Radiation - the end never comes. Quotes for week 3 of the global nuclear emergency.

"'At least 500,000 people - perhaps more - have already died out of the 2 million people who were officially classed as victims of Chernobyl in Ukraine,' said Nikolai Omelyanets, deputy head of the National Commission for Radiation Protection in Ukraine. ... 'We have found that infant mortality increased 20% to 30% because of chronic exposure to radiation after the accident. All this information has been ignored by the IAEA and WHO. We sent it to them in March last year and again in June. They've not said why they haven't accepted it.'"[1]

"Just how does the United Nations IAEA manage to ignore half a million to a million dead Eurasians?…. The "threshold dose" concept is used as the determinant of who is counted and who is not. That's how the IAEA/WHO manipulates the data on Chernobyl and in-effect lies to the world on the horrors of radiation poisoning. Multiple official sources confirm that there is no safe dose of radiation, at all.” [2]

“Libya has dislodged from the headlines a nuclear catastrophe in Japan, on top of a seismic one, that’s one of the epic dramas of the past half-century and what’s doubly weird is that the actual fighting in Libya is a series of tiny skirmishes. The muscle-bound adjectives and nouns used to describe the military engagements – if they even deserve that word – in press reports remind me of a Chihuahua trying to mount a Newfoundland. Ambition far outstrips reality, which is in this case is a nervous rabble motley insurgents – maybe 1,500 or so at most, posing for television crews and then fleeing back down the road to the next village (“strategic stronghold”) at the first whiff of trouble….”[3]

"There was a rumor that George Monbiot had handcuffed himself to the Libyan nuclear research center to show solidarity with Qaddafi’s alleged commitment to research into nuclear power as an alternative to fossil fuels, but the word from Monbiot HQ was that that the silliest man in Great Britain is planning a symbolic flyover of Chernobyl as a monument to the safety of nuclear power, before inaugurating a “nuke camp” next to Daiichi 2 at Fukushima. Everything is out of proportion." [4]

“World markets are simply unpreapared for the third-largest economy to suddenly and violently downshift. The persisting crisis at Fukushima simply worsens the picture.” [5]

“Mr. Golay said he doubted that it would be possible to evacuate a 50-mile radius in and around an urban area in the U.S.. "We're certainly not prepared for it," he said…. About 20 million people live within 50 miles of Indian Point [home of two nuclear reactors] which is 35 miles from Midtown Manhattan.” [6]

U.S. emergency-response plans call for only evacuating residents within a 10-mile radius of a nuclear disaster. However, last week, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission recommended that Americans within 50 miles of Japan's Fukushima Daiichi plant evacuate. [This was later followed by a mass evacuation of hundreds of thousands of American defense personnel from the entire Japanese nation.] [7]

“The end never comes, this just goes on forever” [8]

"Today, tens of thousands of tons of irradiated fuel sits in spent fuel pools across America. At many sites, there is nearly ten times as much irradiated fuel in the spent fuel pools as in the reactor cores. The spent fuel pools are not cooled by an array of highly reliable emergency cooling systems capable of being powered from the grid, diesel generators, or batteries. Instead, the pools are cooled by one regular system sometimes backed up by an alternate makeup system. “The spent fuel pools are not housed within robust concrete containment structures designed to protect the public from the radioactivity released from damaged irradiated fuel. Instead, the pools are often housed in buildings with sheet metal siding like that in a Sears storage shed. I have nothing against the quality or utility of Sears’ storage sheds, but they are not suitable for nuclear waste storage. “The irrefutable bottom line is that we have utterly failed to properly manage the risk from irradiated fuel stored at our nation’s nuclear power plants. We can and must do better." (The Union of Concerned Scientists.)[9]

31st March 2011: “..According to Business Week, "When plutonium decays, it emits what is known as an alpha particle, a relatively big particle that carries a lot of energy. When an alpha particle hits body tissue, it can damage the DNA of a cell and lead to a cancer-causing mutation." If plutonium leaches into groundwater or pristine aquifers, the threat to public health and the environment will be extreme.” [10]

29th March 2011: Radioactive caesium and iodine has been deposited in northern Japan far from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, at levels that were considered highly contaminated after Chernobyl. The readings were taken by the Japanese science ministry, MEXT, and reveal high levels of caesium-137 and iodine-131 outside the 30-kilometre evacuation zone, mostly to the north-north-west. Iodine-131, with a half-life of eight days, should disappear in a matter of weeks. The bigger worry concerns caesium-137, which has a half-life of 30 years and could pose a health threat for far longer. Just how serious that will be depends on where it lands, and whether remediation measures are possible."[11]

24th March 2011: "...The soil contamination is really high. Soil found 40 kilometers away.... the levels on the soil were very high—in fact, a thousand times iodine, 4,000 times the cesium standard. And we just got a report from the Kyoto Research Reactor Institute, Dr. Tetsuji Imanaka, that said that—he had to look a little bit more into the sampling of the Japanese government, but depending on how the sampling was done, this level of contamination in the soil could be twice the amount that was compulsory evacuation for Chernobyl.[12]

REFERENCES:
[1] The Guardian from March 25th of 2006: "UN accused of ignoring 500,000 Chernobyl deaths
As quoted in:
Atomic Moron - The UN Would Never Lie to George Monbiot
By JOE GIAMBRONE. Weekend Edition, Counterpunch. April 1 - 3, 2011
http://www.counterpunch.org/giambrone04012011.html

[2] JOE GIAMBRONE in his article: Atomic Moron - The UN Would Never Lie to George Monbiot
Published in the Weekend Edition, Counterpunch. April 1 - 3, 2011
http://www.counterpunch.org/giambrone04012011.html

[3] Battling the Beast By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
CounterPunch Diary, Weekend Edition April 1 - 3, 2011
http://www.counterpunch.org/

[4] Battling the Beast By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
CounterPunch Diary, Weekend Edition April 1 - 3, 2011
http://www.counterpunch.org/

[5] EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS: Latest Satellite Imagery From Fukushima Tells Sobering Tale
Friday, April 1, 2011, 4:54 pm, by cmartenson
http://www.chrismartenson.com/blog/breaking-latest-satellite-imagery-fukushima/55711

[6] Plants Face New Worries - Spread of Radiation in Japan Fuels Questions About Evacuation Plans in U.S.
By DANIEL GILBERT. 24th March 2011
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703362904576219031025249872.html

[7] Nuclear Evacuation Zones. March 2011
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704604704576220373366809468.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories

[8] Radiation Expert on CNN: “The end never comes, this just goes on forever” (VIDEO)

[9] Dave Lochbaum, Director of UCS’s Nuclear Safety Project, who testified on Wednesday before the Senate Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee.
As quoted in:
Fukushima Fallout Hits the US. March 31, 2011
Radiation Found in Rainwater From California to Massachusetts
By MIKE WHITNEY
http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney03312011.html

[10] Fukushima Fallout Hits the US. March 31, 2011
Radiation Found in Rainwater From California to Massachusetts
By MIKE WHITNEY
http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney03312011.html

[11] Caesium fallout from Fukushima rivals Chernobyl
* 15:29 29 March 2011 by Debora MacKenzie
For similar stories, visit the The Nuclear Age Topic Guide
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20305-caesium-fallout-from-fukushima-rivals-chernobyl.html
[12] Aileen Mioko Smith, March 24 (thanks to Michael Collins "They said it wasn't like Chernobyl and they were wrong"
As quoted in:
The Doomsday Scenario - Is Fukushima About to Blow?
By MIKE WHITNEY. March 28, 2011
http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney03282011.html