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Japanese authorities today announced they have raised the nuclear crisis level at the devastated Fukushima nuclear plant to the highest on the scale, 7; only Chernobyl reached this catastrophic level previously. Nevertheless, we should not confuse the two incidents, as Fukushima has SIX powerful reactors in varying degrees of crisis whereas Chernobyl was a single reactor. Fukushima threatens to DWARF the Chernobyl catastrophe.
Recent fire at No. 4 reactor extinguished today
Authorities typically understated the severity of the crisis and were at pains to say that raising alerts is a precautionary measure; however, the raised alert also coincided with an increase in the evacuation safety zone around the plant; the safety range has been increased to 50 kilometres from the nuclear plant.
While Corporatists and their markets attempt to paint a less sombre picture of the crisis, the facts INDICATE OTHERWISE.
The situation has been ‘out of control’ since the mega quake. Cooling systems, including safety BACKUPS, FAILED completely. The world noted with consternation the desperate measures Japanese engineers took to cool stricken reactors by pumping water directly from the sea to cool reactors and exposed spent fuel rods housed in the same buildings! Radioactive water has been allowed to evaporate into the atmosphere and drain directly into the land and sea – a scandalous situation indicating ill-conceived planning and crisis management protocols (corrupt cost cutting in other words); however, Corporatists, Tokyo Electric and GE (General Electric) have PROFITS to consider and clearly sacrificed PUBLIC and ENVIRONMENTAL SAFETY in order to maximise their bottom line – a story all too familiar when man made large scale catastrophes occur.
After the BP Gulf disaster and now Fukushima, it should clearly be evident to all that Transnational Corporations involved in industries which could impact negatively on the environment REQUIRE the STRICTEST REGULATION, locally and if appropriate, internationally. Bought western governments completely under the control of Corporatists MUST be REPLACED with REAL, FUNCTIONAL DEMOCRACIES which represent MAJORITY interests – not minority criminal elites -- if we are to avoid future calamity. Surely that NEED should NOW be obvious to everyone, including the long suffering, Corporatist ruled, American population.
Report from The Telegraph UK, follows:
Japan raises nuclear crisis to highest level -- same as Chernobyl
by Julian Ryall
Previously, the damage to reactors at the plant, 137 miles north of Tokyo, has been rated at level 5 on the scale, putting it on a par with the Three Mile Island accident in the United States in 1979. The government elevated the disaster by two notches, a rating that has previously only been applied to the Chernobyl accident in 1986.
The government's decision is based on a preliminary calculation by the Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan that estimated that the plant was venting as much as 10,000 terabecquerels of radioactive iodine-131 into the atmosphere every hour at one point after being damaged by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
One terabecquerel is equivalent to 1 trillion becquerels, the agency said, although it now estimates the nuclear plant is releasing less than 1 terabecquerel per hour.
The agency also said radiation beyond the amount considered safe for humans during a full year had been detected up to 37 miles northwest of the plant and 24 miles to the southwest, well beyond the 18-mile exclusion zone the government has imposed around the nuclear plant.
The operator of the Fukushima plant also revealed that it fears the radiation being leaked may surpass the amount that escaped into the atmosphere when the Chernobyl plant exploded in 1986.
"The radiation leak has not stopped completely and our concern is that it could eventually exceed Chernobyl," an official from the company told reporters in Tokyo.
On Monday, the government indicated that it plans to expand the evacuation zone in some areas that are found to have high levels of radiation. The authorities also intend to impose a law banning people from entering the no-go district around the plant to deter residents from returning to their homes to try to salvage their possessions.
The latest indication of the severity of the situation at the plant will inevitably cause renewed safety concerns across Japan, which is also still struggling to come to terms with the twin natural disasters that have claimed around 28,000 lives and devastated several hundred miles of coastline in north-east Japan.
Earlier, workers discovered a fire close to the Number 4 reactor at the Fukushima plant but quickly extinguished it, according to Tokyo Electric Power Co. The company said the fire was in a battery box and had no affect on radiation levels around the reactor.
The facility and much of northern and eastern Japan were jolted in two large aftershocks on Tuesday morning, hard on the heels of a level 7 earthquake on Monday evening.
A 5.5 quake shook Nagano Prefecture at 7:26 am, followed by a larger 6.4 tremor shortly after 8am that was felt throughout eastern Japan and made skyscrapers in Tokyo sway.
Veteran wildlife campaigner Bob Irwin reckons his late famous son would have been proud of his arrest at a coal seam gas (CSG) protest in Queensland.
Mr Irwin has been charged with ignoring police orders to remove himself from a road blockade aimed at stopping the construction of a 16-kilomtre gas pipeline in the state's south.
The father of the late "crocodile hunter" Steve Irwin and Greens spokeswoman Libby Connors, joined the protest at the Tara Estate, south of Chinchilla, today but within hours were in police custody.
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Protesters have been manning the blockade since last month trying to frustrate construction of the pipeline, which will take CSG from five wells on the estate to the nearby Kenya gas processing plant.
Opponents fear the expanding CSG industry will contaminate groundwater, present risks to human health and devalue land.
Mr Irwin accused the Queensland Gas Company (QGC) of breaching permits to clear vegetation along the pipeline route, and the state government of doing nothing about it.
"They are allowed to clear 10 metres of remnant vegetation to be able to put the pipeline in but in many, many areas - and I'm talking about kilometres - they have cleared 40 metres," he said after being released from the Chinchilla police station.
"If any ordinary Australian had done that, against the tree clearing laws, we'd be in jail."
He said the government must explain why it was doing nothing about the alleged breaches, and must also address deep concern about the use of toxic chemicals used in the industry.
"Are we going to have our Great Artesian Basin contaminated? They can't give you an answer on that and that's just not right," he said.
Mr Irwin said he had been ordered to face the Chinchilla Magistrates Court next month, charged "with making a bloody nuisance of myself - there's probably a technical term for that".
"I of course will plead guilty to that and then I'll just have to cop what comes from that," he said.
"Steve's probably laughing right now that his old man is in a little bit of bother; he was pretty mischievous fellow. But I think he'd be proud of what's being done here.
"He'd know as well as I do that we must fight for our land."
A QGC spokesman said the company was "entirely confident" the company had not breached its environmental conditions.
He said nearly half of the proposed work would be done on land it owns and the 14 landholders directly affected had agreed to compensation packages for disturbance to their land.
"If landholders have problems with the amount of land we're clearing, the measurements thereof, we've always said to them that we are more than happy to talk to them about that and to deal with it," he said.
Late last month, QGC had to suspend work on a unrelated pipeline near Dalby, west of Brisbane, after a six-kilometre-long, 40-metre-wide route of land was cleared without appropriate approvals.
Queensland Party leader Aidan McLindon, who joined the protesters' blockade today, said Ms Connors had also been arrested. It is not clear if she has been charged.
Mr McLindon said the high profile arrests would help people realise CSG projects were being rubber stamped in Queensland.
In late March, Friends of the Earth campaigner Drew Hutton, who is Ms Connors's husband, was arrested and charged after participating in the long-running protest.
He was granted bail in the Chinchilla Magistrates Court after being charged with breaching the Petroleum and Gas Act, which guarantees mining and gas companies access to private land.
Cars, tractors, boats and the occasional entire house have been spotted floating on the surface of the Pacific Ocean in the aftermath of the March 11 Japanese tsunami triggered by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake.
The largest "island" of debris stretches 60 nautical miles (69 miles) in length and covers an expanse of more than 2.2 million square feet, according to the US Navy's 7th Fleet, which is closely monitoring the floating rubbish.
"It is very large and it's a maritime hazard," Lieutenant Anthony Falvo, deputy public affairs officer for the US Navy's 7th Fleet, told the Daily Telegraph.
"The damage it can cause is anything from piercing the hull of a ship to leaving dents or getting wrapped up in propulsion systems."
Experts have reportedly estimated that it could take up to two years for the floating tsunami debris to hit Hawaii and three years for the West Coast.
The US navy is currently working with civilian construction companies from Japan on attempts to start removing the floating debris from the ocean.
News of the scale of the floating debris came shortly after a major 7.4 magnitude aftershock hit the same northeast region of Japan still recovering from the March 11 earthquake.
Four people were killed and a further 100 were injured following the earthquake, which shook the Miyagi prefecture late on Thursday night.
The tremor caused widespread blackouts, motorway closures and swaying buildings as far away as Tokyo, with a tsunami warning which was later lifted.
Damage was reported at the Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant, which was shut down safely after it was hit by a 43-foot tsunami on March 11, with water leakages from three reactors, but radiation levels remained steady.
The strong tremor also briefly halted work to restore control at the still stricken Fukushima Daiichi power plant but caused no further damage.
It came as managers of Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), the operators of the Fukushima plant, were threatened with "execution" after their home addresses were posted on the internet by a group angry at their handling of the nuclear crisis.
Security has been stepped up around the homes of eight senior TEPCO managers after a website called "The Victims of TEPCO" called on the public to make their feelings known to the company.
A link to an online forum contains demands for the board members to be held accountable for the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex, which continues to leak radioactivity one month after it was crippled by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
One of the contributors wrote, "Presents from TEPCO: Sterility, cancer, leukaemia, breast cancer, blindness." Yesterday, workers at the Fukushima plant were continuing to inject nitrogen into reactor No 1 as a "preventive measure" to prevent the risk of a hydrogen gas explosion.
As a result of ongoing efforts, radiation levels around the plant are believed to be subsiding to "a level very close to background," according to the latest reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
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