Tag Archive: Fukushima

Kyodo News, via Associated Press

Gray and silver storage tanks filled with radioactive wastewater are sprawling over the grounds of the Fukushima Daiichi plant.



Groundwater is pouring into the plant’s ravaged reactor buildings at a rate of almost 75 gallons a minute. It becomes highly contaminated there, before being pumped out to keep from swamping a critical cooling system. A small army of workers has struggled to contain the continuous flow of radioactive wastewater, relying on hulking gray and silver storage tanks sprawling over 42 acres of parking lots and lawns. The tanks hold the equivalent of 112 Olympic-size pools.

But even they are not enough to handle the tons of strontium-laced water at the plant — a reflection of the scale of the 2011 disaster and, in critics’ view, ad hoc decision making by the company that runs the plant and the regulators who oversee it. In a sign of the sheer size of the problem, the operator of the plant, Tokyo Electric Power Company, or Tepco, plans to chop down a small forest on its southern edge to make room for hundreds more tanks, a task that became more urgent when underground pits built to handle the overflow sprang leaks in recent weeks.


While the company has managed to stay ahead, the constant threat of running out of storage space has turned into what Tepco itself called an emergency, with the sheer volume of water raising fears of future leaks at the seaside plant that could reach the Pacific Ocean.


There is no question that the Fukushima plant is less dangerous than it was during the desperate first months after the accident, mostly through the determined efforts of workers who have stabilized the melted reactor cores, which are cooler and less dangerous than they once were.

But many experts warn that safety systems and fixes at the plant remain makeshift and prone to accidents.







And a separate committee created by the government to oversee the cleanup is loaded with industry insiders, including from the Ministry of Trade, in charge of promoting nuclear energy, and nuclear reactor manufacturers like Toshiba and Hitachi. The story of how the Fukushima plant ended up swamped with water, critics say, is a cautionary tale about the continued dangers of leaving decisions about nuclear safety to industry insiders.

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Wednesday, May 1, 2013, 2:35 PM
http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1332272.1367432781%21/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/japan-fukushima.jpg&#8221; width=”635″ height=”423″ />

© Issei Kato / Reuters/REUTERS

Members of the media wear protective suits at the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima prefecture in March. Two years after the disaster, contaminated groundwater containing radioactive strontium, a byproduct of nuclear fission, is leaking from the damaged reactor.

The Japanese nuclear plant stricken by a deadly tsunami two years ago is facing the dire issue of containing radioactive waste water, as operators rush to repair yet another possible disaster.

The March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami left the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant stricken, badly damaging its reactors, which serve to cool nuclear cores.

Now contaminated groundwater containing radioactive strontium, a byproduct of nuclear fission, is leaking from damaged reactor structures at an alarming rate of 75 gallons per minute.


Tanks of radiation-contaminated water are stored onsite at Fukishima.

© KYODO Kyodo / Reuters/REUTERS

Tanks of radiation-contaminated water are stored onsite at Fukishima.

The Dai-Ichi plant is owned by the Tokyo Electric Power Company, also known as Tepco, which has struggled to handle the plant’s meltdown and subsequent recovery.

The nuclear incident has been described as one of the most devastating in history, second only to Russia’s Chernobyl incident of the 1980s.

As the New York Times notes, news of the leaking groundwater comes at an embarrassing time for Tepco, which experienced a 29-hour power outage last month which affected another of the plant’s cooling systems.



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An earthquake, a tsunami, a nuclear meltdown — residents of Japan’s northeast coast suffered through three intertwined disasters after a massive 9.0 magnitude temblor struck off the coast on March 11, 2011.




Journalists have been given a rare glimpse inside Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which was crippled in the 9-magnitude earthquake and tsunami that hit the country two years ago. NBC News’ Arata Yamamoto reports.







“Until you can stop that transfer, you will not contain the radioactivity. That will go on for years and years until they contain it,” he said. “The structures of containment start breaking down. Engineered structures don’t last long when they are put in adverse conditions.”




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Fukushima’s Catastrophic Aftermath Continues

image source

Stephen Lendman
Activist Post








Separately, she said:



















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Article: 1097 of sgi.talk.ratical
From: (dave “who can do? ratmandu!” ratcliffe)
Subject: Radioactivity: No Immediate Danger? addressing our nuclear illiteracy
Summary: species annihilation–omnicide–is the ultimate human rejection o life
Keywords: our monoculture is a form of suicide; diversity gives us survival.
Date: 25 Jun 1995 21:33:42 GMT
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.
Lines: 414

Species annihilation . . . means a relatively swift (on the scale of civilization), deliberately induced end to history, culture, science, biological reproduction, and memory. It is the ultimate human rejection of the gift of life, an act that requires a new word to describe it: “omnicide.” It is difficult to comprehend omnicide, but it may be possible to discern the preparations for it, and prevent its happening.

Excerpts follow from the 1991 article (starting 98 lines below) appearing in Ms. Magazine by Dr. Rosalie Bertell, on the no-win situation we, as the curators of Mother Earth, find ourselves in with the man-made radioactive materials created over the past fifty+ years. If we are to be successful in reversing this terminal radioactive poisoning of our home so the seventh generation of human’s yet to-be-born may also enjoy the gift of life and it’s challenges, we MUST inform and educate every person we come into contact with about the true facts of nuclear techonology and it’s lethal and terminal impact on all life on earth for all time.


We are now in a no-win situation with radioactive materials, where it has become acceptable to have cancer deaths, deformed children, and miscarriages. The “benefit,” oddly enough, is not the medical benefit, nor electricity–it is nuclear bombs. The same set of regulations is used for all three industries–energy, medical, and military–and when it comes to the bottom line, the cost benefit ratio is calculated on the basis of preventing a ten-megaton blast on London, Paris, or New York; the final judgment becomes what is needed for “national security.”Now nuclear power proponents have again mounted a synchronized international campaign to push nuclear reactors as a “solution” . . . [T]he reactor is only one small part of the nuclear fuel cycle. It cannot function without the large supporting network of mining, milling, fuel fabrication, enrichment, waste disposal, decommissioning, and the web of transportation linking these steps. Claiming nuclear production of energy is “clean” is like dieting but stuffing yourself with food between meals.

What are the alternatives for industrialized countries? A case study of the Federal Republic of Germany using 120 different energy efficiency improvements demonstrated that the nation could maintain its standard of living with a 70 percent reduction in end-use of energy. A 1983 study at M.I.T. Energy Laboratory in the U.S. concluded that improving energy usage by one percent a year caused no social strain and could reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 50% by 2050.

Promoting nuclear technology raises false expectations, usurps money better spent in energy efficiency, and substitutes emissions of radionuclides for emissions of carbon dioxide. The intelligent customer will not substitute one pollution for another, but will rather eliminate both by more efficient energy use. . . .

The unmasking of the human species’ terminal illness must involve dealing with violence: personal, family, city, national, and global. Some violence has been renounced, for example, a father’s right to kill his child: but other forms of violence still are seen as “socially useful,” for example, torture, imprisonment, killing children by sending them to war, and of course epidemic violence against women.

If, as a society, we are able to break out of this phase, it will be due to the careful building of a consensus in various social and political groups, which make an impact on the national power structures from within and from without. As they become more international in their thinking and acting, these groups are developing the infrastructure for the global village. Women, who have not become so unnaturally separated from their instincts, need to assume social roles for idea input, facilitating consensus decision-making, and seeing to the equitable implementation of plans and sustainability of the society’s work.

In a special way, women attend to the birthing and dying within society, and we have now turned this concern toward the process of species death–or the birthing of a new way of conducting human affairs that might avert such a death. The inclusion of women and a feminist perspective in the idea, decision-making, and implementation sectors of society is vital for species survival.

This implies for males a general reduction of power over other human beings and a playing down of masculine values, including conflict and violence within nations, workplaces, and families. Although men have always said they go to war for the sake of the women and children, it is apparent that men are willing to hurt or kill women and children in order to go to war, thinking they are serving their nation. There are beautiful aspects of nationalism that we can keep, like customs, language, lifestyle, food. But there is no reason why we need to raise standing armies and kill people who don’t agree with us.

We have much of the infrastructure in place; we have global communication, we have transportation, we know the way to cure most diseases, we have one and a half times as much food as we need for the global population. What we are talking about giving up is the right of a nation to force its own people to kill others, whether internally or externally. That is a very simple thing. Yet if we could do that we could begin to organize on the basis of a global village that would not only respect diversity, but be glad of it, because survival comes from an ability to cope with many changing situations, an ability to share when one part of the world has abundance and another part has need.

Our monoculture is another form of suicide; diversity gives us survival.


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Earth Watch Report -  Hazmat


11.04.2013 HAZMAT Japan Prefecture of Fukushima, [Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant] Damage level

HAZMAT in Japan on Saturday, 06 April, 2013 at 08:44 (08:44 AM) UTC.


Updated: Wednesday, 10 April, 2013 at 19:06 UTC
The operator of Japan’s crippled nuclear power plant said Tuesday it had detected a fresh leak of radioactive water from one of the facility’s storage tanks. Tokyo Electric Power Co. previously said two of seven huge underground tanks at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant had been leaking since Saturday if not earlier. The latest leak involves a tank that was being used to take water from one of the two that were leaking, TEPCO representative Masayuki Ono said. Up to 120 tonnes might have leaked from one of the tanks and smaller amount from the other two, but none of the radioactive water was believed to have reached the ocean, he said. TEPCO has halted the transfer of water to the third tank, diverting it to a fourth tank that remains intact. Two of the seven tanks are currently unused.

Ono said TEPCO has decided to stop using the two most damaged of the three leaking tanks as soon as they are emptied, but will use the other because of a tank shortage. “The underground tanks are not reliable,” Ono said. “But we must keep using some of them that are relatively in good shape while monitoring them closely. We just don’t have enough tanks on the ground that can accommodate the water.” The tanks are crucial to the management of contaminated water used to cool melted fuel rods at the plant’s reactors, which were damaged in March 2011 by an earthquake and resulting tsunami. They have since stabilized significantly but the melted fuel inside must be kept cool with water, which leaks out of the reactors’ holes and ruptures and flows into basement areas. Plant workers are scrambling to find extra tanks at the plans and believe they can find space from unused containers and underground tanks. The plant is being decommissioned but continues to experience glitches. A fuel storage pool temporarily lost its cooling system Friday, less than a month after the plant suffered a more extensive outage caused by a rat that short-circuited a switchboard, cutting off power to four storage pools for fuel rods and other key facilities.



Updated: Thursday, 11 April, 2013 at 03:10 UTC
Tokyo Electric Power Co. must stop using sunken reservoirs to store radioactive water accumulating at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant once it has enough storage tanks, Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said Wednesday. Three of the seven reservoirs, which are basically lined trenches with surface covers, have been found to be leaking radioactive water, including seawater, leading Tepco to consider transferring some of the contents to more reliable tanks above ground. The water was cycled through reactors 1, 2 and 3, which suffered core meltdowns in 2011, to keep the units cool to prevent further massive fallout. The utility has said it cannot empty all the sunken reservoirs currently in use because there is not enough alternative storage capacity on the site now. Tepco plans to install tanks that can hold 15,000 tons by mid-April.

Motegi told a Diet committee that the radioactive water will be “swiftly” moved to tanks above ground and “after that, sunken reservoirs should not be used.” The situation regarding radioactive water leaks has been worsening since Tepco first announced it earlier this month, with more sunken cisterns found with problems increasing. There is speculation there may have been flaws in the construction of the reservoirs. All were built by Maeda Corp. Tepco also said Wednesday that it confirmed a small amount of radioactive substances outside the water-containment lining sheets laid between reservoir No. 1, the latest one found with leaks, and the soil. Radioactive water leaks to soil have already been reported around reservoirs Nos. 2 and 3. The utility said it has detected 0.11 becquerel of radioactive substances per cubic centimeter of water in soil outside the three lining layers of reservoir No. 1.

Radioactive water that escaped from that cistern may have seeped into the ground, according to Tepco. To boost oversight at the plant, which also recently saw the halt of its cooling system for spent-fuel pools, the Nuclear Regulation Authority said it will increase the number of on-site inspectors from eight to nine. The continued injections of water into reactors 1-3 is causing the massive accumulation of radioactive water. Water used to cool the damaged reactors is recycled as coolant after radioactive cesium and other substances have been removed in a processing facility. But the total amount of tainted water is rising because the existing water flow allows an influx of about 400 tons of groundwater a day.


Monday, April 08, 2013 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer






Radiation levels continue to increase in lakes, rivers north of Tokyo





Sources for this article include:





Just released! – Japanese maritime research finds evidence of nuclear undersea dumps contamination!

Off shore waste dumping sites hit by recent multiple earthquakes off coast of Japan


Extracts from December  2012 article



There has been another 7 earthquakes reducing in intensity over the last couple of hours reducing to the 4.6 level so far..





watch the visualisation video next to the above pictures to match hits on the dumps…..”

2011年の日本の地震 分布図 Japan earthquakes 2011 Visualization map

2011年の日本の地震 分布図 Japan earthquakes 2011 Visualization map (2012-01-01)

Follow this link for details and supporting documentation for above


Horizontal distribution of Fukushima-derived radiocesium in
zooplankton in the northwestern Pacific Ocean
Received: 31 December 2012 – Accepted: 27 February 2013 – Published: 2 April 2013
…The Kuroshio extension seemed to prevent the southward dispersion of radioactive cesium. The vertical distributions of radioactive cesium off the coast of northern Japan around FDNPP revealed complex patterns mainly due to the water mass interaction between Oyashio water and Kuroshio water…. Hideki Kaeriyama 2011 December
…..134 Cs in zooplankton was detected in all stations and ranged from 1.9 to 10.5Bqkg-dw−1 (Table 1). The highest activity concentration was recorded in subtropical station 68 while the lowest one was in subarctic station 106. 137 Cs was also observed in all zooplankton samples and ranged from 2.2 to 14.9Bqkg-dw−1 (Table 1). High 137Cs activity concentrations were observed at stations 68 and 71, 137Cs in other 10 stations were one order of magnitude lower than that in the two stations, and the lowest activity concentration was detected in station 106. 134Cs was lower than137Cs in all the stations because of faster decay of 134 Cs during the 10 months after the accident and the pre-existing bomb-produced 137Cs……
134Cs and 137Cs were detected in zooplankton and seawater samples collected from 20 western North Pacific (500− 2100km from the FNPP1) 10months after the FNPP1 accident. Because of its short half-lives, detected 134Cs could only be derived from the
Radiocesium activities in zooplankton were high at around 25◦N that was not corresponded with the horizontal distribution pattern of radiocesium activities in surface seawater. We also observed subsurface radiocesium maxima in the density 25 range of NPSMW in several subtropical stations. Zooplankton communities included many diel vertical migrants. Both results suggested that contaminated radiocesium in 6153BGD 10, 6143–6170, 2013
Horizontal distribution of Fukushima-derived radiocesium
M. Kitamura et al.zooplankton were derived from subsurface radiocesium through the vertical migration of zooplankton in the subtropical stations. However, high activity concentrations of radiocesium in subsurface seawater did not necessarily follow higher radiocesium activity
in zooplankton.
Activity concentrations of radiocesium in zooplankton might be influ-enced not only environmental radiocesium activity concentration but also other factors that is still unknown.

map made available by Nuclear Darkness:


*This map provides for some some safe zones that may have lowered radiation levels.  Although  with  nuclear  fallout there is  no place that  is  completely safe.  



The Medical and Ecological Consequences of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident, Day 1

March 11, 2013


Click on a bolded link below to jump to that section of the program.



Former Prime Minister of Japan, Naoto Kan (videotape)
Opening Address

Specialist of Radiation Safety and Control

Arnie Gundersen, Nuclear Engineer, Fairewinds Associates
What Did They Know and When Did They Know it?

David Lochbaum, Union of Concerned Scientists
Another Unsurprising Surprise

Hisako Sakiyama, Member of Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission

What Did the World Learn from the Fukushima Accident?

Questions and Answers

Press Conference


Steven Starr, Clinical Laboratory Science Program, University of Missouri
The Implications of Massive Radiation Contamination of Japan with Radioactive Cesium

Timothy Mousseau, Department of Biological Sciences, University South Carolina
Chernobyl, Fukushima and Other Hot Places: Biological Implications

Ken Buesseler, Marine Scientist Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute
Fukushima Ocean Impacts

Columbia University
Living with Uncertainty About Low Dose Radiation Risks

Questions and Answers

Watch Video Here


The Medical and Ecological Consequences of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident, Day 2
March 12, 2013


Session Three:
Session Chair: Andrew Kanter, Physicians for Social Responsibility.

Alexey Yablokov, Russian Academy of Sciences
Lessons from Chernobyl

Wladimir Wertelecki, Former Chair of the Department of Medical Genetics University South Alabama
Congenital Malformations in Rivne Polossia and the Chernobyl Accident

Ian Fairlie, Radiation Biologist and Independent Consultant

Steve Wing, Gillings School of Public Health, University North Carolina
Epidemiological Studies of Radiation Releases from Nuclear Facilities: Lessons Past and Present

Joe Mangano, Radiation and Public Health Project
Post Fukushima Increases in Newborn Hypothyroidism on the West Coast of USA

Robert Alvarez, Institute for Policy Studies
Management of Spent Fuel Pools and Radioactive Waste

Questions and Answers

Cindy Folkers, Beyond Nuclear
Post-Fukushima Food Monitoring in the US

Mary Olson
Nuclear Information and Resource Services, Gender Matters in the Atomic Age

Kevin Kamps, Beyond Nuclear
Seventy Years of Radioactive Risks in Japan and America

David Freeman, Former Chair. Tennessee Valley Authority
My Experience with Nuclear Power

Herbert Abrams, Stanford University School of Medicine
The Hazards of Low Level Ionizing Radiation: Controversy and Evidence

Questions and Answers

Watch Video Here



TWO years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster local children are showing signs of cancer, prompting cries of a cover-up.

Published: Wed, March 27, 2013

LEGACY-No-one-knows-how-the-Fukushima-disaster-will-affect-the-health-of-the-area-s-children LEGACY: No one knows how the Fukushima disaster will affect the health of the area’s children


The rice fields are overgrown with weeds as tall as a man. The rest of this village, near the scene of the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, is deserted. Washing still hanging on lines hints at the panic which engulfed this region of Japan.





While it’s true that people living very close by were evacuated within the first few days, damage may already have been done to their health. Many more, living up to 25 miles away, were not moved away until six weeks after the radiation escaped.


Then there’s the daily risk of more radiation escaping from the smouldering plant, which is still not fully stable. It’s being cooled with vast amounts of water but workers are running out of tanks in which to store the contaminated liquid once it has done its job.

Read Full Article Here



Published time: April 03, 2013 19:56
Edited time: April 04, 2013 19:43

 A boy receives a radiation scan at a screening center in Koriyama in Fukushima prefecture (AFP Photo / Go Takayama)






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Fukushima fuel cooling system stops again:TEPCO

by Staff Writers
Tokyo (AFP) April 5, 2013

Radioactive water may have leaked from Fukushima: TEPCO
Tokyo (AFP) April 6, 2013 – Radioactive water may have leaked into the ground from a tank at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the operator said Saturday, the latest in a series of troubles at the crippled facility.Up to 120 tonnes of contaminated water may have escaped from one of the seven underground reservoir tanks at the tsunami-damaged plant, according to a Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) spokesman.

The tank stores water used to cool down the reactors after radioactive caesium is removed but other radioactive substances remain.

“We are transferring the remaining water from the tank to others,” the TEPCO spokesman said, adding that the company believes the contaminated water was unlikely to flow into the sea.


Nuclear fuel, even after use, has to be kept cool to prevent it from overheating and beginning a self-sustaining atomic reaction that could lead to meltdown.

The plant was hit by the giant tsunami of March 2011 as reactors went into meltdown and spewed radiation over a wide area, forcing tens of thousands of people from their homes and polluting farmland.


One of the systems keeping spent atomic fuel cool at the Fukushima nuclear plant temporarily failed on Friday, the second outage in a matter of weeks, underlining the precarious fix at the plant.

Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) said an alarm sounded at the facility at 2:27 pm (0527 GMT), and technicians soon confirmed that the cooling system for the pool attached to reactor 3 was not working.


The problem, which was fixed in about three hours, occurred as work crew placed a metal mesh around a switchboard in a bid to prevent small animals from touching it, a TEPCO spokesman told a press conference.

The measures were taken after a rat got inside the switchboard last month, causing a short-circuit that knocked out power for sections of the crippled plant and stopped cooling systems for four storage pools.

That time, it took nearly 30 hours for TEPCO to fully fix the problem.

The TEPCO spokesman said a wire or the mesh might have touched the ground while crews put the mesh in place, unintentionally grounding the equipment and knocking it offline.

TEPCO apologised for the problem, but stressed that it had not posed any immediate danger.

However, the incident served as a reminder of the precarious state of the Fukushima plant, more than two years after it was hit by the giant tsunami of March 2011, and critics were quick to jump on the fault.


Read Full Article Here



Tepco Says Fukushima Plant Leaked 120 Tons of Radioactive Water

By Tsuyoshi Inajima – Apr 6, 2013 9:30 PM CT





Read Full Article Here

Image Source

Record cesium level detected in fish caught near Fukushima nuclear plant

The Japan Times News





Published on Feb 23, 2013


Workers spray water to cool down the spent nuclear fuel in the fourth reactor building at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in the town of Okuma, March 22, 2011.

Fri Feb 8, 2013 8:42AM GMT
Residents whose houses or farms have been hit by radiation from the Fukushima nuclear plant will file a class-action lawsuit against the Japanese government.

Japanese lawyers said on Friday that at least 350 residents were to file a case with Fukushima District Court on March 11, the second anniversary of the Fukushima disaster, to seek damages from the government.

On March 11, 2011, a nine-magnitude earthquake triggered a tsunami that inflicted heavy damage on the six-reactor Fukushima plant. Cooling systems of the plant’s reactors were knocked out, leading to meltdowns and the release of radioactivity.

Japan’s entire nuclear reactors were gradually taken offline for two months for maintenance or safety checks after the tsunami.

Meanwhile, the plaintiffs are also planning to sue the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), and seek more than 500 dollars in compensation for every month that the residents have been displaced because of the disaster.

The lawyers also called the lawsuit as the largest class-action on the matter against the state with one of them saying that the Japanese government promoted “nuclear power as a national policy and has been closely involved with it.”

“Being fully aware of the danger of losing power due to a tsunami, the government neglected its duty of preventing such an event,” said Izutaro Managi, a Japanese lawyer.

In July 2012, a Japanese parliamentary panel found that the incident at the Fukushima nuclear plant had been a “man-made disaster” and not only due to the tsunami.

The report, which was released on July 5, also criticized “governments, regulatory authorities and Tokyo Electric Power” for lacking “a sense of responsibility to protect people’s lives and society.”

The 2011 incident at Fukushima “could and should have been foreseen and prevented” and its catastrophic effects “mitigated by a more effective human response,” the report said.



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