Radiation Bulletin: Fukushima News: June 27th – July 3rd 2011

Fukushima News: June 27th – July 3rd 2011

Its a Holiday weekend so there will be short coverage for now. There were several quite prominent stories to hit during the week. The first being quake related in terms of ophaned children. The government said that some 1,100 children lost one or both of their parents and that they would be giving $12,000 (if they lost both adults) to help these children! Of course there was a bit of an outcry as many of these kids are quite young and such a small amount would not possibly cover the cost of raising a child for 10-15 years.

I’ve started to get very concerned about what I’m hearing.

As of last week TEPCo had completed injecting nitrogen into two of the three damaged reactors, with the intent of ending the potential of any further hydrogen explosions. Unit 3 is the only reactor core not completed, and this because the radiation levels are so high inside the main building. One report said that as soon as the nitrogen injection is done on unit three, the public will be able to start returning home. Yes, folks that’s what the audio report stated.

The Japanese government said all beaches in Japan are safe to swim in, they’ve removed restrictions on fishing at least one prominent species off shore from Japan and that only people within the 20 km zone received any radiation above 1 milli-seivert (this from the Japanese Atomic Energy Agency.

At the 90 day status of the disaster, NHK did a report that included the use of US “experts” who were already in the country telling people that there wasn’t anything to fear healthwise. This was later backed up by an IAEA claim that nobody would die from the disaster. The 20 km zone, in terms of the number of people is very small compared to the larger 30-50 km zones, where as most of the 125,000 evacuated people are from. Many towns like Minimimosa which is just outside of the 20 km zone, jut north of Fukushima have said that they are already returning home. Furthermore, due to the heat, the government has decided that full protective gear for the public returning to retrieve personal belongings(!) within the 20 km zone will no longer be required. Just mask, gloves and foot coverings. Last week TEPCo’s stockholders rejected a call to close all of its reactors, as well as agreeing a government order demanding that they give over 1 billion dollars for mental suffering to the evacuees. The plan is $1,000 per person a month for the first 6 months while they are away from home and then $500 a month for the 6 month to 1 year period(do I sense a motivation here to get people home asap?). Lastly, the Japanese government has set up plans to monitor the people in the 50 km zone for health effects over the next 30 years. And of course they’ve begun construction on the poly-cover over the 4 damaged reactors, while removal of the highly contaminated water inside the reactors continues.

There you have it. At this point it looks like TEPCo’s priority to complete the unit 3 Nitrogen ASAP so that they can crow that the accident is under control on 9-11, the 6 month anniversary of the disaster when at least one of the major US working groups is due to release its findings on the disaster.

Deaths from the quake to date is a bit over 15,500.

Sunday July 3rd, 2011