Dr Helen Caldicott: ‘The situation is very grim and not just for the Japanese people’.. One person who is in no doubt about the seriousness of the incident is prominent anti-nuclear campaigner, Dr Helen Caldicott. Independent Australia spoke exclusively to Dr Caldicott yesterday as she was in transit to Canada to speak at a hearing into a proposal to build four new power plants in Darlington, Ontario.
Dr. Helen Caldicott is perhaps most influential environmental activist in the past 35 years.
She called the situation in Japan was an “absolute disaster” that could be many, many times worse than Chernobyl. Dr Helen Caldicott raised the possibility of cataclysmic loss of life and suggested the emergency could be far more severe than Chernobyl.
“The situation is very grim and not just for the Japanese people,” said Dr Caldicott.
“If both reactors blow then the whole of the Northern Hemisphere may be affected,” she said.
“Only one reactor blew at Chernobyl and it was only 3 months old, with new cores holding relatively little radiation; these ones have been operating for 40 years and would hold about 30 times more radiation than Chernobyl’s.”
Dr Caldicott cited a report from the New York Academy of Sciences, which said that over 1 million people have died as a direct result of the 1986 melt-down at Chernobyl, mostly from cancer. She said authorities had attempted to “hush up” the full scale of the Chernobyl disaster. The official 2005 figure from the International Atomic Energy Agency was just 4,000 fatalities.
The NYAS is a credible 200 year-old scientific institution. Their précis of the report is as follows:
This is a collection of papers translated from the Russian with some revised and updated contributions. Written by leading authorities from Eastern Europe, the volume outlines the history of the health and environmental consequences of the Chernobyl disaster. According to the authors, official discussions from the International Atomic Energy Agency and associated United Nations’ agencies (e.g. the Chernobyl Forum reports) have largely downplayed or ignored many of the findings reported in the Eastern European scientific literature and consequently have erred by not including these assessments.
When asked whether the disaster in Japan could be, say, 30 times worse than Chernobyl, Dr Caldicott said it could be even most catastrophic than that.
“It could be much, much, worse than that,” said Dr Caldicott.
“This could be a diabolical catastrophe—we’ll just have to wait and see.”
Dr Caldicott said any fall-out was unlikely to affect Australia, though the death toll in the northern hemisphere could be severe.
“Australia is probably not going to be affected by fall-out because the northern and southern air masses don’t mix.”
“But in the northern hemisphere, many millions could get cancer”.
Dr Caldicott said that despite the best efforts of nuclear energy campaigners, the Japanese disaster is likely to spell the end of the industry not just in Australia but worldwide.
“We’ve had earthquakes in Australia before—no-one will want to risk this happening in this country.”
“But I think the nuclear industry is finished worldwide.”
“I have said before, unfortunately, the only thing that is capable of stopping this wicked industry is a major catastrophe, and it now looks like this may be it.”
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23744 
