Fukushima

UN: Fukushima radiation worse than feared

Panel of experts says levels in workers during nuclear power disaster may have been 20 percent higher than estimated.

al-Jazeera,

13 October, 2013

Japanese authorities may have underestimated by 20 percent the radiation doses workers got in the initial phase of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, a UN panel has said.

A big earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 damaged the power station 150 miles north of Tokyo, causing three partial reactor meltdowns.

The operator, Tepco, has struggled to contain leaking radiation ever since.

The UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation raised doubts about the dose estimates of the government and Tepco, in a summary of a report on October 12, according to the Asahi Shimbun newspaper on Saturday.

The UN committee analysed radiation doses in 25,000 people who worked at the station on or before October 2012, using data provided by the government, Tepco and others, the newspaper said.

It determined that the tests used on workers did not take into account some types of radiation.

In particular, workers were tested for thyroid gland doses from radioactive iodine after a significant delay, through procedures that failed to account for iodine-132 and iodine-133, which have half-lives of two hours and 20 hours respectively.

The Asahi Shimbun said if the UN panel's assessment was accurate, more workers would be eligible for free health checks.

It did not give any detail of the implications on the health of the workers.

Increased radiation exposure has been linked to greater rates of cancer and thyroid disorders.

'Don’t pollute our sea:' Mass demo in Tokyo to ban nuclear energy

RT,

13 October, 0213

Some 9,000 activists took to the streets of Tokyo on Sunday to protest nuclear power. The march comes as Japanese authorities are considering restarting the country’s nuclear reactors, which were shut down in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster.

The demonstration ended with a rally in front of the headquarters of Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), the operator of the crippled Fukushima power plant.

Activists chanted “Stop the atom” and “Don’t pollute our sea,” referring to the continued leaking of radioactive water, which Tepco uses to control the temperature of the melted reactor cores at Fukushima.

The protesters also called on Japanese media to report more often on the situation at the power plant, which was damaged by the 2011 quake and tsunami.

Anti-nuclear sentiment has grown massively in Japan since the Fukushima disaster, one of the world’s worst nuclear power incidents. Rallies similar to Sunday’s are held regularly and attract thousands of people. According to opinion polls, some 70 percent of Japanese believe that the country’s nuclear power industry should be closed down.

The opposition to nuclear power has also affected Tokyo’s national security policies. On Friday, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government said it would consider signing a joint statement by the United Nations calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons, Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported.

Japan, officially an anti-militaristic country since its defeat in World War II, has relied for decades on the US nuclear umbrella for protection and has been reluctant to side with international proposals to ban nuclear weapons. But the Japanese government has indicated it may sign a joint UN General Assembly statement next week saying that nuclear weapons should “never [be] used again, under any circumstances.”

Abe’s government initially said it would not sign the statement, but reviewed its position after the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the two cities that had nuclear bombs dropped on them by the US in 1945, and a number of civic groups urged Tokyo to support it.

If you want to see an example of misinformation from a pro-nuclear 'expert' read Physicist: There was no Fukushima nuclear disaster - The terrible toll from Japan's tsunami came from the wave, not radiation