Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Thursday that radiation levels of up to 9.4 sieverts per hour have been detected
outside a reactor containment vessel at the meltdown-hit Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
People exposed to the maximum radiation dose for some 45 minutes will die.
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Preface
The lack of the sense of crisis over Fukushima is in stark contrast to the gravity of the crisis. Fukushima is now undeniably a global security issue. The unstoppable contamination of the Pacific Ocean and the atmosphere with ionizing radiation from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear reactors is seriously menacing the West Coast of the United States. Japan should make utmost efforts to cope with the Fukushima crisis by retreating from the Tokyo Olympic Games that disseminate the false impression that Fukushima is under control.
Deteriorating situation in Fukushima
Japan is laboring under the consequences of the Accident never before experienced by humanity, including the simultaneous destruction and meltdown of three commercial nuclear reactors. Four and half years after the 3.11 disaster, it has been shown that a severe nuclear accident cannot be brought under control by a single state. The Japanese government is bent on restarting nuclear reactors and exporting nuclear technology without fully clarifying the causes of the accident.
The majority of the Japanese severely criticize this move as immoral and irresponsible. It is questioned if Japan is in possession of the governability and the capacity needed to cope with the impending crisis.
The melted cores of the reactors from Units 1, 2 and 3 remain inaccessible because of lethal levels of radiation they emit, which destroys even robots that are sent to locate and inspect them. Their containment vessels need a constant flow of nitrogen to maintain low levels of oxygen in order to prevent hydrogen explosions.
If the molten nuclear fuel rods are exposed through cracks to the atmosphere due to a mega earthquake or the liquidization of soils on the site that could cause the collapse and breach of Fukushima’s spent fuel pools, Japan’s landmass would become uninhabitable to a large extent.
The problem of workers on the site is very serious. The average number of daily workers is now more than 7.000. This requires numerically more than 2.5 million workers a year.
Decommissioning of the reactors on the site will take decades. It makes one shudder.
The first restart has taken place without fully assuring safety and without establishing truly reliable systems for evacuating residents.
The whole of Japan is threatened by the worsening situation emanating from the molten fuel rods, which continue to widely disseminate large amounts of dangerous radionuclides into the sea and atmosphere. Limitless steam observed evokes the possibility of re-criticality at the site. The undeniable necessity for international verification of the suspected re-criticality at the site should bring about the indispensable international cooperation to cope effectively with the Accident.
The ongoing radioactive contamination of the sea with no prospect for a solution is dishonoring Japan, causing it to be criticized for harming the global environment. In spite of all this, attempts are shamefully being made to hide Fukushima. The Tokyo Olympic Games 2020 was decided with the false assurance that Fukushima had been brought under control.
The World is menaced by the spreading contamination
Recently, a serious typhoon hit eastern Japan creating flooding that has not occurred for at least 50 years. You can imagine the extraordinary amount of radioactive cesium, strontium, and other isotopes spread hundreds of miles from the nuclear catastrophe site yet to be cleaned up and now displaced by the flood into newly contaminated villages.
The daily increasing contaminated water has been put in nearly 1000 hastily fabricated and often leaking storage tanks. Its total volume surpasses more than 600.000 tons and approaches its limitations, possibly to end being totally released into the sea.
The consequences of the radioactive contamination of the Pacific Ocean from Japan to the West Coast of the United States are drawing increased attention. Some experts now estimate that the wave of radiation from Fukushima will be 10-times bigger than all of the radiation from the entire world’s nuclear tests throughout history combined. There are reports stating that dangerous radiation levels have been detected in snows found in Texas, Colorado and Missouri, warning that the US, indeed, is going to face the severest consequences of the ongoing historic, and seemingly unstoppable, nuclear disaster.
The Tokyo Olympic Games belittle the Fukushima crisis
It is undeniable that the Tokyo Olympic Games constitute serious impediments for coping with the consequences of the March 11 Disaster by raising the prices of construction materials and aggravating the serious labor shortage in the region.
My interview article was published in the magazine “Monthly Japan” (September 2015). It is entitled “An honorable retreat from the Tokyo Olympic Games” and is given a central place. Reactions are noteworthy and expanding.
In my recent message addressed to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, I suggested that he cancel the Tokyo Olympic Games, announcing at the same time Japan’s candidature for the 2028 or 2032 games. The estimation of the total cost, 3 trillion yen according to the Governor of Tokyo, has shocked the public. Nearly 90 times less funding (34.5 billion yen) has been spent by the Government for coping with the contaminated water problem at Fukushima Daiichi. The Tokyo Olympic Games diverts attention from Fukushima and gives the false impression to the world that Fukushima no longer poses a threat. The advancement of the Tokyo Olympic Games comes at the expense of the funds needed to address the host of environmental disasters created by the destroyed Fukushima nuclear reactors.
The initial commitments of the Tokyo Olympic Games have now all been broken. The original plan of the National Stadium has been cancelled. The emblem of the Tokyo Olympic Games, suspected of plagiarism, has been abandoned. An editorial in the Asahi newspaper dated 25 September 2015 expresses its amazement at the irresponsibility and the carelessness of the Organizing Committee. The IOC could disqualify Tokyo. Japan is now obliged to choose between an honorable retreat and a shameful disqualification.
The future of the Olympic Games is at stake. It is as a believer in the spirit of the Olympic Games and the Olympic Movement that I am pleading for an honorable retreat, and this, in order for Japan to devote maximum efforts to controlling the Fukushima crisis.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Thursday that radiation levels of up to 9.4 sieverts per hour have been detected
outside a reactor containment vessel at the meltdown-hit Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
People exposed to the maximum radiation dose for some 45 minutes will die.
村田光平
3 Attachments
Preview attachment Fukushima.USA.eBook.pdf
Preview attachment GeneralBert.FukushimaUSA.pdf
Preview attachment Tokyo Olympic Games and Fukushima(2015,10,２８).docx
地球倫理：Global Ethics 