the riskiest most life-threatening in the world.

Japan has a long history of assembling and recruiting unskilled labor pools at cheap rates, which is typical of nearly all large-scale modern industrial projects. Labor is simply one more commodity to be used and discarded. Tokyo Electric Power Company (“TEPCO”) of Fukushima Daiichi fame adheres to those long-standing feudalistic employment practices. They hire workers via layers of subcontractors in order to avoid liabilities, i.e. accidents, health insurance, safety standards, by penetrating into the bottom social layers that have no voice in society.

As such, TEPCO is not legally obligated to report industrial accidents when workers are hired through complex webs or networks of subcontractors; there are approximately 733 subcontractors for TEPCO. Here’s the process: TEPCO employs a subcontractor “shita-uke,” which in turn employs another subcontractor “mago-uke” that relies upon labor brokers “tehaishilninpu-dashi.” At the end of the day, who’s responsible for the health and safety of workers? Who’s responsible for reporting cases of radiation sickness and/or death caused by radiation exposure?

Based upon anecdotal evidence from reliable sources in Japan, there is good reason to believe TEPCO, as well as the Japanese government, suppress public knowledge of worker radiation sickness and death, as well as the civilian population of Fukushima. Thereby, essentially hoodwinking worldwide public opinion, for example, pro-nuke enthusiasts/advocates point to the safety of nuclear power generation because of so few reported deaths in Japan. But, then again, who’s responsible for reporting worker deaths? Answer: Other than an occasional token death report by official sources, nobody!

Furthermore, TEPCO does not report worker deaths that occur outside of the workplace even though the death is a direct result of excessive radiation exposure at the workplace. For example, if a worker with radiation sickness becomes too ill to go to work, they’ll obviously die at home and therefore not be reported as a work-related death. As a result, pro-nuke advocates claim Fukushima proves how safe nuclear power is, even when it goes haywire, because there are so few, if any, deaths, as to be inconsequential. That’s a boldfaced lie that is discussed in the sequel: Fukushima Darkness – Part 2.

“As one labourer stated re Fukushima Daiichi: ‘TEPCO is God. The main contractors are kings, and we are slaves’. In short, Fukushima Daiichi clearly illustrates the social reproduction, exploitation and disposability of informal labour, in the state protection of capital, corporations and their assets.” (Broinowski)

Indeed, Japan is a totalitarian corporate state where corporate interests are protected from liability by layers of subcontractors and by vested interests of powerful political bodies and extremely harsh state secrecy laws. As such, it is believed that nuclear safety and health issues, including deaths, are underreported and likely not reported at all in most cases. Therefore, the worldview of nuclear power, as represented in Japan at Fukushima Daiichi, is horribly distorted in favor of nuclear power advocacy.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/11/22 ... -darkness/


NOVEMBER 24, 2017
Fukushima Darkness, Part Two
by ROBERT HUNZIKER

The impact of Fukushima Daiichi’s nuclear meltdown extends far and wide, as the hemispheric ecosystem gets hit by tons of radioactive water. Additionally, surreptitiousness surrounds untold death and illness, yet it remains one of the least understood and deceitfully reported episodes of journalism in modern history.

At the same time as Japan passed its totalitarian secrecy act in December 2013, it passed an obstructive Cancer Registration Law, which made it illegal to share medical data or information on radiation-related issues, denying public access to medical records, with violators subject to fines of two million Yen or 5-10 years in prison, a pretty stiff penalty for peeking into medical records, giving the appearance of somebody running scared.

Furthermore, and more egregiously yet, a confidentiality agreement to control medical information about radiation exposure was signed in January 2014 by IAEA, UNSCEAR, and Fukushima Prefecture and Fukushima Medical University. Thereafter, all info of illness from radiation is reported to a central repository run by Fukushima Medical Centre and IAEA. In turn, the Fukushima Centre for Environmental Creation was created in 2015 to communicate “accurate information on radiation to the public and dispel anxiety.” Ahem!

Well now, isn’t that convenient, a central depository controlled by the International Atomic Energy Agency –IAEA- to report on Fukushima Daiichi radiation exposure and medical illness. It’s not hard to figure that’s rotten to the core, sounding a lot like words lifted directly off the pages of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949).

Meanwhile, much, but not all, mainstream media reports about radiation-induced illnesses and deaths at Fukushima are feeble grossly incompetent journalism, as follows: “The latest update (in April) by the World Nuclear Association re the Fukushima disaster: There have been no deaths or cases of radiation sickness from the nuclear accident…” (Source: Michael W. Chapman, 5 Years Later, Deaths Caused by Radiation Leak at Fukushima -O-, CNS News, May 11, 2016).

According to The World Nuclear Association, as of October 2017: “There have been no deaths or cases of radiation sickness from the nuclear accident, but over 100,000 people were evacuated from their homes to ensure this. Government nervousness delays the return of many.”

Here’s one more statement of zero deaths at Fukushima, by Hannah Ritchie, published in Our World in Data, July 24, 2017: “In the case of Fukushima, although 40-50 people experienced physical injury or radiation burns at the nuclear facility, the number of direct deaths from the incident are quoted to be zero.”

And one more, an article in Forbes by Dr. James Conca, an expert on energy, nuclear and dirty bombs, “After Five Years, What Is The Cost Of Fukushima?” d/d March 10, 2016: “Strangely, the costs that never materialized were the most feared, those of radiation-induced cancer and death… No one received enough dose, even the 20,000 workers who have worked tirelessly to recover form this event.”

Au contraire, it is believed that official reports of Fukushima radiation-induced sicknesses and deaths are horribly underreported and/or intentionally manipulated to show few, if any, cases. Based upon numerous testimonials obtained by independent journalists and researchers in Japan and U.S, attorneys, there is considerable evidence of radiation-induced deaths and sicknesses.

Seemingly, somebody is dead wrong on the issue of radiation-induced deaths, whether it’s (1) official sources via mainstream news or (2) independent researchers/journalists/U.S. attorneys that claim to personally know of deaths. One of those two sources is dead wrong and seriously misleading the world, which, in and of itself, should be classified as a criminal act, like the Nazi Nuremberg trials (1945-49). In point of fact, if it can be proven that people are covering up and/or lying about Fukushima radiation-induced illness and death, they should be tried and imprisoned, similar to Nazi war criminals. The implications of widespread radiation are not a trifle.

When it comes to uncontrollable radiation, there’s an ecumenical obligation for full transparency as a basic right for all humanity, worldwide.

“It’s a real shame that the authorities hide the truth from the whole world, from the UN. We need to admit that actually many people are dying. We are not allowed to say that, but TEPCO employees also are dying. But they keep mum about it,” Katsutaka Idogawa, former mayor of Futaba (Fukushima Prefecture), Fukushima Disaster: Tokyo Hides Truth as Children Die, Become Ill from Radiation – Ex-Mayor, RT News, April 21, 2014.

Individual medical doctors in Japan have reported serious radiation-related problems, for example: “In April 2014, Dr Tsuda Toshihide, an epidemiologist at Okayama University, declared this a ‘thyroid cancer epidemic’ and predicted multiple illnesses from long-term internal radiation below 100 mSv/y and advocated for a program of outbreak (emergency or rapid) epidemiology in and outside Fukushima.” (Source: Adam Broinowski, PhD (author of 25 major academic publications and Post Doctoral Research Fellow, Australian National University): “Informal Labour, Local Citizens and the Tokyo Electric Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Crisis: Responses to Neoliberal Disaster Management,” Australian National University, 2017.

“Similarly, a Tokyo-based physician, Dr Mita Shigeru, circulated a public statement notifying his colleagues of his intention to relocate his practice to Okayama due to overwhelming evidence of unusual symptoms in his patients (roughly 2,000). Given that soil in Tokyo post-Fukushima returned between 1,000 and 4,000 Bq/kg, as compared to an average of 500 Bq/kg (Cs 137 only) in Kiev soil, Mita pointed to a correlation between these symptoms and the significant radiation contamination in Tōhoku and metropolitan Tokyo.” (Broinowski)

“The ashes of half a dozen unidentified laborers ended up at a Buddhist temple in a town just north of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant. Some of the dead men had no papers; others left no emergency contacts. Their names could not be confirmed and no family members had been tracked down to claim their remains. They were simply labeled “decontamination troops” — unknown soldiers in Japan’s massive cleanup campaign to make Fukushima livable again five years after radiation poisoned the fertile countryside,” (Source: Mari Yamaguchi, Fukushima ‘Decontamination Troops’ Often Exploited, Shunned, AP & ABC News, Minamisona, Japan, March 10, 2016).

Mako Oshidori, director of Free Press Corporation/Japan, investigated several unreported worker deaths, and interviewed a former nurse who quit TEPCO: “I would like to talk about my interview of a nurse who used to work at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) after the accident… He quit his job with TEPCO, and that’s when I interviewed him… As of now, there are multiple NPP workers that have died, but only the ones who died on the job are reported publicly. Some of them have died suddenly while off work, for instance, during the weekend or in their sleep, but none of their deaths are reported.” (Source: The Hidden Truth about Fukushima by Mako Oshidori, delivered at the International Conference, Effects of Nuclear Disasters on Natural Environment and Human Health held in Germany, 2014 co-organized by International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War).

“They are not included in the worker death count. For example, there are some workers who quit the job after a lot of radiation exposure… and end up dying a month later, but none of these deaths are either reported, or included in the death toll. This is the reality of the NPP workers,” Ibid.

Greenpeace has been conducting radiation readings throughout Fukushima ever since 311. Accordingly, Greenpeace/Japan Press Release -Tokyo, 21 February 2017: “The Japanese government will soon lift evacuation orders for 6,000 citizens of Iitate village in Fukushima Prefecture where radiation levels in nearby forests are comparable to the current levels within the Chernobyl 30km exclusion zone – an area that more than 30 years after the accident remains formally closed to habitation. Seventy-five percent (75%) of Iitate is contaminated forested mountains.”

Over time, high levels of radiation from the mountains leach onto cleaned up areas down below. In point of fact, based upon several Greenpeace analyses throughout Fukushima Prefecture, former inhabitants of several communities are returning to towns and villages where spot checks show unacceptable levels of radiation.

“Faced with the post-311 reality of government (and corporate) policy that protects economic and security interests over public health and well-being, the majority of the 2 million inhabitants of Fukushima Prefecture are either unconscious of or have been encouraged to accept living with radioactive contamination. People dry their clothes outside, drink local tap water and consume local food, swim in outdoor pools and the ocean, consume and sell their own produce or catches. Financial pressure after 311 as well as the persistent danger of social marginalisation has made it more difficult to take precautionary measures (i.e. permanent relocation, dual accommodation, importing food and water) and develop and share counter-narratives to the official message. Nevertheless, some continue to conceal their anxiety beneath a mask of superficial calm.” (Broinowski)

“As Fukushima city resident Shiina Chieko observed, the majority of people seem to have adopted denial as a way to excise the present danger from their consciousness. Her sister-in-law, for example, ignored her son’s ‘continuous nosebleeds’; while her mother had decided that the community must endure by pretending that things were no different from pre-311 conditions.” (Broinowski)

Radiation exposure shows up years later as one of several illnesses. This gives the nuclear industry an advantage of time lapses in its position statements about the safety of nuclear energy. After all when enough time lapses, who knows for sure the cause of death?

However, Chernobyl provides a perfect case study of radiation-caused deaths of workers with a direct link, “liquidators,” exposed to Chernobly radiation (1986), keeping in mind that radiation takes several years to show up as cancer and other severe ailments: “By 2001, of 800,000 healthy Russian and Ukrainian liquidators (with an average age of 33 years) sent to decontaminate, isolate and stabilise the reactor, 10 per cent had died and 30 per cent were disabled. By 2009, 120,000 liquidators had died, and an epidemic of chronic illness and genetic and perigenetic damage in nuclear workers’ descendants appeared (this is predicted to increase over subsequent generations). The full extent of the damage will not be understood until the fifth generation of descendants. By the mid-2000s, 985,000 additional deaths between 1986 and 2004 across Europe were estimated as a direct result from radiation exposure from Chernobyl.” (Broinowski)

Chernobyl likely foreshadows a dismal future for those exposed to Fukushima radiation whether residents, workers, or untold recipients throughout the extent of flowing seas, which is universal.

As Chernobyl clearly demonstrates: Over time, radiation cumulates in bodily organs. For an example of how radiation devastates human bodies generation by generation, consider: According to USA Today, Chernobyl’s Legacy: Kids With Bodies Ravaged by Disaster, April 17, 2016: “There are 2,397,863 people registered with Ukraine’s health ministry to receive ongoing Chernobyl-related health care. Of these, 453,391 are children — none born at the time of the accident. Their parents were children in 1986. These children have a range of illnesses: respiratory, digestive, musculoskeletal, eye diseases, blood diseases, cancer, congenital malformations, genetic abnormalities, trauma.”

As for Fukushima’s direct impact on Americans that helped at the time of the meltdowns, former Senator John Edwards is representing cancer-ridden sailors who interceded on a humanitarian basis aboard the USS Ronald Reagan. According to Edwards: “We have all these sailors. Sailors whose case is now five years old, who have died or are in the process of dying right now.” Edwards noted that some of his sailor clients have children born with birth defects. (Source: Bianca Bruno, Dying Navy Sailors Push for Trial on Fukushima Meltdown, Courthouse News.com, September 1, 2017).

Attorney Charles Bonner, representing US service members exposed to Fukushima fallout, Jul 21, 2015 (at 10:45 in on YouTube): We now have a 250+ young sailors with all kinds of illnesses, we’ve had three die. We had one of the sailors who came home and impregnated his wife. They gave birth to a little baby born with brain cancer and cancer down the spine, lived for two years, and just died in March of this year. (Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0zGbG2 ... u.be&t=645)

TEPCO’s attorney Gregory Stone claims his client accepts responsibility for the radiation released but maintains the amount sailors were exposed to was negligible. Stone: “People get sick at different times of their lives for different reasons.”

As people unceremoniously, more times than not anonymously, die from radiation exposure, the Abe administration keeps a tight lid on the reality and the potency of Fukushima Daiichi radiation. And, when faced with the prospect of not knowing what to do, bring on the Olympics! That’s pretty good cover for a messy situation, making it appear to hundreds of thousands of attendees, as well as to the world community “all is well.”
But, is it really?

Postscript: “These sailors are supposed to be very healthy. It’s not a normal situation. It is unbelievable that just in four or five years that these healthy sailors would become sick… I think that both the U.S. and Japanese government have something to hide.” Former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan 2001-06 quoted in New York Times 12/31/2016.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/11/24 ... -part-two/
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
User avatar
seemslikeadream
 
Posts: 32090
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2005 11:28 pm
Location: into the black
Blog: View Blog (83)

Re: Nuclear Meltdown Watch

Postby seemslikeadream » Sat Dec 30, 2017 1:11 pm

Fears of another Fukushima as Tepco plans to restart world's biggest nuclear plant

Justin McCurry
Wed 27 Dec ‘17 21.00 EST

If a single structure can define a community, for the 90,000 residents of Kashiwazaki town and the neighbouring village of Kariwa, it is the sprawling nuclear power plant that has dominated the coastal landscape for more than 40 years.

When all seven of its reactors are in operation, Kashiwazaki-kariwa generates 8.2m kilowatts of electricity – enough to power 16m households. Occupying 4.2 sq km of land along the Japan Sea coast, it is the biggest nuclear power plant in the world.

But today, the reactors at Kashiwazaki-kariwa are idle. The plant in Niigata prefecture, about 140 miles (225km) north-west of the capital, is the nuclear industry’s highest-profile casualty of the nationwide atomic shutdown that followed the March 2011 triple meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi.

The company at the centre of the disaster has encountered anger over its failure to prevent the catastrophe, its treatment of tens of thousands of evacuated residents and its haphazard attempts to clean up its atomic mess.

Now, the same utility, Tokyo Electric Power [Tepco], is attempting to banish its Fukushima demons with a push to restart two reactors at Kashiwazaki-kariwa, one of its three nuclear plants. Only then, it says, can it generate the profits it needs to fund the decommissioning of Fukushima Daiichi and win back the public trust it lost in the wake of the meltdown.

This week, Japan’s nuclear regulation authority gave its formal approval for Tepco to restart the Kashiwazaki-kariwa’s No. 6 and 7 reactors – the same type of boiling-water reactors that suffered meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi.

After a month of public hearings, the nuclear regulation authority concluded that Tepco was fit to run a nuclear power plant and said the two reactors met the stricter safety standards introduced after the 2011 disaster.

Just before that decision, Tepco gave the Guardian an exclusive tour of what it claims will be the safest nuclear plant in the world.

Now, as on the day of the triple disaster that brought widespread destruction to Japan’s northeast coast, Kashiwazaki-kariwa has the look of a working nuclear plant. Just over 1,000 Tepco staff and 5,000-6,000 contract workers provide the manpower behind a post-Fukushima safety retrofit that is projected to cost 680 billion yen ($6.1bn).


They have built a 15-metre-high seawall that, according to Tepco, can withstand the biggest tsunami waves. In the event of a meltdown, special vents would keep 99.9% of released radioactive particles out of the atmosphere, and corium shields would block molten fuel from breaching the reactors’ primary containment vessels. Autocatalytic recombiners have been installed to prevent a repeat of the hydrogen explosions that rocked four of Fukushima Daiichi’s reactors.

Other parts of the sprawling complex are home to fleets of emergency vehicles, water cannon, back-up power generators, and a hilltop reservoir whose 20,000 tonnes of water will be drawn to cool reactors in the event of a catastrophic meltdown.

“As the operator responsible for the Fukushima accident, we’re committed to learning lessons, revisiting what went wrong and implementing what we learned here at Kashiwazaki-kariwa, says the plant’s chief, Chikashi Shitara. “We are always looking at ways to improve safety.

“Because of our experience at Fukushima, we’re committed to not making the same mistakes again – to make the safety regime even stronger. That’s what we have to explain to members of the public.”

‘This is no place for a nuclear power plant’

The public, however, is far from convinced. Last year, the people of Niigata prefecture registered their opposition to the utility’s plans by electing Ryuichi Yoneyama, an anti-nuclear candidate, as governor. Exit polls showed that 73% of voters opposed restarting the plant, with just 27% in favour.

Yoneyama has said that he won’t make a decision on the restarts, scheduled for spring 2019, until a newly formed committee has completed its report into the causes and consequences of the Fukushima disaster - a process that could take at least three years.

For many residents, the plant’s location renders expensive safety improvements irrelevant. “Geologically speaking, this is no place for a nuclear power plant,” says Kazuyuki Takemoto, a retired local councillor and a lifelong anti-nuclear activist.

Takemoto cites instability caused by the presence of underground oil and gas deposits in the area, and evidence that the ground on which Tepco’s seawall stands is prone to liquefaction in the event of a major earthquake.

Local critics have pointed to the chaos that could result from attempting to evacuate the 420,000 people who live within a 30km radius of Kashiwazaki-kariwa. “That’s more people than lived near Fukushima, plus we get very heavy snowfall here, which would make evacuating everyone impossible,” Takemoto adds. “The situation would be far worse than it was in Fukushima.”

Adding to their concerns are the presence of seismic faults in and around the site, which sustained minor damage during a magnitude-6.6 offshore earthquake in 2007. Two active faults – defined by nuclear regulators as one that has moved any time within the last 400,000 years – run beneath reactor No. 1.

But for Tepco, a return to nuclear power generation is a matter of financial necessity, with the utility standing to gain up to ¥200 billion in annual profits by restarting the two reactors at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa.

Workers at Kashiwazaki-kariwa nuclear power plant in Niigata Prefecture, Japan.
Workers at Kashiwazaki-kariwa nuclear power plant in Niigata Prefecture, Japan. Photograph: Justin McCurry for the Guardian
The bill for decommissioning Fukushima Daiichi, decontaminating neighbourhoods and compensating residents affected by the meltdown could reach 21.5tr yen [$191bn], according to government estimates. That is on top of the money the firm is spending on importing expensive fossil fuels to fill the vacuum left by the nuclear shutdown.

Earlier this year, the Japan Centre for Economic Research said the total cost of the four-decade Fukushima cleanup – including the disposal of radioactive waste from the plant’s three damaged reactors – could soar to between 50-70tr yen.

“As Tepco’s president and our general business plan have made clear, restarting the reactors here is very important to us as a company,” says Shitara.

Much is at stake, too, for Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, who has put an ambitious return to nuclear power generation at the centre of his energy policy. His government wants nuclear to provide about 20 percent Japan’s electricity by 2030 – a move that would require the restart of about 30 reactors.

Of the country’s 48 operable reactors, only four are currently online. Several others have passed stringent new safety tests introduced in the wake of Fukushima, but restarts have encountered strong local opposition.

As part of the restart process, people across Japan were recently invited to submit their opinions on the Kashiwazaki-kariwa restart and Tepco’s suitability as a nuclear operator.

Kiyoto Ishikawa, from the plant’s public relations department, insists Tepco has learned the lessons of Fukushima. “Before 3-11 we were arrogant and had stopped improving safety,” he said. “The earthquake was a wake-up call. We now know that improving safety is a continuous process.”

The firm’s assurances were dismissed by Yukiko Kondo, a Kariwa resident, who said the loss of state subsidies if the plant were to remain permanently idle was a sacrifice worth making if it meant giving local people peace of mind.

“Tepco caused the 2011 accident, so there is no way I would ever support restarting nuclear reactors here,” she said. “They kept telling us that Fukushima Daiichi was perfectly safe – and look what happened.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/ ... lear-plant
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
User avatar
seemslikeadream
 
Posts: 32090
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2005 11:28 pm
Location: into the black
Blog: View Blog (83)

Re: Nuclear Meltdown Watch

Postby seemslikeadream » Sat Jan 27, 2018 4:17 pm

Fukushima operator releases fresh images of reactor wreckage
20 January 2018 - 13:07
BY AFP

Images captured by the camera show rubble spread over the bottom of Fukushima's damaged reactor, including part of a fuel container and rock-like fragments that could contain melted nuclear fuel.
Image: Rianne Teule via Twitter
The operator of Fukushima's crippled nuclear power plant has released fresh images of the wreckage inside a damaged reactor, showing broken metal parts and debris that could be melted fuel.

Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) inserted a special camera into one of the plant's three melted-down reactors on Friday, a company spokesman said, as part of its efforts to dismantle the disaster-hit facility in northeastern Japan.

Images captured by the camera and released late Friday show rubble spread over the bottom of the unit, including part of a fuel container and rock-like fragments that could contain melted nuclear fuel.

Locating fuel debris is a key part of the plant's decommissioning process, which is expected to take decades.

Fuel removal device installed at meltdown-hit Fukushima reactor

Workers at Japan's crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have installed a device to remove nuclear fuel from a meltdown-hit reactor nearly ...
NEWS 2 months ago
Due to extremely high radiation levels, TEPCO has struggled to inspect the reactors which melted down when the plant was hit by a huge tsunami in March 2011.

However it has recently succeeded in using cameras to visually monitor inside the units, last year releasing similar pictures of suspected fuel debris at the No. 3 reactor.

"The success in taking the latest pictures was another milestone for our decommissioning process," the spokesman told AFP, adding that the operator plans to begin removing the debris in 2021.

A massive undersea earthquake on March 11, 2011 sent a tsunami barrelling into Japan's northeast coast, leaving more than 18,000 people dead or missing and sparking the Fukushima crisis, the worst such accident since Chernobyl in 1986.

The government has said that it expects total costs for decommissioning, decontamination and compensation to reach 21.5-trillion yen.
https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/world/ ... -wreckage/


Fukushima heroes on both sides of the Pacific still fighting effects of radiation, stress and guilt

Following the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami of 2011, selfless Japanese workers battled nuclear-reactor meltdown, and thousands of US troops provided disaster relief. Today, many are counting the cost to their mental and physical health

Rob Gilhooly25 Jan 2018
A member of the Fukushima 50 (left) is given a radiation check. Picture: Rob Gilhooly
By

24 Jan 2018

Christmas Day saw dozens of masked men descend on Futaba, in the northeast of Japan’s main island of Honshu. They moved deliberately along deserted streets, clearing triffid-like undergrowth and preparing to demolish derelict buildings. Their arrival marked the beginning of an estimated four-year government-led project to clean up Futaba, which has succumbed to nature since its residents deserted almost seven years ago.

Futaba is one of two towns (the other being neighbouring Okuma) on which sits the 350-hectare Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, which experienced multiple reactor meltdowns and explosions in March 2011, contaminating huge swathes of land and forcing the evacuation of 160,000 residents – all the result of the magnitude-nine undersea Tohoku earthquake and the devastating mega-tsunami that hit on March 11, claiming up to 21,000 lives.

Despite 96 per cent of Futaba still being officially designated as uninhabitable due to high radiation levels, the government has set spring 2022 as the return date for its 6,000 or so residents. That the government has also built a 1,600-hectare facility to store up to 22 million cubic metres of nuclear waste in the town has led to doubts that many will return.

“I find it difficult to believe anyone would want to go back,” says Ryuta Idogawa, 33, a former employee at Fukushima Daiichi operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco), and one of the so-called “Fukushima 50” – a hardcore of station workers who remained on-site after 750 others had been evacuated, battling to bring the melting reactors under control at great risk to their own safety.

“They say time heals,” Idogawa adds, “but that depends how deep the wounds are.”

A tsunami survivor sits on the flattened remains of her former home. Picture: Rob GilhoolyA tsunami survivor sits on the flattened remains of her former home. Picture: Rob Gilhooly

On the other side of the world, members of a different and larger group of people than the Fukushima 50 are suffering health problems, ostensibly as a result of the disaster. For more than seven weeks following the catastrophe, the United States mounted a massive disaster relief mission, dubbed Operation Tomodachi (the Japanese word means “friend”). The initiative directly or indirectly involved 24,000 US service personnel, 189 aircraft and 24 naval ships, at a total cost US$90 million.

While the mission was lauded a success by the US and Japanese governments, during Operation Tomodachi, thousands of US sailors were inadvertently exposed to a plume of radiation that passed over their ships, which were anchored off the Pacific coast of Japan. Since then, several hundred have developed life-changing illnesses, such as degenerative diseases, tumours and leukaemia, and defects have been detected in foetuses of some pregnant women. All are a result, they claim, of being irradiated by the plume.

The sailors, however, knew nothing of their exposure and were literally marinated in the radiation

According to one report, 24 sailors, who were in their late teens or 20s at the time, are living with a variety of cancers. At least six have died since 2011, while others suffer post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

“Unlike the nuclear plant workers, these sailors had no protective clothing, in fact some of them literally had no shirts on their backs because they had given all their clothing away to people they saved from the tsunami waves,” says Charles Bonner, a lawyer at one of three law offices representing 402 sailors who have filed a US$5 billion lawsuit against Tepco and General Electric Co, a suit that has been given the go-ahead to be heard in a US federal court. (Fukushima Daiichi’s Reactor No. 1 – the plant’s oldest reactor – was built by American manufacturer General Electric Co.)

“And because they had given away all their bottled water to tsunami survivors, they were drinking desalinated water that also had been contaminated,” Bonner continues. “I do not doubt the psychological impact of the disasters on the plant workers, but at least they had masks and protective clothing, as required by law. The sailors, however, knew nothing of their exposure and were literally marinated in the radiation.”

The legal teams of Bonner and the other two lawyers representing the US sailors – Paul Garner and former US senator John Edwards – declined this reporter’s requests for interviews with those they are representing, claiming that the experiences and the conditions the veterans are facing “are very emotional and difficult to discuss”.

Some sailors have spoken of their ordeal, however, and in November, two gave accounts of their alleged afflictions to Courthouse News Service, a California-based media provider largely subscribed to by law firms in the US.

Nathan Piekutowski was a marine aboard the USS Essex at the time of the relief mission. He was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia less than two years later. “The type of leukaemia I had usually is something you get later in life,” Piekutowski, now 26, said. “Early onset can be caused from being around certain types of chemicals.”

Another plaintiff, naval officer Angel Torres, one of 5,500 sailors and marines aboard nuclear-powered super-carrier USS Ronald Reagan, said he had suffered two hernias, loss of libido and PTSD since taking part in Operation Tomodachi. Torres had also exhibited symptoms of multiple sclerosis, though medical tests for that disease had come up negative.

Torres described “an eerie feeling” that came over him when the Ronald Reagan passed through the radioactive plume, which appeared like “a gray smoke”. Once the sailors realised what it was, a sense of confusion and panic set in, he said.

One the Fukushima 50 undergoes a radiation check. Picture: Rob GilhoolyOne the Fukushima 50 undergoes a radiation check. Picture: Rob Gilhooly

Back in Japan, Idogawa is no stranger to confusion and panic. Employed as an operator in the central control room at Fukushima Daiichi, which lost all power following the earthquake and the tsunami, he and his colleagues waged a knife-edge battle to bring the melting reactors under control. As they did so over the weeks that followed, fear and anxiety took their toll – a toll which Idogawa still lives with.

I could hardly breathe. I thought, ‘Oh My God! I’m going to die’

The earliest signs of his ongoing battle with mental illness became apparent in the spring of 2011, Idogawa says, not long after his parents had been relocated from their Futaba home to a town just north of Tokyo. He recalls a sense of panic overwhelming him as he was boarding a train bound for the capital. The carriage walls seemed to close in around him and fellow passengers began to stare.

“I was sweating, but I felt really cold, and my heart was racing, faster and faster,” Idogawa says. “I could hardly breathe. I thought, ‘Oh My God! I’m going to die.’”

Mental afflictions are not unusual among Fukushima plant workers, experts say. According to one study, all 1,500 Tepco workers surveyed had experienced a variety of stress-causing ailments relating to their direct experiences of the disasters, losses of loved ones or the backlash from a disgruntled public, in particular residents who were evacuated.

Around 30 per cent of workers at the plant subsequently displayed high post traumatic stress responses (PTSR), including flashbacks and avoidance of reminders of the terrifying events they experienced, according to lead researcher Jun Shigemura, an associate professor at Japan’s National Defense Medical University’s department of psychiatry.

Shigemura and a team of other experts continued to survey workers in the years after the disasters and found the overall influence of disaster-related experiences on workers has decreased, but remains high. “For some workers, this is going to continue for a long time – probably years and decades,” says Shigemura, who specialises in the mental health of disaster workers.

Following the Chernobyl nuclear accident of 1986, scientists assumed that cancers and other malignant disorders would be the biggest health risk, but long-term mental health issues turned out to be more prevalent, Shigemura says. “I think we can say with some confidence that the Fukushima workers, too, are at very high risk of developing long-term mental health issues,” he adds.

Jun Shigemura of Japan’s National Defense Medical College's department of psychiatry. Picture: Rob GilhoolyJun Shigemura of Japan’s National Defense Medical College's department of psychiatry. Picture: Rob Gilhooly

A graduate of Toden Gakuen, Tepco’s now defunct training academy, Idogawa had lived and breathed the utility’s doctrine since he was 15 years old. That dogma centred as much around technical excellence as it did on corporate group identity and loyalty, and those who conformed to it were rewarded with the kind of salaries that placed them among the elite in their communities.

On the day of the disasters, Idogawa was resting at his Futaba home, having worked a night shift the previous day. Even before the Earth’s violent convulsions had subsided, he was racing at his own volition towards the plant, arriving there just before the 15-metre tsunami engulfed the facility.

As one of the plant’s key operators, his day-to-day duties included scrutinising instrumentation that monitored Reactor No 1. By the time he joined the on-duty team of operators, the tsunami had extinguished all available power sources, plunging the control room, which monitored Reactors No. 1 and 2, into darkness and disarray.

With monitoring apparatus also dependent on power, there was no way of knowing if coolants were reaching the reactor cores. Believing this to be unlikely, Idogawa calculated that the reactors had probably started to melt as early as midnight. Portable monitoring devices showed radiation levels inside the control room were rapidly climbing.

Over the next three days, he remained inside the control room, not knowing the fate of his loved ones, as he struggled to cope with meltdowns and reactor explosions.

On March 14, Idogawa was ordered aboard a company bus bound for Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Plant, which had faired better than its older neighbour and had been designated an off-duty recuperation and medical centre for Daiichi workers. During that 10km journey, his focus slowly shifted to the outside world, which had a distinctly fishbowl appearance through his full-face mask.

At one point he looked out of the window and saw a man, wearing no protective clothing, walking his dog like it was just another ordinary day.

“I wanted to shout out to him,” says Idogawa, “to get inside away from the high radiation.”

Checking for radioactive contamination aboard USS Ronald Reagan during Operation Tomodachi. Picture: US NavyChecking for radioactive contamination aboard USS Ronald Reagan during Operation Tomodachi. Picture: US Navy

The US Navy has stated that most of the plume of radioactivity did not deposit on its ships involved in the assistance mission off Japan in 2011, and that “the very low levels” of residual radiation that did “were mitigated and controlled”. It has said in a statement that there was “no indication” that any US personnel supporting Operation Tomodachi experienced radiation exposure “at levels associated with the occurrence of long-term health effects”.

A study published by Britain’s Royal Society in late 2017 that revisits the issue of the health effects of radiation was equally dismissive. The report, which was conducted by experts from multiple research facilities worldwide, including the Centre for Radiation Protection Research at Stockholm University and Oxford University’s Oxford Martin School, concluded that the only health issues brought about by Fukushima to date resulted from “the effects of the evacuations, continued displacement [of evacuees] and fear of radiation”.

However, there would be “no other discernible increase in ill-health attributable to radiation exposure […] in either emergency workers or members of the public”, although it was unclear if there would be a “detectable excess” in thyroid cancer cases in coming years.

One of the authors of the report, Imperial College London cancer specialist Geraldine Thomas, says this was also true for the US sailors, whose exposure doses aboard the boats, which were officially reported to be anchored 100 miles (160km) northeast of the plant, would have been “insignificant”.

“I don’t think there’s a case there at all from a scientific point of view,” says Thomas, who also oversees the Chernobyl Tissue Bank, which stores biomaterials from patients with thyroid lesions directly resulting from the Ukrainian disaster. “Any ill effects, such as cancers, for example, would not show so quickly. It would be much longer than just a few years.”

Takeshi Tanigawa, professor of public health at Juntendo University. Picture: Rob GilhoolyTakeshi Tanigawa, professor of public health at Juntendo University. Picture: Rob Gilhooly

The pseudonym “Fukushima 50” was coined by the overseas – not the Japanese – media, and the workers were internationally admired for their bravery, discipline and sense of duty. There were, in fact, significantly more than 50, and CNN regularly called them “heroes”; Britain’s Guardian newspaper opined that the world “can only look on in admiration”.

In Hong Kong, a group of posters on the popular HKGolden online forum rewrote and dedicated Cantonese and Japanese lyrics for a Cantopop song to the workers, calling it Martyr of Fukushima – Tribute to the Fukushima 50.

As one of them, Idogawa worked shifts for months, battling reactor meltdowns and recuperating at the Fukushima Daini plant or, like other workers, at new homes outside a 20km exclusion zone. Idogawa’s new lodgings were 90km away, in Koriyama City.

With nothing to do but await his next shift, his mind wandered to, among other things, the man walking his dog, and the tens of thousands of residents like him who had been forced to flee their homes as invisible radioactive substances fell on their land. He began to suffer stomach cramps and chronic insomnia and depression, and turned to the only thing he could think of that would help him sleep and wash away the unwelcome images in his head: alcohol.

“I felt bad for those people, like it was my fault,” he says. “As a member of Tepco, I thought I was to blame.”

Though their frequency has decreased, Idogawa continues to suffer panic attacks. One cause of this condition, he believes, is the sense of guilt: that he was powerless to prevent the devastating nuclear accident that occurred during his shift. “At the beginning, I wasn’t even aware of my condition, or I felt somehow separate from it,” he says. “Looking back, maybe I was hiding it, or hiding from it.”

For their bravery and civic duty, the Fukushima 50 have been rewarded with something close to ostracism

Self-criticism has been major contributor to mental illnesses among plant workers, according to Takeshi Tanigawa, a professor of public health at Jutendo University’s graduate school of medicine, who has been involved in mental health surveys of workers. So, too, has the continuing criticism by residents, a reflection, says Tanigawa, of a tendency in Japan to closely associate employees with the company they work for.

“Whereas in a Western context military personnel and disaster workers are considered heroes, in Japan, even if nuclear plant workers put their lives on the line to save others, that’s seen as a matter of course,” Shigemura says. “There’s no show of appreciation: only criticism.”

A 2013 editorial in the Guardian made a similar point, stating, “In any other country, the workers who tried to prevent the plant from going into total meltdown would have been heroes […] For their bravery and civic duty, the Fukushima 50 have been rewarded with something close to ostracism.”

“We found that those who have experienced such criticism and discrimination have a high degree of psychological distress, or PTSR – more than two times higher than controls,” Tanigawa says, adding that with 80 per cent of workers being local hires, the criticism sometimes came from friends and relatives, making it even more difficult to take.

Alcohol abuse, increased smoking and obesity are prevalent among workers surveyed, he says.

Idogawa’s radiation exposure levels were in excess of acceptable levels by the time he quit Tepco in January 2012. His resignation was out of protest for the utility’s poor treatment of workers – who were mostly local hires and therefore victims, too – and the government’s announcement the previous month that the plant had been brought “under control”, which was at odds with what he saw.

Despite his disgruntlement, Idogawa is hopeful that his former employer will implement measures to monitor and treat mental health issues that he believes continue to persist among workers.

When asked to comment on post-accident care of its workers for this article, Tepco said it was unable to provide details due to privacy issues. It did, however, continue to hand out “health check” questionnaires to all personnel, the Tepco spokesperson said.

Shigemura, whose surveys and subsequent treatment of plant workers was brought to an abrupt halt by Tepco in 2015, believes continued “surveillance” of workers is imperative, not least because of the very real possibility of the “delayed onset” of mental illnesses, which have frequently occurred among “survivors” following other historical disasters and conflicts, including some Vietnam war veterans, who only developed such illnesses more than 20 years on, triggered, says Shigemura, by the start of the Gulf war.

Bags of radiation-contaminated soil stacked at a temporary storage zone in 2013. Picture: Rob GilhoolyBags of radiation-contaminated soil stacked at a temporary storage zone in 2013. Picture: Rob Gilhooly

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Pacific, lawyer Bonner says that while his team represents more than 400 sailors, there were a further 69,600 American citizens – military and civilian – potentially affected by the radiation, and who have yet to join the class lawsuit.

He also expresses indignation at the Royal Society study and the viewpoint of cancer expert Thomas, insisting that the health of the young US service men and women aboard the ships was endangered and in many cases compromised by Operation Tomodachi. “[The sailors] were certified by the Navy as healthy and fit, so why are they getting cancer and other illnesses?” he asks. “That can only be because they were exposed to radiation. It can’t just be a coincidence.”

Thomas’ response is that cancers, “regrettably”, like other life-threatening illnesses, are not uncommon in society, and research attempting to tie them irrefutably to the relatively low levels of radiation the sailors would have been exposed to has been inconclusive. Indeed, according to US federal data, new cancer cases total 455 per 100,000 men and women in the US each year.

And while Thomas is doubtful of direct health effects for the sailors, she says psychological disorders, especially among plant workers and first responders, are almost inevitable. “The situation was stressful and quite possibly the mental health problems are due to reacting particularly badly to thoughts relating to radiation.”

The plant workers, who were exposed to much higher radiation than the sailors but show no direct health problems, Thomas adds, could be particularly susceptible.
http://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-maga ... ific-still
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
User avatar
seemslikeadream
 
Posts: 32090
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2005 11:28 pm
Location: into the black
Blog: View Blog (83)

Re: Nuclear Meltdown Watch

Postby identity » Sun Jan 28, 2018 10:48 pm

http://consciousnessunbound.blogspot.ca/2018/01/ufos-and-nukes.html
UFOs and Nukes
Wednesday, January 24, 2018

Above is the title of a film available on Netflix and of a book by the same person, Robert Hastings. The film has momentous significance for life on earth, if what it reports is true. The documentation, witnesses interviewed, and footage that appears are very difficult to dismiss. The major point of the film, and of the book, is not just that UFOs, or close encounters with them, are real.

The claim is that UFOs from the beginning have been concerned with the creation, testing, and storage of nuclear weaponry. The most astonishing reports claim that on several occasions American nuclear technical operations have been disabled by UFOs. Similar reports of UFOs interacting with Russian nuclear operations are presented.

The main idea that comes across is the presence of an extraterrestrial power and intelligence that has monitored and tried to temper the growth of atomic weapon systems. Needless to say, if this story is true, the government is guilty of concealing information of grave significance. The book is 603 pages. The film is packed with history, interviews and witness after witness of UFO events centered around nuclear installations.

It looks as if a technology of extraterrestrial origins is trying to prevent us from committing nuclear suicide. It doesn’t seem to be succeeding. John Mack, the Pulitzer-prize winning psychiatrist, worked with hundreds of people (from all walks of life) who claimed being abducted by aliens and subjected to a transformation process. The UFO encounter, according to Mack, involved a transformation of consciousness, the necessary step needed to avert nuclear suicide.

My view of UFOs is that they are not spacecraft travelling across galaxies, but entities and scenes erupting into our consciousness from another dimension or by means unknown to us of tunneling through space and time. There does seem, along with this super technology, an apparently benign intent.

Meanwhile, the government, according to Hastings’ witnesses, has systematically covered up, denied, and misinformed the public about the reality of UFOs and their connection with the nuclear weapons industry. The evidence is also available in Leslie Kean’s UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials. The sub-title is the point. The evidence is based on the best types of testimony that one could expect for UFO encounters. Kean states that the recurrent connection between UFO activities and nuclear weapon sites may provide the key to understanding the modern UFO phenomenon.

John Keel, Jacques Vallee, and others have remarked on the UFO-Marian vision connection. An artist friend of mine went to Medjugorge out of curiosity and saw a UFO—a geometric light-structure—not the Virgin. Other witnesses agreed with her, but at first were shy to describe what they saw. It is just possible that UFOs represent an agency that projects images at certain times into the consciousness of people in crisis, in tune with the religious symbols of the culture.

Experience breeds receptivity. I had a memorable encounter with a UFO in Greenwich Village on Bedford Street, witnessed also by my girlfriend and my neighbor. We were listening to John Coltrane’s “The Father, The Son, and the Holy Ghost” one clear April evening when we looked out the sixth-floor window and saw a cluster of lights in the sky dancing, it seemed, in rhythm with Trane’s music. After a few seconds, the lights shot to the top of the dome of Our Lady of Pompeii, a few blocks north: there the lights pulsed and beamed briefly, then bolted north at super speed, vanishing over the Empire State building. Astonished, we ran one flight up to the roof where we met our open-mouthed neighbor who had seen the same thing we saw, noting, breathlessly, the entity’s utter silence.

This experience shook up my worldview. I felt with certainty that the intelligence cavorting in the air outside our window was in tune with Trane and aware of us, and to prove it, went to the dome of Our Lady of Pompeii, clearly connecting with Trane’s title, “The Father, the Sun, and the Holy Ghost.” The aftereffect of this encounter was electrifying, and coincidentally, I had just turned my neighbor (his name was Louie) on to the music of John Coltrane.

I never forgot the sensation of having made contact with an intelligence of unknown origins. The effect felt benign (I saw images of mirth and amity). In a way, the improbable events came about because of the music. I wonder if it put us into a state of mind that somehow attracted, made us more receptive, or linked us to the light intelligence, whatever it was.

So back to the shocking idea that an intelligence transcending the military abilities of the world’s powerful nations has been observing, interacting, and trying to counter the risk of global nuclear suicide—a risk that is higher today than any time during the Cold War.

In her new book, Sleepwalking to Armageddon, physician Helen Caldicott castigates world leaders for ignoring the growing nuclear peril (for the evidence, read her book).

Regarding the vulture corporations that stand to profit from nuclear anxiety, she writes: “America also plans to spend $1 trillion over the next thirty years, replacing every single hydrogen bomb, submarine, ship missile and airplane.” This use of the nation’s wealth is proof of the moral insanity of the American empire. Season with statements and threats from the White House that reveal a new readiness to deploy atomic weapons. Not a happy picture.

Since world leaders are apparently sleepwalking through history, one can at least fantasize about some benign forestalling of nuclear Armageddon. But it is a fantasy—and this makes it interesting—grounded in matters of startling fact.
We should never forget Galileo being put before the Inquisition.
It would be even worse if we allowed scientific orthodoxy to become the Inquisition.

Richard Smith, Editor in Chief of the British Medical Journal 1991-2004,
in a published letter to Nature
identity
 
Posts: 707
Joined: Fri Mar 20, 2015 5:00 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Nuclear Meltdown Watch

Postby Grizzly » Mon Jan 29, 2018 12:05 pm

^^^^ not on netflix ... to my disappointment.
“The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we are doing it.”

― Joseph mengele
User avatar
Grizzly
 
Posts: 4722
Joined: Wed Oct 26, 2011 4:15 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Nuclear Meltdown Watch

Postby Iamwhomiam » Mon Jan 29, 2018 12:40 pm

User avatar
Iamwhomiam
 
Posts: 6572
Joined: Thu Sep 27, 2007 2:47 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Nuclear Meltdown Watch

Postby Cordelia » Mon Jan 29, 2018 4:53 pm

^^^

Iamwhomiam:
Image

:thumbsup
The greatest sin is to be unconscious. ~ Carl Jung

We may not choose the parameters of our destiny. But we give it its content. ~ Dag Hammarskjold 'Waymarks'
User avatar
Cordelia
 
Posts: 3697
Joined: Sun Oct 11, 2009 7:07 pm
Location: USA
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Nuclear Meltdown Watch

Postby identity » Mon Jan 29, 2018 6:45 pm

^^ Thanks for providing the youtube link, Iam!
We should never forget Galileo being put before the Inquisition.
It would be even worse if we allowed scientific orthodoxy to become the Inquisition.

Richard Smith, Editor in Chief of the British Medical Journal 1991-2004,
in a published letter to Nature
identity
 
Posts: 707
Joined: Fri Mar 20, 2015 5:00 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Nuclear Meltdown Watch

Postby seemslikeadream » Mon Feb 19, 2018 3:58 pm

Japan to start nuclear cleanup of Fukushima town around May

February 15, 2018 (Mainichi Japan)


In this July 27, 2017 file photo, contaminated water storage tanks are seen on the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant grounds, in Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture. (Mainichi)
TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Nuclear decontamination work using state funds will begin around May in Namie, a town in northeastern Japan hit hard by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, to make some of its most-contaminated areas habitable again, the government said Thursday.

The government is seeking to lift an evacuation order for three areas in the town, covering about 660 hectares, by March 2023.

The order currently covers about 80 percent of Namie in Fukushima Prefecture, and the areas to be decontaminated make up some 3.7 percent of it where entry is prohibited in principle.

On Dec. 22, the government approved a plan submitted by the town to rebuild the areas affected by meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Similar rebuilding efforts have been underway in the neighboring town of Futaba since December and are also scheduled to begin in the town of Okuma in March.

For Namie, the first round of work covers some 30 hectares of land.

On March 11, 2011, a tsunami inundated the six-reactor plant located in Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture, and flooded the power supply facilities.

Reactor cooling systems were crippled and the Nos. 1 to 3 reactors suffered fuel meltdowns in the world's worst nuclear catastrophe since the 1986 Chernobyl disaste
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20 ... dm/069000c


February 17, 2018 11:00 am JST
Inside a meltdown-hit Fukushima reactor building
Seven years on, Tepco aims to pull fuel out of Unit 3's rubble-strewn pool

SHIORI GOSO, Nikkei staff writer

A crane and dome-shaped roof have been erected on the top floor of Fukushima Daiichi's No. 3 building, in preparation for removing rods and rubble from the spent fuel pool. (Photo by Shinya Sawai)
FUKUSHIMA, Japan -- As the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster unfolded in March 2011, a hydrogen explosion ripped through the No. 3 reactor unit. Nearly seven years on, steel framing and other debris still litter the spent fuel pool, along with 566 fuel rods.

The painstaking process of removing the rods is expected to begin sometime in the fiscal year that starts in April. The fuel extraction will be a first for reactor Nos. 1-3 at the Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings facility, which was crippled by the earthquake and tsunami that hit northeastern Japan.



On Feb. 8, reporters from The Nikkei were allowed into the No. 3 building to get a sense of the work that awaits.

A 20-minute bus ride from the town of Tomioka took us to Fukushima Daiichi. After donning masks and protective clothing, we walked toward Unit 3. An elevator slowly lifted us to the top floor of the building, about 36 meters up. There, a crane for moving the spent rods stood ready, wrapped in plastic sheeting. We peered down into the pool but could not see the fuel, which lies under 4 to 5 meters of water.


The crane outside Unit 3: The equipment for extracting the fuel will be controlled remotely. (Photo by Shinya Sawai)
Large slabs of rubble that fell into the pool have been removed, but smaller pieces remain.

Other decontamination work is proceeding gradually. Radiation on the top floor was measured as high as 2,000 millisieverts per hour in the disaster's immediate aftermath, but now it is less than 1 millisievert.

Still, caution is a must. Near the pool, our dosimeters displayed relatively high readings of up to 0.7 of a millisievert per hour. "The reading has climbed, so let's leave for now," a Tepco supervisor said. As we moved on, we frequently checked to ensure our exposure would not exceed 0.1 of a millisievert a day.


Debris remains in Unit 3's spent fuel pool. (Photo by Shinya Sawai)
Spent fuel has been removed from reactor No. 4, which was not operating when the tsunami hit the plant. But the job will be a challenge at the meltdown-stricken Unit 3. The rods and rubble will be extracted with heavy equipment operated remotely, from a separate administrative building.

While it normally takes about two weeks to remove spent fuel, Tepco intends to proceed carefully over the course of two years.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Japan-Update/In ... r-building
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
User avatar
seemslikeadream
 
Posts: 32090
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2005 11:28 pm
Location: into the black
Blog: View Blog (83)

Re: Nuclear Meltdown Watch

Postby seemslikeadream » Fri Mar 09, 2018 1:21 pm

7 Years on, Sailors Exposed to Fukushima Radiation Seek Their Day in Court

Special investigation: US military personnel are sick and dying, and want the nuclear plant’s designers and owners to take responsibility.

By Gregg LevineTwitter Today 9:00 am

Sailors aboard the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan scrub the flight deck to remove potential radiation contamination on March 23, 2011. (Reuters / US Navy / Nicholas A. Groesch)
At over 1,000 feet in length and weighing roughly 100,000 tons, the USS Ronald Reagan, a supercarrier in the United States Navy’s Seventh Fleet, is not typically thought of as a speedboat. But on a March day in 2011, the Nimitz-class ship was “hauling ass,” according to Petty Officer Third Class Lindsay Cooper.

Yet, when the Reagan got closer to its destination, just off the Sendai coast in northeastern Japan, it slowed considerably.

“You could hardly see the water,” Cooper told me. “All you saw was wood, trees, and boats. The ship stopped moving because there was so much debris.”

Even after more then 20 years in the service, Senior Chief Petty Officer Angel Torres said he had “never seen anything like it.” Torres, then 41, was conning, or navigating, the Reagan, and he describes the houses, trucks, and other flotsam around the carrier then as “an obstacle course.” One wrong turn, he worried, “could damage the ship and rip it open.”

The Reagan—along with two dozen other US Navy vessels—was part of Operation Tomodachi (Japanese for “friends”), the $90 million rescue, disaster-relief, and humanitarian mobilization to aid Japan in the immediate aftermath of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. For the sailors, the destruction was horrific—they told me of plucking bodies out of the water, of barely clothed survivors sleeping outside in sub-freezing weather, and of the seemingly endless wreckage—but the response was, at first, something they’d rehearsed.

“We treated it like a normal alert,” Cooper said. “We do drills for [these] scenarios. We went into that mode.” She and her approximately 3,200 shipmates moved food, water, and clothing from below to the flight deck where it could be put on helicopters and flown to the stricken residents.

But that sense of routine soon changed.

Current Issue

“All of the sudden, this big cloud engulfs us,” Torres said. “It wasn’t white smoke, like you would see from a steam leak,” he explained, but it also wasn’t like the black smoke he saw from the burning oil fields during his deployment in Kuwait in 1991. “It was like something I’d never seen before.”

Cooper was outside with her team, on the flight deck, prepping before the start of reconnaissance flights. She remembers it was cold and snowing when she felt, out of nowhere, a dense gust of warm air. “Almost immediately,” she said, “I felt like my nose was bleeding.”

But her nose wasn’t bleeding. Nor was there blood in her mouth, though Cooper was sure she tasted it. It felt, she said, “like I was licking aluminum foil.”

On March 11, 2011, at 2:46 pm local time, a 9.1 magnitude earthquake struck about 40 miles east of Japan’s Oshika Peninsula. The quake, the world’s fourth largest since 1900, devastated northern Honshu, Japan’s main island. At the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, located near the epicenter on the Pacific coast, the temblor damaged cooling systems and cut all electrical power to the station—power that is needed to keep water circulating around the active reactor cores and through pools holding decades of used but still highly radioactive nuclear fuel.

Several of the diesel-powered emergency generators at Daiichi kicked in to restart some of the safety systems, but less than an hour after the earthquake a 43-foot-high wave triggered by the quake swept over the sea wall, flooding the facility, including most of the generators, some of which had been positioned in the basement by the plant’s designer, General Electric.

Without any active cooling system, the heat in the reactor cores began to rise, boiling off the now-stagnant water and exposing the zirconium-clad uranium fuel rods to the air, which set off a series of superheated chemical reactions that split water into its elemental components. Hundreds of workers from Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the station’s owner, struggled valiantly to find a way to circulate water, or at least relieve the pressure now building in the containment vessels of multiple reactors.

But the die was cast by the half-century-old design, with results repeatedly predicted for decades. The pressure continued to build, and over the course of the next two days, despite attempts to vent the containment structures, hydrogen explosions in three reactor buildings shot columns of highly radioactive gas and debris high into the air, spreading contamination that Japan still strains to clean up today.

And yet, despite this destruction and mayhem, proponents of nuclear power can be heard calling Fukushima a qualified success story. After all, despite a pair of massive natural disasters, acolytes say, no one died.

But many of the men and women of the Seventh Fleet would disagree. Now seven years removed from their relief mission, they’d tell you nine people have died as a result of the disaster at Fukushima Daiichi—and all of them are Americans.

For the sailors on the Reagan who have spoken about it, the reaction to encountering the cloud was bewilderment.

“At first, we were still dialed in,” said Torres. “We didn’t really have a chance to take in what we were experiencing. It was more like, ‘Well, this was different.’” But when he came off watch, sitting in his office, his perception changed to “What the hell just happened?”

Cooper described the same response: “We didn’t really know what was going on.” But after about 10 minutes, the crew was told to go below deck. It was there, as she was first learning about the problems at Fukushima Daiichi from the television, that Cooper recalls hearing an announcement on the public-address system indicating that the ship might have been hit by a plume of radiation from the nearby power plant. Shortly thereafter, Cooper said, the mission got “hectic—just kind of a crazy mess.”

Cooper said the crew hadn’t been warned in advance of any radiation risk, and she didn’t think the Reagan’s commanding officers had any foreknowledge either. But after radioactive contamination was suspected, those aboard the carrier say, everything changed.

Everyone who, like Cooper, had been on the flight deck was ordered to the forecastle, the forward part of the ship, to “implement decontamination.” Cooper said she was instructed to “take anything you can off without getting naked.” She was told to write her name on her discarded clothes and boots—which she saw being piled in the middle of the room—then the crew was “wanded,” as Cooper described it, and given “white, plastic painters’ suits.”

For Torres, news of the radiation came through the rumor mill before he heard about it from his commanding officer. “It was minimal”—that was the impression Torres was given—still, the ship’s meteorologist tracked the wind and talked with Torres about taking the Reagan north of whatever it was they’d just passed through. But Torres was soon instructed to head back toward the coast. They had a HADR, a humanitarian assistance and disaster relief mission, to complete, and since they’d already been exposed—though they’d take precautions such as turning off the ship’s ventilation—they were going back to where they’d encountered the cloud.

It was likely about this time that Cooper recalled being woken up. “I was asleep in my rack when I had someone shake the living shit out of me.” She said she was told with great urgency that she needed to get to the hangar bay immediately to get a gas mask.

As Cooper stood in her pajamas and flip-flops, waiting for her mask and filter canisters, she looked around: “People were shoving wet rags in the cracks of the hangar bay door so none of the air would seep through, and they had rags stacked high along the entire wall,” she said. “It was crazy.”

“After that,” Cooper told me, “our ship went from ‘OK, we got this,’ to, like, ‘Oh, my God… we have no idea what we’re doing.’”

For Marine Lance Corporal Nathan Piekutowski—who arrived several days later with the USS Essex, a Wasp-class amphibious-assault ship—there seemed to be some advanced warning, and he said his preparation initially proceeded in an orderly fashion: “They had us shut all the portholes, all the windows, all the doors.” Piekutowski said they attempted to seal off the berthing area and stayed inside while they headed toward Japan. He was issued iodine tablets—which are used to block radioactive iodine, a common byproduct of uranium fission, from being absorbed by the thyroid gland—and fitted for an NBC (nuclear, biological, chemical) suit. He was also told not to drink water from the ship’s desalination system.

(Those I spoke with from the Reagan said they’d filled out consent forms for iodine tablets, but then never received the pills.)

Piekutowski wasn’t particularly troubled by these precautions. He knew they had plenty of bottled water on the ship, and, by the time they were near the coast, they were allowed back on deck with no special protection. “We were never once told to put on our NBC suits.” He had been issued big rubber over-boots and a gas mask along with the suit. “Those were in sealed plastic, like freezer bags,” he told me. “Mine stayed sealed till we got back to Hawaii.”

Torres, the senior petty officer, recounted, “One of the scariest things I’ve heard in my career was when the commanding officer came over the loudspeaker, and she said, ‘We’ve detected high levels of radiation in the drinking water; I’m securing all the water.’” That included making showers off limits.

Torres described a kind of panic as everyone rushed to the ship store to buy up cases of bottled water and Gatorade—“they didn’t want to dehydrate.”

Cooper also remembers the announcement on the water contamination: “We were like, ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’” She was among those trying to buy bottled water, but said it was quickly taken off the shelves—reserved for “humanitarian assistance.” Instead, Cooper said she was told she’d be issued rations of one bottle of water per day. For the long, hard shifts spent outside, Cooper said it was not nearly enough. She said an attitude set in among her shipmates, “We were like, ‘Fuck that, we’re already exposed—I’m gonna drink the water.’”

“We didn’t know how else to handle it,” she told me. “Like, you’re exposed on the flight deck, you’re exposed in the hangar bay, you’re exposed in berthing, you’re exposed walking, you’re exposed eating—congratulations, now you’re drinking it.”

“You’re working up top for like 18 hours, you’re busting your ass off—you need to hydrate.”

Cooper described her days during Operation Tomodachi starting before dawn and ending after 8 pm, with one 30-minute break for lunch, using the bathroom, and any personal business she could squeeze in. “They didn’t want you coming downstairs too many times because it just took too long,” she said, describing a lengthy and isolating decontamination process that was supposed to keep her and about 20 of her shipmates on the flight deck from spreading radioactive contamination to the rest of the carrier. “If you had to go to the bathroom, you were pretty much shit out of luck,” Cooper said of the time and hassle required to get to the women’s restrooms one floor below deck. “A lot of us females had to hold it in—it was miserable.”

The long hours, the short rations, and the unrelenting tableau of death and destruction drifting by the ship combined with the constant reminders that they were exposed to an unknown amount of radioactive contamination wore on the crew. They felt committed to the mission, and gratified to help, but the threat of radiation presented an aggravating obstacle. “Every time we got close to do humanitarian assistance,” said Cooper, “we’d need to dodge another plume.”

Fukushima Daiichi tsunami
A tsunami hits Fukushima Daiichi in Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan, on March 11, 2011. (Reuters / Yomiuri)
Even when operating normally, reactors like the ones designed and built by General Electric at Fukushima Daiichi produce highly radioactive isotopes of noble gases such as xenon and krypton, explained nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen, who encountered the phenomenon when he worked at the Millstone Nuclear Power Plant in Waterford, Connecticut, in the 1970s. Millstone’s first reactor was a GE Mark 1 boiling-water reactor (BWR), the same model that failed at Fukushima. (Millstone 1 ceased operation in 1998; two other reactors of a slightly different design remain in use at the facility.)

But, as detailed by Gundersen—who is now one of the directors of Fairewinds Energy Education, a nuclear-industry watchdog—superheated “cracked fuel,” like that in the crippled Daiichi reactors, “immediately releases noble gases.”

“And that happens before the explosions” that destroyed the three reactor-containment buildings at Fukushima, he said. As Gundersen sets out the time line of the disaster, fuel began to crack within six hours of the earthquake, and TEPCO’s plant operators would have known it. “They had to know,” he told me, “because when the containment pressure started to go up, that was a clear indication that the fuel was failing.”

So, in those early hours, pressure built inside the Mark 1’s containment vessel to a point where it is thought to have broken the seal on the massive metal lid, and, as plant workers desperately tried to vent some of the gas and relieve that pressure, a radioactive plume formed over the coast.

And as the venting failed and the containments on three reactor units ruptured and exploded, a volume of radioactive xenon and krypton estimated to be about triple what was released in the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, wafted from Fukushima Daiichi over the next eight days. “Eighty percent of the radiation went out to sea,” said Gundersen. “That’s good for Japan, but it’s not good for the sailors, that’s for sure.”

Marco Kaltofen, president of Boston Chemical Data Corporation and an engineer with over 30 years of experience investigating environmental and workplace safety, noted that sensors in Richland, Washington, nearly 5,000 miles across the Pacific, saw a sixfold increase in radioactive noble gases in the days after the start of the Fukushima crisis. Chiba, the prefecture east of Tokyo, nearly 200 miles south of Fukushima, recorded radiation levels 400,000 times over background after the explosions.

Closer to the release, Kaltofen figured, would be orders of magnitude worse. “A bad place to be is a couple of miles offshore,” he said.

When told what the sailors experienced in the earliest days of the operation, Gundersen and Kaltofen differ slightly on their interpretations. Gundersen finds symptoms like the metallic taste consistent with the radiation exposure possible from a plume of otherwise odorless xenon or krypton. Kaltofen thinks that indicates exposure to some of the radioactive particulate matter—containing isotopes of cesium, strontium, iodine, and americium—that was sent into the air with the hydrogen explosions. But both believe it speaks to a notable degree of radiation exposure.

Cindy Folkers agreed. Folkers is the radiation-and-health specialist at the clean-energy advocacy group Beyond Nuclear, and when she hears the symptoms reported by the Tomodachi sailors, she hears the telltale signs of radiation exposure. And when told of what those relief workers experienced next, and the speed with which their symptoms manifested, she said she thinks the levels of exposure were higher than some have reported—or many would like to admit.

Just what the two large companies responsible for the design and operation of Fukushima Daiichi—TEPCO and GE—will admit is at the center of a pair of lawsuits currently moving through US courts. Or at least should be, if and when it gets in front of a jury.

“We’re still trying to get to the merits,” attorney John Edwards, the former US senator and Democratic vice-presidential nominee, told me, “because the merits of the case are so strong.” Edwards, along with attorneys Cate Edwards (his daughter) and Charles Bonner, represent what Bonner told me were now upward of 400 sailors who accuse the Japanese utility and the US industrial giant of gross negligence in the design, construction, maintenance, and operation of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, and of deliberately obscuring the radiologic disaster that rapidly unfolded after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

And if that were all there was to it, many who have examined the Fukushima disaster—including the Japanese government’s own investigation, Japan’s prime minister at the start of the crisis, Naoto Kan, and even TEPCO itself—would say the plaintiffs have a point.

Before the first of the Daiichi reactors was brought online (construction began in 1967, and operation commenced in 1971), there were already open concerns about its design and placement. Originally conceived in the 1950s, the General Electric BWR Mark 1 was thought by some of its own designers to have too small a containment structure to survive a prolonged LOOP—a loss of onsite power. The ability to adequately vent the containment was also called into question, as was the resilience of the containment vessel’s metal alloy. In 1976, three GE engineers who had worked on the Mark 1 quit to protest the manufacturer’s lack of urgency in addressing flaws they said would cause reactor containment to fail in a loss-of-cooling accident.

In readying the site for Fukushima Daiichi, TEPCO opted to cut down the natural 115-foot sea wall, to less than 33 feet, to reduce construction costs and make it easier to access seawater for cooling. The emergency cooling systems were also placed close to shore and did not use submersible pumps. That whole facility was placed behind what was originally only a 13-foot-high sea wall (later raised to nearly 19 feet), despite evidence that eight tsunamis of at least 40 feet had hit the area in the 70 years prior to the agency’s breaking ground on Daiichi. Many emergency generators were situated in the basement, and diesel-fuel tanks were placed on a flood plane, leaving them vulnerable to the massive wave that slammed the site in 2011.

Within two years of the containment breaches, Kan, by then the former prime minister, was telling experts and investigators, including nuclear engineer Gundersen, that TEPCO had withheld critical information about what was happening at Fukushima in the first hours and days of the crisis. In 2016, TEPCO was forced to admit it failed to publicly declare a meltdown at the three crippled reactors, even though its internal guidelines indicated from early on that meltdowns were indeed occurring. And just last spring, a Japanese court found TEPCO (along with the government) guilty of negligence, not just in handling the disaster but also, in the years prior, in declaring the events at Daiichi “predictable” and preventable.

But none of that has been heard by a US jury. For over four years, a number of sailors, Marines, and other military-relief personnel have waited for their day in court while their attorneys wade through motions from the defendants, GE, and TEPCO, challenging venue and jurisdiction.

In an e-mailed statement, General Electric, while expressing “heartfelt sympathy for those affected by the earthquake and tsunami,” and appreciation for “the hard work and dedication of our US service members,” said claims “can and should be addressed under Japan’s nuclear compensation law.” TEPCO also “appreciates the plaintiffs’ service on Operation Tomodachi,” according to its e-mail, but declined to comment outside of court on pending judicial actions. TEPCO did add, “It is most unfortunate that some of the plaintiffs are ill.”

Ruby Perez was a 22-year-old petty officer first class on the Reagan during Operation Tomodachi. She was also pregnant. Perez told her mother, Rachel Mendez, about the snow falling during the first days of the operation. She and her shipmates were excited by a moment of diversion from the misery around them. As Mendez relayed her daughter’s story to me, “They were playing in it, eating the snow, making snow cones, making snowmen.”

Cooper, part of the flight deck crew, remembers the snow, too, though not so much as a light moment but rather as a symbol of decaying morale. After days of long hours and short rations, feeling isolated from the below-deck crew, knowing she’d been exposed to some radiation, she felt “knocked down.”

“Nobody really cared about anything. People were making radioactive snowmen on the flight deck out of radioactive snow,” she said. Dealing with the contamination and the stress “completely changed the dynamic of the ship.”

Fukushima radiation test boy
An official in protective gear checks for signs of radiation on a child who was evacuated from an area near Fukushima on March 13, 2011. (Reuters / Kim Kyung-Hoon)
“Stress” was what the Reagan’s medical staff told Cooper when she asked about her blurred vision, poor depth perception, and loss of equilibrium during the early days of the mission.

“Gastroenteritis” was what she and many of her shipmates were told as a wave of bowel problems swept through the carrier over the next several weeks.

“I had a lot of issues with the restroom,” Cooper told me. “I don’t think I was the only one. People would shit themselves on the flight deck so often that it wasn’t even a surprise anymore. Like when you saw someone running from one side of the flight deck to go to decon[tamination], you knew something was happening.”

Torres’ experience was comparable. “I was going to the bathroom constantly,” he said. “I would eat something and I would go to the bathroom almost immediately.” It happened so often, Torres told me, that he developed severe internal hemorrhoids that eventually required multiple surgeries.

But when he visited the shipboard doctor, Torres was told he had diverticulitis, a disease not typically seen in men that young. “Watch your diet, don’t eat spicy food, and drink lots of water, eat lots of fiber,” that was the advice he said he received.

Cooper heard much the same: “Stay hydrated—drink water and eat a bland diet.” But the symptoms didn’t subside. “They didn’t attribute it to anything except ‘it’s going around,’” she said. But if that’s so, it’s been going around a long time. “I haven’t had a solid bowel movement since,” said Cooper.

Soon after Operation Tomodachi ended, when the Reagan ported in Bahrain, Cooper, who was 21 at the time, noticed her hair thinning. “I used to have really, really thick hair,” she said, but in Bahrain it became brittle and started falling out. Cooper said it still hasn’t recovered.

She also told me she now bruises easily and gets “burning, tingling sensations” on her arms, and a rash that extends from her hands to her elbows—an area that coincides with where she’d had her sleeves rolled up when she encountered the cloud at the start of the Japan mission. Cooper has also recently needed veneers on teeth she said have started to “shatter and break.”

For Piekutowski, the lance corporal from the Essex, he didn’t feel particularly sick until over a year after Operation Tomodachi. He was back stateside in the fall of 2012, and felt fatigued and had lost weight, and in November of that year, his ankles swelled up to the size of his calves. “I’m an in-shape and slim guy, and usually have pretty good definition,” he told me. His doctor thought it might be gout, though Piekutowski was skeptical. “I told him, I drink as much as the next 21-year-old, but I don’t drink that much.” Then, on Christmas Day, he lost the sight in his left eye. “That’s when I knew I should probably get to the hospital,” he said.

In the ER, Piekutowski said the doctors seemed to recognize right away what a blood test and bone-marrow biopsy later confirmed: He had leukemia. “They were honestly surprised I was still walking,” he said. Medical staff put him in a gown and rushed him to a bigger hospital.

Piekutowski was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), an aggressive form of blood cancer most often seen in men over age 65. It is rare to see it in an otherwise healthy 21-year-old. He began treatment in Arizona, where he’d been living, but then moved to Chicago to be closer to his parents and what Piekutowski called “some pretty amazing doctors.”

From Christmas 2012 to Valentine’s Day 2014, Piekutowski figures he spent eight months in hospitals. He first went through a year of chemotherapy, but after four months in remission, his leukemia returned. He had radiation and a stem-cell transplant at the start of 2014, which has so far kept him cancer-free. But Piekutowski is still struggling to rebuild his immune system, and battling stiffness and stomach problems. “I feel like I’m 60,” he said.

Petty Officer Perez gave birth to her daughter Cecilia on March 26, 2011, and it was soon afterward that she told her mom she was feeling ill. “She just kept saying her menstrual periods would keep going and going and never stop,” said Mendez.

Despite her health, she reenlisted at the end of her tour. She was in San Diego trying to sort out some missing paperwork on her enlistment when she was hospitalized for a uterine hemorrhage. According to her mother, Perez was diagnosed with late-stage ovarian cancer in July 2016. Mendez wanted her daughter to come back to Texas, where she grew up, but Perez refused. She always believed she’d get better. “I can’t go home,” Mendez said Perez told her, “I just reenlisted. I still owe the Navy two years.”

On December 7, 2016, Ruby Perez died.

Perez is one of the eight deceased service members represented in the suits slowly making their way in US courts. Her daughter Cecilia, whose health will require a watchful eye well into adulthood, is also a plaintiff. So are 24 men and women currently living with various forms of cancer. So is a sailor whose son was born with brain and spinal tumors and lived only 26 months.

“We have a lot of clients with bone and joint issues, degenerative discs,” Cate Edwards told me, “young, healthy, active individuals who have trouble walking now.”

The most prevalent ailments, according to the younger Edwards, are thyroid-related. Thyroid cancers are some of the earliest to emerge after nuclear accidents because of the easy pathway for absorption of radioactive iodine. Childhood thyroid cancers skyrocketed in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine in the first two decades after Chernobyl. According to a study published in the journal of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology, individuals who were 18 or under at the time of the disaster in Fukushima Prefecture were 20-to-50 times more likely to be diagnosed with thyroid cancer in the period between the March 2011 and the end of 2014.

And health experts will tell you it is still too early to see many of the cancers and other illnesses that increase in incidence after exposure to ionizing radiation. Some can take 20 or 30 years to emerge. “That these sailors are getting the health effects they are already experiencing tells me that the radiation levels were extraordinarily high, and that we are likely just seeing the tip of the iceberg,” said nuclear-engineer Gundersen. “I think we’re going to see more of these people in the same boat as this initial wave of hundreds.”

“I can’t believe in a couple of years,” he added, “we won’t have thousands.”

Which is why, Cate Edwards told me, everyone who was part of Operation Tomodachi, even those who haven’t yet been diagnosed with particular ailments, are going to need additional medical monitoring for decades to come.

But General Electric and Tokyo Electric Power contend that these US citizens, from the US armed forces, who served on US ships, should seek their legal remedies in Japanese courts. “We believe these claims can and should be addressed under Japan’s nuclear compensation law, which provides relief for persons impacted by these events,” said GE in its e-mailed statement. (TEPCO did not respond specifically to a question about venue.)

The plaintiffs’ lawyers dismiss this idea. “It’s the difference between winning and losing,” John Edwards told me. “If the case ends up in Japan, it just goes away.”

The Edwardses and Bonner paint a picture of a Japanese legal system that is slanted in favor of industry. “You don’t get a jury trial in Japan,” said Bonner. “You don’t get punitive damages. Plaintiffs have to pay exorbitant fees to have their cases tried before politically involved judges,” and are not allowed to seek recovery of court costs, he said.

John Edwards added that Japan rarely awards damages for pain and suffering, loss of life, or the effects on a family. “They have an established compensation system,” he said, “they have never paid a dime for personal injury—it’s all for property damage.”

Indeed, while there were rulings in Japan’s courts last year against TEPCO and in favor of Japanese citizens, the awards were notably small (averaging $5,400 per person in one case, $1,500 in another), and were meant as compensation for residents of towns surrounding the nuclear plant who had to relocate. In a separate case in February, a Japanese court ordered TEPCO to pay $142,000 to the family of a 102-year-old man who killed himself after being told he’d have to leave his home inside the Fukushima radiation zone. TEPCO is still considering whether it will appeal.

One group of Tomodachi plaintiffs has been cleared to proceed in the US by the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. A second group is still fighting in San Diego to establish jurisdiction in California courts, a hurdle all three of the plaintiffs’ attorneys are confident they will eventually clear.

And when the merits of the case have their day in a US court, “the only real defense,” for TEPCO and GE, said John Edwards, “is to try to argue, ‘Yeah, we screwed up, we know it was bad, but is that what really caused what happened to these people?’” In other words, the defendants will concede there was a disaster at Fukushima Daiichi, but will contend the plaintiffs weren’t harmed by it.

There are pretty strong indications that just such a defense is in the works. TEPCO spokesman Shinichi Nakakuki asserted in an e-mail to me that “objective scientific data demonstrates that plaintiffs were not exposed to amounts of radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant sufficient to cause illness.” Nakakuki wrote that radiation estimates by the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) “confirm that the doses received by the plaintiffs were below the level that would give rise to adverse health effects.” The spokesman also referenced a report submitted by the US Defense Department to Congress in 2014 that downplayed the link between service on the Reagan during Operation Tomodachi and the specific cancers that had then emerged among crew members.

Time is one of the keys to understanding both of these reports. The Defense Department looked at the cancer rates only three years removed from the service members’ exposure, far too short a period to predict future numbers, according to radiation-expert Folkers. The UNSCEAR paper is even older than the DoD testimony, and has been roundly criticized for attempting to make bold predictions based on a small window and data extrapolated from analysis of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (which, aside from being drawn from a radically different exposure scenario, has itself been called into question by doctors and epidemiologists). UNSCEAR also appears to have averaged exposure over the entire island, not accounting for the notably higher exposures of those closest to the Daiichi reactors, according to analysis from Folkers’s Beyond Nuclear.

Dr. Keith Baverstock, the former chief radiation-protection expert at the World Health Organization who studied the Chernobyl disaster, said at the time that the UNSCEAR report was “not qualified to be called ‘scientific,’” and questioned the panel’s impartiality because its funding and membership came from the countries with the largest nuclear-power programs.

All of the radiation experts interviewed wondered whether the true scale of the radiation doses sustained by the Tomodachi sailors was ever measured. Safety specialist Kaltofen argued that most measurements don’t account for what are called “hot particles”—minute bits (6 to 9 microns in diameter) of intensely radioactive matter that can be extremely dangerous in close proximity, or if ingested, but are easily missed by measuring devices mere inches away. He also pointed out that different tissues are vulnerable to different isotopes in different ways, and that some parts of the body are much more sensitive to exposure than others. “One of them is the bowel,” he said, “because your intestines have villi, which are rapidly reproducing cells, and that means that they are extremely susceptible to radiation.” If radiation were ingested, or if the gut were exposed to a large external dose, you could see signs of real damage.

These are deterministic signs of radiation exposure, said Kaltofen, meaning you get a specific biological effect that might not itself be cancer, but would indicate the size and kind of exposures that could cause cancers later on. Folkers, discussing the sailors, put it more starkly: “The people in this case might be the dosimeters.”

Gundersen’s experience with radioactive noble gases led him to make another observation about dose estimates. Unless measurements were taken during those first days when ships were likely cloaked in plumes of radioactive xenon and krypton, the exposure would be missed, thus contributing to far-lower-than-accurate dose assessments. “Gases don’t show up on swipe tests, or anything like that,” he said. (Again, this level of methodological detail is not evident in the studies cited by TEPCO.) And Folkers stressed that the increased sensitivity to radiation seen in women and children is not part of most exposure models.

Folkers told me that there is a blood test that could more accurately estimate individuals’ exposures. Karyotyping, mapping chromosomes to look for specific abnormalities closely tied to radiation damage, has been around for decades, she said, but is too rarely done. (No one interviewed for this story believes karyotyping was done on the participants in Operation Tomodachi.) Folkers said that the tests are not only capable of predicting some future illnesses; they can also be used to extrapolate backward to determine the time and intensity of suspected radiation exposure.

But that level of specificity is not the argument lawyers expect in court, nor is it the standard public-health experts would say is appropriate. “Definitive cause is not the standard for protecting public health,” said Folkers, “association is the standard.”

In the case of the Tomodachi sailors, there was exposure to radiation, even if there is some dispute over the size and kind of dose any particular individual received. There are a number of symptoms and illnesses, long associated with radiation, that have been reported in the service members. If people are sick, would doctors, epidemiologists, workplace-safety experts, or public-health officials wait for absolute certitude of a causal link before implementing treatments and preventive actions?

Folkers and Kaltofen each said they would not. Even Petty Officer Cooper’s experience showed that the Navy—whether or not it acknowledges this now—had a basic recognition of this standard. “When you went down there,” she told me about her trips to the medical station on board the Reagan, “you were supposed to tell them if you were on the flight deck.” Depending on the answer, said Cooper, you might have seen a different doctor. “As soon as you said [where you worked], then, pretty much, they knew your issues.”

Cooper had actually reenlisted after Operation Tomodachi, but when the Navy told her “‘OK, you’re gonna do another sea tour with the Reagan,’” she said her response was “Nonononononono.” She told me she didn’t want any possible additional exposure to radiation on a ship she saw as contaminated from stem to stern. Cooper “took the hit” and applied for an “early out” from her reenlistment.

And the Navy, according to Cooper, “fast-tracked an early out because they understood.” Asking off the Reagan became so common, she told me, that there was a little “cheat sheet” on how to expedite the paperwork. “An early out would normally have taken me six months,” she said, “but they got it done in like two weeks.”

Cooper said that because her commanders were there, they understood what she’d suffered through after the radiation exposure, and knew the toll it took on the Reagan’s crew. “That deployment took a lot out of people,” she said. “A lot.”

For Torres, readjusting to civilian life after 27 years in the Navy was made much more difficult because of his post–Operation Tomodachi health problems. His own gastrointestinal difficulties, surgeries for hemorrhoids and hernias, and low-energy levels when he returned stateside deeply affected his mood and his relationships. Torres also said he feels guilt over “the young 17-, 18-year-old kids standing outside,” having to watch them “getting directly exposed” to the radioactive fallout as he stood inside conning the ship. “I have a lot of conflicted feelings,” he told me. “Could I have done something more? All these ‘what ifs.’”

There are plenty of “what ifs” to go around, but Torres is probably one of the last people who should feel guilty. Sure, Cooper now expresses regret for drinking too much of the ship’s tainted water. Piekutowski wishes he’d found a way to avoid spending five days exposed to the elements without any protection. Even Rachel Mendez, mother of Ruby Perez, wonders if she shouldn’t have been so encouraging when her daughter decided to join the Navy.

And some who served question if the Navy did all it could to protect its personnel (though not all, and not all the time). Did the Reagan spend too much time too close to shore? Did commanders always put the health and safety of sailors first when addressing the contamination of the ship and the water system? Did the US military measure properly for radiation, or perform the right tests for exposure? Are they doing all they can now to track the health of, and to care for, the Tomodachi veterans?

Watchdogs and health experts will tell you those are valid questions—especially if they better ensure the well-being of all the sailors going forward—but the attorneys will say that, while the military and the VA have responsibilities for the medical care of service members and veterans, “they are not, in a legal sense,” as Cate Edwards told me, “responsible for the exposure itself.”

(The Navy, for its part, said in an e-mailed statement that it has “a long distinguished history with the successful management of its occupational ionizing radiation exposure program.” It acknowledged some risk from radiation exposure at any level, but said the risks borne by the Reagan sailors were “small compared to other risk” accepted in work and everyday life. In making this assessment, they cite the same 2014 Defense Department report referenced by TEPCO.)

“The end of the road is not the VA,” said John Edwards. The main issue, as Edwards put it, is, “If you’re going to have nuclear plants, make sure they’re designed, built, maintained, and monitored properly.”

And the question of whether TEPCO and GE did do those things properly is not just of interest to the sailors or the residents of northern Honshu—in the minds of all the attorneys and experts interviewed for this story, it is of keen relevance to tens of millions of people living in the United States.

“There’s an obvious connection between what happened in Japan and what could happen in the United States,” said John Edwards. “What they failed to do in the manufacture and maintenance of the facility in Japan also occurred, and is occurring, in the US.”

There are currently 99 operating civilian nuclear reactors in the United States, and 22 of those are General Electric Mark 1 boiling-water reactors—the make and model identical to the three that melted down and exploded at Fukushima Daiichi. Based on a 1955 design, all but four of the US reactors have now been online for more than 40 years. All of them have the same too-small primary containment vessel, the same questionable alloys, the same bolted-on lid, the same safety systems, and (with one exception) the same vent “upgrade” that failed to prevent the tragic failures at the Japanese nuclear plant. Large US cities, such as Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC, are all closer to BWRs than Tokyo is to Fukushima Daiichi.

“It starts with the design,” Cate Edwards told me, and the complaint filed on behalf of the Tomodachi sailors goes into great detail about the flaws on the Japanese reactors that mirror the ones in the United States. “Each one of these Mark 1 BWRs is defective,” said Bonner.

For Folkers, the lesson is to look at nuclear power plants through the lens of public health. Don’t wait until after an incident to argue over which illnesses might or might not have been caused by a particular dose. Instead, Folkers urged, establish baselines for what the population’s blood work and chromosomes look like beforehand. Then, instead of only starting the fact-finding after an accidental release of radiation, or when a mysterious cancer cluster emerges—when too many vested interests invoke “what-aboutism,” as she called it, to obscure responsibility—already-informed public officials and medical professionals can focus on the response to emerging health problems.

For Kaltofen, the environmental-safety expert, the focus should be on prevention and planning before treatment and tracking. “It’s very hard to come up with a response plan after the fact,” he said.

And, most importantly, for the sailors, Marines, and pilots who rushed into harm’s way to provide emergency aid and humanitarian relief to people battling a devil’s trident of disasters, the acknowledgment of their radiation exposure and the acceptance of responsibility by those who caused it could potentially be as life-changing as their service in Operation Tomodachi.

Sure, it might mean a measure of financial compensation were they to win a settlement, but for the sailors who spoke to me, that would be secondary. Foremost, a victory in court would mean a degree of respect for what they did, how they’ve suffered, and what they might need down the line—not just for those who are ailing today but also for the potentially thousands who might get sick in the future. As Angel Torres told me, “Set up an infrastructure to address those issues. Do the right thing and provide for people that were misled. Let them know, ‘You are not alone.’”

https://www.thenation.com/article/seven ... -in-court/
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
User avatar
seemslikeadream
 
Posts: 32090
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2005 11:28 pm
Location: into the black
Blog: View Blog (83)

Re: Nuclear Meltdown Watch

Postby Jerky » Fri Mar 09, 2018 3:28 pm

The above narrative describing what it was like to be in the direct path of a radioactive cloud was fucking terrifying.

J.
User avatar
Jerky
 
Posts: 2240
Joined: Fri Apr 22, 2005 6:28 pm
Location: Toronto, ON
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Nuclear Meltdown Watch

Postby Cordelia » Sun Mar 11, 2018 6:29 pm

Today is 7 Year Anniversary.

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image
The greatest sin is to be unconscious. ~ Carl Jung

We may not choose the parameters of our destiny. But we give it its content. ~ Dag Hammarskjold 'Waymarks'
User avatar
Cordelia
 
Posts: 3697
Joined: Sun Oct 11, 2009 7:07 pm
Location: USA
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Nuclear Meltdown Watch

Postby seemslikeadream » Sun Mar 11, 2018 6:48 pm

thanks for remembering Cordelia

Image
The Conscience Institute proposes the installation of a large Cloak at Fukushima to remind humanity about the dangers of nuclear and fossil energies, and to encourage the move to clean, renewable ressources. As the universal symbol for Conscience, Peace, and Solidarity the Cloak is ideally suited for this role.



I care about Fukushima ...I have cared about this thread for 7 years it means a great deal to me
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
User avatar
seemslikeadream
 
Posts: 32090
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2005 11:28 pm
Location: into the black
Blog: View Blog (83)

PreviousNext

Return to General Discussion

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 28 guests