- Radiation levels inside buildings 1, 2, and 3 are still so high that 5 robots, designed to locate the reactor cores, have fried within days of entering the buildings. No one knows where the cores are, and it's highly likely that at least one of them has burned through the containment vessels, and is burrowing into the ground- the "China syndrome".
- Groundwater continues to be contaminated and leak into the ocean, building up in the food chain. Pacific fish, birds, mollusks, and mammals are experiencing massive dieoffs. No one knows how much of this is due to radiation, and no governments are studying it.
- Huge amounts of radioactive water are stored at the site, filling over 1000 tanks. While attempts are being made to purifiy the water, it's almost impossible to remove tritium, the radioactive isotope of water itself, and there's pressure to discharge it into the ocean as is, tritium and all.
- At least one of the cores exploded at the time of the original accident, spewing radioactive matter all over the area. There are hotspots as far away as Tokyo, unmonitored, unmarked, affecting the unknowing local population.
- The Japanese government is making a huge effort to clean the soil around the site, so that residents can move back to the area. This is probably hopeless, as the forests in the mountains behind the plant are contaminated, and water is constantly flowing from those hills onto the floodplain below.
- The contaminated soil is being stored in large plastic bags that sit by the roadside and are radioactive. The bags deteriorate after 3 years. There is no ultimate storage destination for them.
- The site remains vulnerable to another tsunami, or typhoon, or major earthquake.
- Many workers have died offsite- these deaths are unreported. The cancer rate among Fukushima children is soaring.
Meanwhile, the Abe government is committed to restarting other reactors- several are already back on line.
A couple of years ago, I led a group exercise to help activists deal with this sort of scary information. You can see the video at https://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play;_ylt=AwrT6V3KjOlWQX8AzeAnnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTByNWU4cGh1BGNvbG8DZ3ExBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--?p=youtube+carol+wolman&back=https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=youtube+carol+wolman&ei=UTF-8&hsimp=yhs-001&hspart=mozilla&fr=&fr=yhs-mozilla-001&turl=http://ts2.mm.bing.net/th?id=OVP.V1f9e9d4d0811634db33249e71d27974c&pid=15.1&rurl=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8knq18unR4&tit=Nuclear+Consciousness+Raising+-+Dr.+Carol+Wolman&l=822&vid=6ba996d5f89c6ec5bf44157a4aa69013&sigr=11bsgqct2&sigb=130ua3997&sigt=11gc2ufpm&sigi=12b8q4gdb&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-001
There is massive denial about the danger of radioactivity. We can adapt, perhaps to climate change. We can clean up some of the carbon and plastic pollution and refrain from making more. But some radioactive isotopes last for millions of years, killing or distorting the DNA of all living creatures.
We are all affected by
Fukushima's radiation, and by the radiation from the hundreds of other
plants around the world. Many of them are aged and deteriorating, or in
danger from floods, earthquakes, volcanoes, and other natural or manmade disasters. Please watch the video. It is designed to help you break through your denial and that of the people you know.
Peace, Carol Wolman, MD
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