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Tsunami: Death and survival at school swimming club
By Damian Grammaticas
BBC News, Rikuzentakata, Japan
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Standing outside Rikuzentakata's community hall, Yukiko Horie clasps her hands together and then touches them to her forehead.
She bows and says a quiet prayer.
The three-storey building is still standing, but it has been completely wrecked by the tsunami that swept through just over a month ago.
Someone has placed a small bunch of artificial flowers on a smashed window ledge near what was the main door.
When Yukiko looks up she sighs with grief.
She tells me that in her prayer she was talking to her students.
Six of them died here.
One is still missing.
"I kind of apologised to them, saying I'm sorry that on the day I was not with them, I felt very sorry."
One month on Yukiko Horie is wracked by guilt that she survived while the children died.
They were all aged between 16 and 17, and were members of Takata High School's swimming club.
Yukiko, an English teacher, was also one of the two coaches in charge of the club.
She was not with the team when the earthquake struck on 11 March but at school.
Hill climb
Of the 11 members of the club, nine had gone to practice at Rikuzentakata's B&G swimming centre down by the seafront.
They had just got changed into their swimming costumes when the magnitude 9 quake hit.
Fearing a tsunami, the staff at B&G followed their established evacuation drill and took the nine children a mile or so to the town's community centre, right opposite Rikuzentakata's town hall.
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It was a fateful decision. Takata High School was closer, but the community hall was the designated tsunami shelter for anyone at the pool.
At the school, Yukiko Horie had started to evacuate several hundred children who were still in classes.
The second swimming teacher, 29-year-old Motoko Mori, hurried off towards the seaside to try to find the club members and bring them to safety.
Ms Mori has not been seen since. She got married in March last year.
Yukiko Horie and the children in school all reached the top of the hill before the tsunami struck. They all survived.
But, down on lower ground, the community hall was swallowed by the waves.
Along with the swimming team, many adults were also sheltering inside.
'Pushed them in'
As Yukiko steps into the ruined hall for the first time since the disaster, broken glass and splintered wood crunch underfoot.
Torn wires and shredded cladding hang from the ceiling. Twisted panels lie everywhere.
One huge concrete wall and the giant steel girders that once held up the roof of the hall's concert auditorium have all caved in.
Rows and rows of seats have been ripped from their mountings. Everything has been smashed to pieces.
Incredibly two girls from the swimming team managed, somehow, to survive this.
With a mobile phone pressed to her ear, Yukiko is speaking to one of them, Honoka Sasaki, who is in hospital. She is guiding Yukiko through the building.
Yukiko is looking for the storeroom up on the third floor where the two girls clung to each other while the waters swirled around them.
She ends the call as we have to scramble under twisted pipes and then, suddenly, she sees the room. The door is ajar.
"This is the place. It's exactly here," Yukiko exclaims.
"It must be. They couldn't open the door, but the wave pushed them in."
Honoka and the second girl, 16-year-old Chihiro Kanno, told Yukiko how they ran upstairs to escape the rising water.
But it caught up with them. The water forced the door of the store open, and swept them inside.
"Ah, look," she says, pointing at the wall near the ceiling.
"Up there, it's very clear you can see the line on the wall where the water reached.
It's just a few inches from the top.
In that space they had air.
They were swimming, just to keep breathing."
Yukiko is making a paddling motion with her hands as if re-enacting the way the girls struggled to keep their heads above the water.
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The storeroom is small and dark. The tidemark where the water stopped rising is easily visible, about six inches below the ceiling, which must be 9ft (3m) up.
"How is it possible?" Yukiko says out loud. "The girls! Here! Amazing!"
Swept away
After the earthquake, 16-year-old Chihiro had been crying and panicking.
But a third girl from the swimming club had calmed her, telling her not to worry, it would all be fine.
As the tsunami swept into the hall, Chihiro held the girl's hand while they fled upstairs.
But when the water forced Chihiro into the storeroom she could not keep hold of her friend. They were pulled apart.
Chihiro and Honoka watched as their teammate was swept across the hall, pressed against an elevator by the wave, then carried away.
"They saw it," says Yukiko.
Then she turns.
"Here's the elevator. The girl was struggling.
The two of them, here, they were watching.
But they couldn't help. Oh."
And she raises her hands to her face again, sighs, and bows once more.
The two surviving girls were trapped in the storeroom, holding on to each other and struggling to breathe in their air pocket for 10 or 15 minutes until the tsunami receded.
Then, soaking wet, they spent a night trapped in the building in the freezing cold until they were found by a rescue team the next day.
'Find a door'
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Honoka Sasaki is still in hospital.
She cut her leg on a ventilation fan that was floating in the water and had to have an operation last week.
"Honoka remembers the terrible things and cannot sleep," says Yukiko, "though gradually she is sleeping a little more.
"I don't know how to help her," she adds, "I think the terrible experience will stay with the girls for their lives."
Chihiro Kanno was taken to an evacuation shelter.
In the chaos after the disaster it took her three days to find her parents.
They thought she had died.
Her home has been destroyed so she now lives in a tiny room in an old people's home, along with other evacuees.
Chihiro now has frequent nightmares. She tries to keep busy, to ward off the memories. She is polite and shy.
In a soft, quiet voice, she says:
"We were in the hall on the 3rd floor when the wave came over us,"
I was holding my friend's hand, but we got separated, then she was swept away.
I was washed into the storage room.
I was underwater, my back touched the floor.
Above me was wreckage.
I dodged it and swam up.
There was a small space between the ceiling and the water, I could breathe there.
I heard Honoka say 'Are you there, Chihiro? Find a door.'
We held each other and waited until the water drained away."
Chihiro wants to get back to school as soon as possible to be with her friends.
But the tsunami destroyed her town of Rikuzentakata.
Of its population of 23,000, one in 10 is dead or missing.
Half have lost their homes.
'Can't sleep'
All around Rikuzentakata teams of soldiers are clearing up the broken buildings.
They are depositing smashed wood, twisted metal and wreckage in neat piles.
The fabric of an entire town is being carried away so Rikuzentakata can be rebuilt.
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But the many, many broken lives here and in other towns for hundreds of miles along the coast may never be repaired.
Japan's Red Cross says up to one in 10 of all survivors from Japan's earthquake and tsunami might now suffer post traumatic stress disorder.
That could be tens of thousands of people.
The trauma may be the legacy that weighs the longest on Japan.
Takata High School is a wreck.
The reinforced three-storey building is still standing.
But the sports hall was picked up and rammed into one side of the school.
Every classroom is full of debris.
Yukiko Horie, the swimming teacher, walks slowly through the building.
She cannot escape her feelings of guilt that she could not save her students.
"At night I can't sleep," she says.
"I imagine many things because I was not with them in that building. How horrible it was. The fear. How cold was the water. How scared, the black water.
I imagine I could see they tried to struggle and they are good swimmers, maybe they tried to swim and go up, but I couldn't help them."
Now Yukiko is working with the other teachers to open a new, temporary school for the surviving children.
She says she tries to be strong for her students.
"These days I am thinking if they were here, the swimming members, what they will tell me.
I imagine, maybe they will ask me to try not to be so sad, to just stand up.
I think they will tell me that. So that's my strength."
And then she adds:
"Sometimes the swimming members appear in my dream and they also make me laugh.
I should step forward, so I try not to be thinking of the sad stories.
I have a responsibility to step forward."
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A Ship with no Captain — evolving coverup of a nuclear disaster
click here |
Secret Weapons Program Inside Fukushima Nuclear Plant?
click here |
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Extreme spike in radiation of I-131 levels 100 miles from Fukushima following 6.0 Mag earthquakes.
April 14 2011
200% Temperature Spike At Japan Fukushima Nuclear Reactor 4.
Radioactive cesium found in spinach, arugala, and kale around San Francisco Bay area
Cesium and Tellurium have been found in Boise, Las Vegas, Nome and Dutch Harbor, Honolulu, Kauai and Oahu, Anaheim, Riverside, San Francisco, and San Bernardino, Jacksonville and Orlando, Salt Lake City, Guam, and Saipan.
Japan nuclear plant emission radiation is being found in drinking water and in milk above EPA limits across the United States. |
Extreme spike in radiation of Cs-137 levels 100 miles from Fukushima following 6.0 Mag earthquakes.
TEPCO confirms some of the spent nuclear fuel rods stored in the No. 4 reactor building of Fukushima
Daiichi power plant are damaged.
Higher than usual levels of radioactive iodine-131, cesium-134 and cesium-137 are being emmitted.
The roof and the upper walls of the No. 4 reactor building have been blown away by a hydrogen explosion and damaged by fires since the
disaster struck the plant.
Toxic water, believed to originate from the No. 2 reactor core where fuel rods have partially melted, is hampering efforts to restore reactor 2 key cooling functions. |
6.0 Mag 2011/04/12 05:07:42 Lat 37.000 Lon 140.700 Depth 10.6
EASTERN HONSHU JAPAN
April 12 2011
TEPCO spokesman: Radiation leakage at the plant could eventually exceed that of the 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe.
The Japan Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said most of the radioactive material released in the air from Fukushima Daiichi came from the No. 2 reactor damaged by explosion March 15 2011.
At 6:10 a.m. on March 15, part of the reactor's containment vessel was damaged following an apparent hydrogen explosion.
Massive amounts of radioactive substances are now believed to have been released from the suppression pool of the reactor. |
Japan has raised the measure of severity of the nuclear crisis to the highest level.
Level seven signifies a major accident with wider consequences.
6.2 Mag 2011/04/11 23:08:16 Lat 35.406 Lon 140.542 Depth 13.1
NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU JAPAN |
Radiation risks from Fukushima no longer negligible
click here |
April 11 2011
Japan fails to stop radioactive discharge into ocean
Reuters
Announced 7.1 Earthquake corrected to 6.6 Mag
2011/04/11 08:16:13 Lat37.007 Lon 140.477 Depth 10.0Km EASTERN HONSHU, JAPAN
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Latest Earthquakes in the World — Past 7 days
click here |
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April 10 2011
Naoto Kan:
'The government will give all its strength to work with you.
We will never abandon you.'
March 12 2011
Naoto Kan:
'By taking firm measures, we will do our best not to have even a single person suffer from health problems.' |
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Energy News
enenews.com — click here |
The 7.1 earthquake of April 7, 2011 has damaged the Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant, Onagawa, Japan.
A leak of radioactive water is being reported by Japanese TV, their information from Tokyo Electric Power Company TEPCO.
The leak is said to originate from nuclear reactor spent fuel storage pools — spent fuel from reactor one and reactor two at the Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant. |
blog.alexanderhiggins.com
Radiation count Fairbanks Alaska and US West Coast cities |
naturalnews.com
The cesium deception |
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No safe threshold for radiation | |
| Dr. Brian Moench | excerpts from March 25 2011 article |
The idea that a threshold exists or there is a safe level of radiation for human exposure began unraveling in the 1950s when research showed one pelvic x-ray in a pregnant woman could double the rate of childhood leukemia in an exposed baby.
Furthermore, the risk was ten times higher if it occurred in the first three months of pregnancy than near the end.
This became the stepping-stone to the understanding that the timing of exposure was even more critical than the dose.
The earlier in embryonic development it occurred, the greater the risk.
A new medical concept has emerged, increasingly supported by the latest research, called 'fetal origins of disease,' that centers on the evidence that a multitude of chronic diseases, including cancer, often have their origins in the first few weeks after conception by environmental insults disturbing normal embryonic development.
It is now established medical advice that pregnant women should avoid any exposure to x-rays, medicines or chemicals when not absolutely necessary, no matter how small the dose, especially in the first three months.
Epigenetic changes [chemical attachments to genes] can be caused by unimaginably small doses - parts per trillion - be it chemicals, air pollution, cigarette smoke or radiation.
Furthermore, these epigenetic changes can occur within minutes after exposure and may be passed on to subsequent generations.
The Endocrine Society warned that:
Even infinitesimally low levels of exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals, indeed, any level of exposure at all, may cause endocrine or reproductive abnormalities, particularly if exposure occurs during a critical developmental window.
Surprisingly, low doses may even exert more potent effects than higher doses.
If hormone-mimicking chemicals at any level are not safe for a fetus, then the concept is likely to be equally true of the even more intensely toxic radioactive elements drifting over from Japan, some of which may also act as endocrine disruptors.
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Many epidemiologic studies show that extremely low doses of radiation increase the incidence of childhood cancers, low birth-weight babies, premature births, infant mortality, birth defects and even diminished intelligence.
Just two abdominal x-rays delivered to a male can slightly increase the chance of his future children developing leukemia.
By damaging proteins anywhere in a living cell, radiation can accelerate the aging process and diminish the function of any organ.
Cells can repair themselves, but the rapidly growing cells in a fetus may divide before repair can occur, negating the body's defense mechanism and replicating the damage.
Reference notes and complete article click here |
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Japan sacrifices its most vulnerable
School playgrounds — three plus weeks after the beginning of the nuclear radiation threat — at last tested for radiation.
This only at the insistence of parents who demanded the testing.
Children have been allowed to play outside even in the most vulnerable radiation threat areas such as Fukushima.
'By taking firm measures, we will do our best not to have even a single person suffer from health problems,' the Japan Prime Minister Naoto Kan stated at a news conference March 12 2011.
Obviously small people in Japan are not considered people.
Or children used as PR — children used as public relation images to 'make believe' that nothing is wrong — to portray that neither the government nor TEPCO have brought harm.
Yes these most vulnerable ones — whose thyroids are most at risk — have been allowed to play outside where they can intake the radiated iodine.
Fortunately many Japanese children, like their parents, eat varieties of seaweed in their diet — seaweed caught prior to the toxic radiation being emitted from the plant — this providing an amount of non radiated iodine that will help to modify the risk to the thyroid.
For those children who have eaten this seaweed.
For the others that do not, they do not have such protection and these, like most children around the world, are somewhat deficient in iodine — due to the poor eating habits of first world nation children, and the quality of food now being supplied which, the way it is grown, is now deficient in many minerals including iodine.
When through the air radioactive iodine is offered to the thyroid of children deficient in iodine, the thyroid will intake radioactive iodine rapidly.
And so the damage to the body of these young ones will begin.
Damage that will manifest in various ways throughout the rest of their lives.
'By taking firm measures, we will do our best not to have even a single person suffer from health problems'
April 5 2011 — TWENTY FIVE DAYS after the nuclear plants were damaged — the Japan government began testing for radiation in the Fukushima schools.
Radioactivity in the school playgrounds has of course been detected.
God knows the amount of radioactivity in other playgrounds away from Fukushima, playgrounds that remain untested, the children still being allowed out in these untested areas.
The Japanese people are not yet aware of the horror that has and continues to be inflicted upon their country and their young ones.
Much of this damage could have been ameliorated, significantly reduced, had the Japan government acted decisively and immediately, placing the interest of children as paramount, rather then the interests of hiding and obfuscating — not supplying real knowledge — to their people.
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Most parents having real knowledge would not have allowed their children to go to these schools or allowed to play outside.
Non-contaminated seeweed, kelp or other substances, would have been found to give to their children.
The Japan government like all governments have as their first interest their own preservation.
People are not given facts.
Everything is done to avoid supplying the ordinary person information needed for them to evaluate and take action.
And the ordinary person, brainwashed by television and a controlled media, have no awareness of this.
One can only ask if the drinking of milk in the US will not begin to affect some children, for some children are much more vulnerable than others.
Iodine has a half life of days, but it is still around, a half life means still present except in lower radioactive danger.
Cesium 137 has a half life of 30.17 years. These two harmful substances are now flowing around the world as are many more radioactive emissions from the Japan reactors, radioactive substances too numerous to mention.
For some people the smallest amounts of human caused radiation will bring harm.
Then — as these radiation levels begin to increase even slightly — more people will begin to experience harm.
But we do not know the increased levels of radiation in the country that we live, or around the world, because the governments are not providing us with the data.
We cannot evaluate because we do not have the facts.
All governments have as their first interest their own preservation.
You and your children are second, a poor second!
Do not forget that!
Kewe |
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Tsunami earthquake warning stones placed all around the shores of Japan by previous generations reaching back many hundreds and millenia of years. |
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Energy News
enenews.com — click here |
US nuclear team in Japan preparing for possibility of “large-scale radiation leak” at Fukushima
click here |
3-Week Update on Japan’s Nuclear Crisis
click here |
AllThingsNuclear.org
click here |
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No 'safe' threshold for radiation | |
| Anna Salleh ABC | Thursday, 31 March 2011 |
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Established research disproves this claim.
According to the National Academy of Sciences, there are no safe doses of radiation.
Decades of research show clearly that any dose of radiation increases an individual's risk for the development of cancer.
Associate Professor Tilman Ruff of University of Melbourne's Nossal Institute for Global Health says there may be a threshold for some effects of radiation, but not for cancer.
Ruff, who is also a member of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War:
There is unfortunately a continuing tirade of statements by self-interested parties and some official agencies ... implying a threshold for radiation exposure below which there are no adverse consequences.
Overplaying or underplaying risk?
While some are concerned about the media downplaying the risk of radiation, others think the opposite is occuring.
For example, the UK Science Media Centre says the media has been giving a much more dire impression of the seriousness of damage to the Fukushima power plant than scientists.
Peter Burns, former acting CEO of Australia's nuclear safety agency, ARPANSA says the media lack scientific understanding and coverage has tended to overplay the health effects from small amounts of radiation.
Burns, a former chair of United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR):
It's probably been a bit over the top because of a lack of understanding about what the measurements really mean."
Dose and effect
But on the question of whether there is a safe threshold for exposure to radioactivity, Burns agrees with Ruff.
"There is no level below which we believe radiation effects can't occur," says Burns.
He says the oft-cited effect 'threshold' of 100 millisieverts comes from the most statistically-significant results from studies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bomb survivors.
According to international agencies, 100 millisieverts corresponds to a risk of serious cancer of less than 1 per cent.
But Burns says there is other evidence that supports the adverse effects of low doses of radiation, including studies showing an increased risk in foetuses getting cancer later in life from a mother's one-off 10 millisievert medical scan.
Risk comparisons
Burns believes it is important to put radiation exposure into context given natural and other man-made sources of radiation we are exposed to.
"We all get between 1 to 10 millisieverts a year - an average 2 to 3 millisieverts - from background radiation," says Burns.
Air travel and CT scans are other common sources.
Official limits for radiation in food and water are set in the context of such exposures.
For example, the limit for nuclear workers is much higher than for the general public.
Ruff says it's important to remember radiation limits like this are not levels below which there is no effect.
"They're just a practical compromise between what's achievable and what's deemed an acceptable risk," he says.
Ruff says it's also important to remember the impact of radiation is greater on the unborn, infants and children, especially girls, compared to adults.
Contaminated water
The World Health Organization recommends a limit of 10 becquerels of radioactive activity per litre of drinking water, equivalent to a dose of 0.1 millisieverts per year.
After the Fukushima accident, the Japanese government set a maximum water contamination level of 300 for adults, 100 for infants and 3000 for emergency workers.
Following news that Japanese tap water had become contaminated, one expert reportedly advised the Japanese government to prevent public alarm by giving more context when releasing such information.
The expert, Professor Robert Gale of Imperial College London is reported in The Australian this week as saying he would be happy to drink the water, even if it exceeded the maximum contamination levels set by the Japanese government.
"We live with radioactive water all the time," he was quoted as saying.
Individual versus public health risk
The Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) question Gale's position.
"His position illustrates very neatly the divergence between individual and public health risk," says PSR's Dr Ira Helfand.
The risk to any one individual from drinking water with this much radiation is indeed very low.
The problem comes when 40 million people in the Tokyo water district drink the water and get this much radiation.
Helfand says if the risk of cancer from a low dose exposure is 1 in a million, an individual does not need to take any special precautions.
"But if 40 million get this dose of radiation then 40 of them are going to get cancer," he says.
And they may also be getting radiation in the days ahead from increased levels of radiation in the air, and from radiation contamination of food.
Helfand says it is reasonable to assure the public that they don't need to take individual action if the level of radiation is very low.
"But we should not mislead them that the dose is 'safe' or 'no cause for concern' which is very different," he says.
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The Dangers of Radiation: Deconstructing Nuclear Experts (TV and otherwise)
click here |
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From: When the Fukushima Meltdown Hits Groundwater
The disaster is occurring the opposite way than Chernobyl, which exploded and stopped the reaction.
At Fukushima, the reactions are getting worse. I suspect three nuclear piles are in meltdown and we will probably get some of it.
If reactor 3 is in meltdown, the concrete under the containment looks like lava.
But Fukushima is not far off the water table.
When that molten mass of self-sustaining nuclear material gets to the water table it won’t simply cool down.
It will explode – not a nuclear explosion, but probably enough to involve the rest of the reactors and fuel rods at the facility.
Pouring concrete on a critical reactor makes no sense — it will simply explode and release more radioactive particulate matter.
The concrete will melt and the problem will get worse.
I emotionally have problems with the nuclear option suggested in the article — but I am neither a scientist nor an engineer!
I am watching — and waiting!
Kewe |
When the Fukushima Meltdown Hits Groundwater
click here |
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March 28, 2010
Highly radioactive water has leaked from the number two reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi plant reactor turbine building to an a linked underground tunnel.
Radiation readings are showing the radioactive water emits a dosage rate of more than 1,000 millisieverts per hour.
There is estimated to be several thousand cubic metres of this radiactive water inside the tunnel.
Each reactor turbine building is connected to a maintenance tunnel large enough for workers to walk through.
The radioactive water in the tunnel at the last check was one metre (three feet) form the top of a 15.9-metre access shaft which is located 55 metres from the sea.
This water could overflow through the shaft into the sea.
From Kewe
Many people have a natural deficiency in iodine.
This is especially important for the thyroid gland which will suck out of the air any radioactive iodine it can find to replenish this deficiency.
Even small amount of iodine intake can help to prevent this.
3 x tablets of kelp that have 125 micrograms of iodine will help to prevent intake of dosages of radioactive iodine from the air.
While the governments are saying that radioactive iodine levels in the atmosphere are low for place far removed from Japan, they are neglecting to state that a kelp tablet, or three as I recommend, could help form a prophylactic thyroid gland inhibitor to low levels of radioactive iodine.
Kelp itself with many trace minerals is beneficial to the body and is recommended to be taken daily for health.
Potassium iodine KI at 125 milligram levels should only be ingested when there is knowledge of a pulse of high iodine content forthcoming in the air, and should only be taken while this pulse is flowing overhead. At such times it is also recommended to remain indoors. 125 milligram levels of iodine can have harmful effects if taken over more than a few days.
Kelp tablets that contain 125 micrograms of iodine however, taken even as much as 3 to five tablets daily, can have long term health benefits both for the thyroid gland and the rest of the body, especially as many people due to incorrect food intake have a deficiency in iodine and trace minerals. |
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Chernobyl Hell on Earth
The first thing we noticed was that many miles of trees in the forest turned red
click here |
I visited the still highly contaminated areas of Ukraine and the Belarus border where much of the radioactive plume from Chernobyl descended on 26 April 1986
Guardian 2006 article click here |
Fetal origins of disease
Rapidly growing cells in a fetus may divide before repair negating the body's defense mechanism and replicating the damage
click here |
Fukushima radioactive fallout nears Chernobyl levels
New Scientist article click here |
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March 18, 2011
0400 in Japan 19 March 2011 and the temperature is just below zero in Fukushima.
Nearly 400,000 people are spending another night in shelters in the north-east, where supplies of food, water, medicine and heating fuel are becoming non-existent.
As day breaks on Saturday steam is rising from unit 3.
Water in that fuel pool is believed to be dangerously low.
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Nuclear alert level raised because:
The cooling function was lost and the reactor cores were damaged.
Radioactive particles continue to be released in the environment.
Radiation levels drop slightly after water cannon.
NE monitoring point: 3,339 μSv/h at 1450 from 3,484 μSv/h at 1350 — TEPCO via NHK
1 x μSv is a microSievert or microSv. It is one millionth of a Sievert.
~10 rem or 0.1 Sv or 100 mSv or 100,000 microSv dosage per hour may begin to effect bodily cellular change with no radiation suit protection.
~100 rem or 1 Sv or 1,000 mSv or 1,000,000 microSv in a single dosage will induce radiation sickness such as nausea and vomiting.
Normal non-human produced radiation can be as low as 0.23 microSievert per hour exposure in such places as La Paz, Bolivia.
Readings taken at the front entrance of the No. 1 Fukushima plant have reached 0.59 microSievert prior to the 9.0 earthquake tsunami, but this is also considered within the 'normal' range.
Japanese authorities have informed the IAEA that engineers were able have begun to lay an external grid power line cable to Unit 2.
The operation was continuing as of 20:30 UTC March 17, 2011
Temperatures of the spent nuclear fuel pools at Units 4, 5 and 6 at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant update 18 March 2011, 06:10 UTC:
Unit 4
Automatic teller machine problems in Japan due to the 9.0 earthquake is expected to have affected more than 1 million transactions.
Sendai airport now open to emergency vehicles, airplanes and helicopters.
08:00 UTC 18 March — operation to fix external power supply to the Fukushima Daiichi plant is currently under way but functions have not yet been restored.
17 March, 18:00 UTC: no data Unit 5 17 March, 03:00 UTC: 64.2 °C 17 March, 18:00 UTC: 65.5 °C Unit 6 17 March, 03:00 UTC: 62.5 °C 17 March, 18:00 UTC: 62.0 °C |
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March 17, 2011
Choppers resumed water drops on the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
Radiation level was 4.13 millisievert per hour at an altitude of 1,000 feet.
Water cannons are being used to try to fill the spent fuel storage pool at Reactor 4. The cannon are thought to be strong enough to allow crews to remain a safe distance from the starge pool.
Radiation level unchanged despite choppers dousing reactor — Kyodo News quoting Tepco.
MOX
Pressure is rising again at Reactor 3 — the reactor that used MOX: a blend of plutonium and uranium that will be any combination of natural uranium, reprocessed uranium, depleted uranium.
The temperature of Reactor 5 has become a growing concern: 'The level of water in the reactor is lowering and the pressure is rising.'
Water cannon use on March 17, 2011 to help release water on the Fukushima nuclear power plant has been halted because of high radiation levels. |
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US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Gregory Jaczko informed US Congress hearings that water in the spent fuel pool in reactor four at Fukushima Daiichi may no longer be present and that radiation levels are extremely high.
"We believe at this point that Unit Four may have lost a significant inventory, if not lost all, of its wate."
Jaczko said there was the possibility of a crack in the spent fuel pool in reactor No.3, "which could lead to a loss of water in that pool".
The NRC chairman also said the spent fuel pool level in reactor No.2, "is decreasing."
A power line is being laid to the Fukushima Daiichi plant to help restore the reactor cooling systems.
Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) spokesman Naoki Tsunoda has said it is almost complete.
He stated that engineers plan to test the power line 'as soon as possible.'
Best case scenario is for electric-powered pumps to start to significantly cool overheated reactors and spent fuel storage ponds before radiation contamination has become too widespread and severe.
IAEA data Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant:
Typical spent fuel pool temperature is kept below 25 °C under normal operating conditions.
Unit 5 14 March, 10:08 UTC: 59.7 °C 15 March, 10:00 UTC: 60.4 °C 16 March, 05:00 UTC: 62.7 °C Unit 6 14 March, 10:08 UTC: 58.0 °C 15 March, 10:00 UTC: 58.5 °C 16 March, 05:00 UTC: 60.0 °C |
Unit 4 14 March, 10:08 UTC: 84 °C 15 March, 10:00 UTC: 84 °C 16 March, 05:00 UTC: no data The temperature of a spent fuel pool is maintained by constant cooling, which requires a constant power source. Given the intense heat and radiation that spent fuel assemblies can generate, spent fuel pools must be constantly checked for water level and temperature. If fuel is no longer covered by water or temperatures reach a boiling point, fuel can become exposed and create a risk of radioactive release. The concern about the spent fuel pools at Fukushima Daiichi is that sources of power to cool the pools may have been compromised. Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency told the Kyodo news: It is concerned about spent fuel storage pool inside the building housing reactor 3 at Fukushima Daiichi. Pools at reactors 3 and 4 are reportedly boiling. There may not be water left in reactor 4's pool. Unless the spent fuel rods are cooled down, they could emit large quantities of radiation. If cooling operations do not proceed well, the situation will likely 'reach a critical stage in a couple of days.' 752 microSieverts per hour was recorded at Fukushima Daiichi main gate at 1700 on Wednesday, March 16, 2011 (0800 UTC), said Tetsuo Ohmura. The monitoring point was then changed to the plant's west gate and readings were taken every 30 minutes. At 0500 (2000 UTC) on Thursday, March 17, 2011, the reading was 338 microSieverts per hour.
~10 rem or 0.1 Sv or 100 mSv or 100,000 microSv dosage per hour may begin to effect bodily cellular change with no radiation suit protection.
~100 rem or 1 Sv or 1,000 mSv or 1,000,000 microSv in a single dosage will induce radiation sickness such as nausea and vomiting.
Normal non-human produced radiation can be as low as 0.23 microSievert per hour exposure in such places as La Paz, Bolivia.
Readings taken at the front entrance of the No. 1 Fukushima plant have reached 0.59 microSievert prior to the 9.0 earthquake tsunami, but this is also considered within the 'normal' range.
1 sievert is a derived unit of radiation dose received in one hour at a distance of 1 cm from a point source of 1 mg of radium in a 0.5 mm thick platinum enclosure.
1 sievert is also defined as that producing the same biological effect in a specified tissue as 1 gray of high-energy x-rays. |
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BBC News Asia-Pacific
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BeyondNuclear.org
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Accuracy.org
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Emergency Special Report — Yoichi Shimatsu
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The reactor core is in the reactor vessel, or pressure vessel, which is surrounded by a steel containment vessel.
The steel containment vessel is surrounded by a reinforced concrete shell.
Image: AllThingsNuclear.org
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All Things Nuclear
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Exodus line of cars from road in area around Fukushima |
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The map projects the result of possible leakage issuing from one nuclear reactor
Five nuclear reactors may have problems
Image: Australian Radiation Services
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Only 50 deaths caused by Chernobyl?
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UN accused of ignoring 500,000 Chernobyl deaths
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Atomic bomb’s peculiar disease Hiroshima, Nagasaki — George Weller report |
Unspeakable grief and horror
...and the circus of deception killing continues... | |||
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