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Topic Started: April 11 2011, 02:28 PM (7,666 Views)
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Fukushima residents dump radiated soil in absence of plan
Tue Jul 5, 2011 1:33am GMT

FUKUSHIMA, Japan (Reuters) - They scoop up soil from their gardens and dump it in holes dug out in parks and nearby forests, scrub their roofs with soap and refuse to let their children play outside.

More than three months after a massive earthquake and tsunami triggered a nuclear meltdown at a nearby power plant, Fukushima residents are scrambling to cope with contamination on their own in the absence of a long-term plan from the government.

"Everything and everyone here is paralysed and we feel left on our own, unsure whether it's actually safe for us to stay in the city," said Akiko Itoh, 42, with her four-year old son in her lap.

Even though this city of 300,000 lies outside of the 30-km evacuation zone around the crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant, a recent survey showed radiation levels in several spots exceed 13 millisieverts per year, more than six times natural levels.

As increasingly panicked residents take matters into their own hands, experts warn that their do-it-yourself efforts to reduce contamination risk making matters worse by allowing radiation to spread without monitoring and by creating hotspots of high radioactivity where soil is piled high.

"I scooped up all the radioactive soil and grass from my garden and dumped it in the forest, so no one could find it," said a mother of a four-year-old child from Fukushima city, who did not want to be identified by name.

"When I put my Geiger counter close to that mountain of soil it showed 10 microseverts per hour," she said. That is more than four times the official annual nuclear exposure limit. Others were spotted dumping their nuclear waste in public parks and by the river, residents said.

Experts say the longer it takes Japanese authorities to organise a clean-up the greater the risk of additional, long-lasting damage.
"Such clusters of radiation can also leak into the groundwater and pose more health hazards for a sustained period," said Takumi Gotoh, a Nagoya-based cancer specialist.

"That's why Japan urgently needs a comprehensive, long-term plan to deal with the issue," Gotoh said.

WHAT'S THE PLAN?

Since late May authorities have been removing topsoil from school grounds in the affected areas, by packing it in tarps and burying it in holes in the grounds as a stopgap measure intended to reduce exposure for children.

"They say this is just a temporary solution. But we are worried they may take years before removing the contaminated soil for good," says Seiichi Nakate from "Fukushima Network for Saving Children from Radiation," a non-profit citizens group.

Experts have said that they don't know and can't yet estimate how much radioactive soil might have to be removed after Fukushima, but say the amount will be massive based on historical precedent.

For example, after British nuclear testing in remote South Australia that ended in 1963, more than two cubic kilometers of soil had to be removed. After an American B-52 carrying nuclear bombs crashed in south Spain in 1966, more than 1,000 cubic meters of soil had to be removed and sent back to the United States for storage as nuclear waste.

Many see the best storage site as the Fukushima nuclear plant, but experts warn that will mean waiting until at least 2012 when efforts to stabilise the plant are scheduled to wind down.

"The soil ultimately should be taken to those who are responsible for this mess, that is Tokyo Electric," said Nakate.
The International Commission on Radiological Protectionhas issued guidelines that urge governments dealing with a nuclear emergency to set up a radiation monitoring system with a detailed read-out on hotspots and a health monitoring system for the affected population.

While checking radiation in schools is now commonplace, health check-ups have only started in the worst-affected areas. Tokyo has promised that the radiation hotspot map will be ready by October -- seven months after the disaster.

In the meantime, the continued uncertainty puts communities already increasingly distrustful of officialdom under even greater strain, residents and local officials say.

"What is the government doing? How many of them actually came to Fukushima to listen to the concerns of the people living here?" said Yoshinori Kasuya, assembly member of Fukushima city council.
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Angry Fukushima parents want health chief gone as cesium findings increase

Fearful after cesium-137 was found in every child tested 60 kilometers from Fukushima melt-throughs, Japanese parents have more fear and anger after this weekend Bloomberg reports that radioactive cesium-137 has now been found as far away as in Tokyo’s tap water. At a press conference Saturday, Fukushima Prefecture citizens announced their petition seeking dismissal of Shunichi Yama(censor)a from his position as Radiation Health Risk Management Advisor to Fukushima Prefecture.

"Radioactive cesium-137 was found in Tokyo’s tap water for the first time since April as Japan grapples with the worst nuclear disaster in 25 years. The level was below the safety limit set by the government," reported Bloomberg on July 4.

At a press conference in Fukushima on Saturday, Seiichi Nakate, director of Fukushima Network to Save Children from Radiation and father of two elementary school children asked about Mr. Shunichi Yama(censor)a from the Atomic Bomb Disease Institute at Nagasaki University, serving as Radiation Health Risk Management Advisor to Fukushima Prefecture, "Is he trying to browbeat the people of Fukushima or play the part of the tragic hero?" asked Nakate. (See Fukushima Press Conference video on this page left.)

"As a parent, I just can’t forgive him for telling Fukushima people there is absolutely no problem, that children can play outdoors just like before, and do whatever they like."

Cesium-137 concentration registered 0.14 becquerels per kilogram in Shinjuku ward on July 2, compared with 0.21 becquerels on April 22, according to the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Public Health.

Caesium-137 reacts with water producing a water-soluble compound (caesium hydroxide), and the biological behavior of caesium is similar to potassium and rubidium.

After entering the body, caesium gets somewhat uniformly distributed throughout the body, with higher concentration in muscle tissues and lower in bones. The biological half-life of caesium is only 70 days according to R. Nave's "Biological Half-life," in Hyperphysics.

Cesium experiments with dogs showed a single dose of 3800 μCi/kg (140 MBq/kg, or approximately 44 μg/kg) is lethal within three weeks. ( H.C. Redman et al, "Toxicity of 137-CsCl in the Beagle. Early Biological Effects". Radiation Research 50 (3): 629–648.doi:10.2307/3573559. JSTOR 3573559. PMID 5030090, 1972)

Pavel Alpeyev in Tokyo (palpeyev@bloomberg.net) for Bloomberg reported that "spinach, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, tea, milk, plums and fish have been found to be contaminated with cesium and iodine as far as 360 kilometers (224 miles) from the station."

It is not just radiation-tainted food and water that is lethal. Prolonged additional exposure to radiation in air and ground can cause leukemia and other cancers, according to London-based World Nuclear Association.



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Fukushima-1: secrets revealed.

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Fukushima-1. Photo: EPA

The accident at Fukushima -1 in March this year was caused by defects in construction, both the former and the current senior engineers of the Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) - the company operating the Japanese nuclear power plant - told “The Wall Street Journal”. Specialists say that emergency diesel-generators and switchgears were wrongly placed at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant.

Only 50 per cent of the devices transmitting electricity from the generators to the reactors’ coolers were well fixed, the TEPCO experts say. All the rest were destroyed by the earthquake and by the tsunami that followed it, which finally led to the wide-scale radiation leak.

Of importance here is the fact that a renewed construction was used. Therefore, during the accident the cooling system at the two reactors of the ill-famed Fukushima- 1 nuclear power plant, as well as all four reactors of the Fukushima -2 nuclear power plant, continued working and the energy units were shut down as is should be under the emergency regime. And with regards to the other reactors of the Fukushima -1 nuclear power plant, including the oldest ones, the TEPCO engineers say that over the past dozen of years the company had no time to modernize them. This was caused by “unjustified self-complacence, by the necessity to save money and by weak regulations”. And the 88-year-old Masatoshi Toyota, former top-manager of the TEPCO Company also acknowledged his guilt - he had failed to see the defects and as a result, made no corrections. The company’s other representatives make no comments, saying that the investigation is still underway.

The Fukushima tragedy should be carefully analyzed because such cataclysms may pose a threat to other countries as well. For example, there’re dozens of reactors in the USA, whose operating life has already exceeded 30 years. And more than 20 of them have the same design as the reactors at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant that were designed by the General Electric Company. The design provided for the possibility of an accident once in a 100 years. However, the reality proves much tougher sometimes, the Editor-In-Chief of the Atomic Strategy Journal Oleg Dvoinikov said in an interview with the Voice of Russia.

"Life shows that every 20 years there’s a big accident, accompanied by a radiation leak, which spreads to other countries. Such are the statistics. Therefore, taking into account the aging of facilities, one can say with absolute certainty that a new tragedy, similar to the one that was mentioned above, may occur in the near future."

The danger became evident after the Japanese disaster, which occurred this March. And still, no measures are being taken in the USA to shut down the outdated reactors. It is quite understandable: the point is that such steps demand serious efforts.

Nuclear power plants are very complex technical facilities, whose functioning is linked not only to scientific but also to social problems of a given region. It is necessary to create additional capacities for the production of electricity. I think that after the Japanese events the USA will reconsider its projects.

Despite similar problems, Germany and Switzerland have already shut down the old reactors. Of course, the situation in the European countries is incomparable neither with the USA nor with Russia. Russia has repeatedly stressed that there’s no alternative to nuclear power production for the world’s biggest countries in the near future but it insists that in the first place, paramount attention must be paid to the development of the global security system at nuclear facilities.


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Containment dome built over Fukushima reactor

Work has got under way to build a containment dome over the first power-generating unit of Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant.

Polyether sarcophaguses are due to be constructed by late September over the first, third and fourth units, which were damaged during the March 11th earthquake.

The domes will be used for two years until all damaged reactors are covered in cement. Meanwhile, the Japanese authorities plan to check up on the condition of all national nuclear power plants in case another quake strikes.

Fukushima wave cutter will resist 8-metre tsunami

A wave cutter capable of resisting an 8-metre tsunami has been built in the area of the crippled Fukushima power plant.

Experts believe that this kind of tidal wave may hit the nuclear power plant following a new 8.0 Magnitude earthquake.

The new artificial barrier is 362 metres long and 14 metres high. It is due to protect the station compound with the third reactor turbine room and the above-ground storage of liquid radioactive waster.

30 more Fukushima liquidators get ultimate annual radiation dose

Another 30 Fukushima liquidators have got the ultimate annual radiation dose.

This follows from the results of thorough medical examination of 2,200 people who worked at the Fukushima nuclear plant in April. A total of 8,400 people, engaged in repair work, are due to undergo medical checkups.

Following the March 11th earthquake and tsunami, the threshold radiation dose for liquidators was set at 250 millisieverts.

1 millisievert per year is seen as an acceptable radiation level for an ordinary person.
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Tepco halts cooling system at nuclear plant after sparks

TOKYO, July 7 | Thu Jul 7, 2011 6:19am EDT

(Reuters) - The operator of Japan's Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant, located near the tsunami-crippled Daiichi plant, on Thursday halted the cooling system at one of its reactors after electrical sparks were detected, Kyodo news agency reported.

Tokyo Electric Power , the plant's operator, expects to be able to restore the cooling system at the Daini plant's No.1 reactor before the end of Thursday, Kyodo said.

The Daini plant, about 240 km (150 miles) from Tokyo, is located several miles along the Pacific coast from the Daiichi plant, damaged severely by the powerful earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan on March 11.

The Daini plant suffered less damage from the disasters and is currently in cold shutdown.
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Genkai mayor withdraws OK for two reactors' restart

By MASAMI ITO
Staff writer

Genkai Mayor Hideo Kishimoto on Thursday officially retracted his controversial decision to approve the rebooting of two reactors at the Genkai nuclear plant and slammed the central government for ordering "stress tests" out of the blue following weeks of assurances about reactor safety.

The retraction, a political rather than legal necessity for doing the stress tests, creates an awkward situation for Kishimoto, who gave the go-ahead for restarting the reactors just Monday, leaving the final decision to Saga Gov. Yasushi Furukawa.

"Anger welled up in my heart after hearing Prime Minister Kan say that resumption will be based on the stress tests. It sounded like my decision was a waste," Kishimoto said Thursday morning. "I would like to declare the withdrawal at the (town) assembly."

Kishimoto was not alone in his frustration.

When Saga Gov. Yasushi Furukawa met with Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano in Tokyo the same morning, he complained about the flip-flop over nuclear safety standards and questioned the timing of the government's decision.

"I do respect the government's decision to hold stress tests to ensure further confidence, but I cannot help but ask 'Why now?' " Furukawa said to Edano.

Kishimoto, "who is generally a mild-tempered man, is extremely angry. . . . He said he does not know who to trust anymore," Furukawa added.

The stress tests are to be conducted on all nuclear plants, but the sudden change in policy has exposed the government's wavering confidence in atomic energy amid the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.

Exacerbating the situation is already high public distrust of the central government, Tokyo Electric Power Co. and Japan's entire nuclear regulatory regime.

Kishimoto was the first mayor since the nuclear crisis began in Fukushima Prefecture to permit the restart of a reactor.

His decision followed a high-profile meeting with industry minister Banri Kaieda, who claimed the safety of the two reactors in question had been confirmed.

But two days later, Kaieda, under orders from Prime Minister Naoto Kan, turned his world upside-down by announcing stress tests for all reactors nationwide to "offer a sense of assurance."

Furukawa accused Kan and Kaieda of not being on the same page regarding nuclear energy policy.

"I think that there is a difference in the prime minister's and minister Kaieda's perception of nuclear policy, including the issue of resumption," Furukawa said.

"Without a concrete government approach, there is nothing we can do."

Edano apologized at the meeting and promised to coordinate government policy.

In the Upper House Budget Committee, Kaieda said he might resign to take responsibility for the confusion, although he did not specifically say when.

"I will take responsibility when the time comes," he said in response to an opposition lawmaker's demand that he step down.

At a later news conference, Edano stressed the need not only to reconfirm the safety of the plants, but also to make sure that the people feel assured about the results.

"The state has firmly confirmed the safety of the Genkai plant . . . (but) we are making efforts and being creative to reassure the people that it is safe," Edano said.

"Once everything has been organized, we would like to inform you about the details as clearly as possible."
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Fukushima I Nuke Plant: Humans Will Enter Reactor 3 Again

TEPCO announced on July 8 that the human workers will enter the reactor building of the Reactor 3 in preparation for the nitrogen injection. The humans will go in the afternoon on July 8 to the high radiation area (50 millisieverts/hour) of the reactor building to survey the condition of the location where TEPCO wants to use for nitrogen injection. The work is expected to last about 10 minutes.

Verification process for Unit 3 to the nitrogen injection
July 08,

In Unit 3 of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station TEPCO, for injection of nitrogen to prevent hydrogen explosion, 08, will do the confirmation of the connection points of the piping into the reactor building workers, Work is due to the high radiation dose expected difficulties, and an unpredictable situation can be an infusion of nitrogen to 17 as planned.

Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3 nuclear power plant is planned to inject nitrogen to prevent hydrogen explosion containment, had planned to shoot a robot fitted with cameras to connect to a connection point into the containment piping, nitrogen could not verify where the pipe connects the base of an obstacle to work. Into the reactor building workers from the afternoon of May 8, therefore, has to be sure to be connected to the containment pipe into the nitrogen work Because of the high radiation dose around the work area can have a hard is expected. The roadmap for the convergence of the accident, "Step 1" provides an important element to prevent hydrogen explosion, along with a steady cooling of nuclear reactors, nuclear accident Hosono Minister, the situation will certainly occur in hydrogen explosion after checking, it plans a 17 zone "emergency evacuation preparations," shows the idea to start a study on the release. For the injection of nitrogen, since it seems to take several days to ensure safe operation by the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency Ministry of Economy, can be planned before the injection of nitrogen-17 is an unpredictable situation .
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(Reuters) - A strong earthquake jolted northeastern Japan on Sunday, and workers at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant were evacuated after an alert for a half-meter tsunami was issued by the Japan Meteorological Agency.

The quake monitoring agency said the earthquake had a magnitude of 7.0 and occurred at a depth of 10 km (6 miles) off the northeastern coast.

Broadcaster NHK later reported a tsunami of 10 cm along the northeast coast.

There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage from the quake, NHK said in an earlier broadcast.

The same area was hit by a massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11 that left at least 21,000 dead and missing. The March disaster cut power to the Fukushima power plant and triggered a radiation crisis.

Tokyo Electric Power said all of the workers at Fukushima had been evacuated to higher ground, adding that there was no sign of any immediate further damage at the nuclear plant where workers have been struggling to build a cooling system to stabilize the reactors.

Tokyo Electric said it would be monitoring a massive barge moored just offshore from the Fukushima nuclear power plant that has been used as a temporary storage depot for radiated water for any damage.

The U.S. Geological Survey initially estimated the quake's magnitude of 7.3, but then revised that estimate down to a magnitude 7.
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Tsunami advisories issued after quake

A magnitude 7.1 earthquake hit northeastern Japan on Sunday morning.

The agency issued tsunami advisories for coastal regions of Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima prefectures at 10AM.

The region was devastated by the March 11th earthquake and tsunami.

Tremors with an intensity of 4 on the Japanese seismic scale of 0 to 7 were felt at around 9:57 AM.

Japan's Meteorological Agency says the quake had a focus off the coast of Sanriku, at a depth of 10 kilometers.

The agency observed the first wave off Miyagi Prefecture at 10:28 AM. It estimates 50 centimeter tsunami will hit coastal areas.

Tokyo Electric Power Company says it has found no problems with its Fukushima Daiichi and Daini nuclear plants as a result of the quake. It says it ordered its workers to move away from the coast.

Sunday, July 10, 2011 10:39 +0900 (JST)
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Japanese officials have warned residents not to cut back too much on the use of air conditioning, especially for older people and young children. The Japanese government warned of possible heatstroke from setting the thermostat on air conditioners too high -- and of possible food poisoning from raising the temperature in refrigerators. Officials said the temperatures in Japan have risen higher than they have in decades amid a nationwide power-saving drive. The government asked the public to set air conditioners at 82 degrees, but doing so "would make the actual temperature inside reach too high," said Ritsuko Momose, chief of staff at a home for the elderly in Suginami Ward, Tokyo. "Some of the measures run counter to the power-saving drive, but the lives of the elderly are at stake," Momose said. Nearly 7,000 people were hospitalized for heatstroke in June, more than three times the number from a year ago. Fifteen died after reaching the hospital. Weather officials said June's heatwave sent temperatures in parts of Japan to their highest levels since 1961. Temperatures in downtown Tokyo reached 95 degrees on June 29 -- just the third time the temperature has exceeded 95 degrees in June since the Meteorological Agency began compiling comparable records in 1875.
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Japanese nuclear city reveals huge plan to clean every building and road of radiation
The government of nuclear-stricken Japanese city of Fukushima is drawing up plans to scrub every building and road clean of radioactivity – a process that will take up to 20 years.
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Workers braved high radiation levels in an attempt to salvage the situation at the stricken Fukushima plant Photo: Getty


"We are drawing up a plan to clean our city and the first phase of the project will be announced early next month," Akane Saito, a spokeswoman for the city government, told The Daily Telegraph. "We are still discussing the plan so the final details have not been decided yet and the final cost will depend on what measures are taken."

The cost of the two-decade clean-up operatioon is likely to run into billions of yen and local authorities are hoping to receive funding from the national government and Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant, to cleanse the 288 square miles that make up the city.

Fukushima is only about 35 miles from the plant, which was destroyed in the March 11 earthquake and tsunami and subsequently released radioactivity into the sea, groundwater and the air. An 18-mile exclusion zone has been declared around the plant, where emergency teams are working around the clock to keep the reactors cool and contain further leaks of radioactivity.

There is evidence, however, that the radioactivity has travelled well beyond the no-go zone, with 10 children from Fukushima who had urine samples tested for radioactivity coming back positive.

"Of course I am worried about the radiation and we have no idea how it will affect us, but I'm not thinking about leaving as this is my home town and this is my job," Ms. Saito said. "It is my responsibility to work for the people of the city."
The "hometown decontamination plan" is expected to propose using high-power hoses to wash the exteriors of buildings and then collect and dispose of the radioactive debris and contaminated water.

Surface soil will also be collected from schools, the grounds of hospitals, parks and other public facilities, while the ambitious scheme also calls for farmland, mountain areas and rivers to undergo similar decontamination procedures.

Work is expected to start in the Watari and Onami districts of the city, where elevated levels of radiation have already been detected.

In Tokyo, the Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary on Thursday moved to clarify comments the previous day by the prime minister, Naoto Kan, suggesting that Japan is about to abolish nuclear power entirely.

Yukio Edano told reporters that Mr Kan's demand for a society that does not rely on nuclear energy should be interpreted as "the start of a national debate" and "a hope for the distant future" instead of an official policy that is about to be implemented.

Still, the Japanese public is acutely concerned about the issue of nuclear energy, and that will not have been eased by the admission by Kyushu Electric Power Co. that it ordered its staff to send emails to a televised debate weighing public support for restarting the company's nuclear reactors.

Employees of the company, which provides energy to the Japan's most southerly main island, bombarded the programme with messages so that the final outcome was 286 opinions in favour of restarting the reactors with 163 people opposed. At least 130 of the messages in favour of the utility's operations have been traced back to its staff.
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Fukushima cleanup recruits 'nuclear gypsies' from across Japan

Thousands of engineers and labourers have been lured by higher wages and a sense of duty

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Workers on the bus which will transfer them to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Photograph: Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert

The sun has only just risen in Iwaki-Yumoto when groups of men in white T-shirts and light blue cargo pants emerge blinking into the sunlight, swapping the comfort of their air-conditioned rooms for the fierce humidity of a Japanese summer.

Four months on from the start of the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl, this hot-spring resort in north-east Japan has been transformed into a dormitory for 2,000 men who have travelled from across the country to take part in the clean-up effort 30 miles away at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant.

Iwaki-Yumoto has come to resemble corporate Japan in microcosm. Among its newest residents are technicians and engineers with years of experience and, underpinning them all, hundreds of labourers lured from across Japan by the prospect of higher wages.

They include Ariyoshi Rune, a tall, wiry 47-year-old truck driver whose slicked-back hair and sideburns are inspired by his idol, Joe Strummer.

For five days a week, Rune is in thrall to the drudgery of life as a "nuclear gypsy", the name writer Kunio Horie gave to contract workers who have traditionally performed the dirtiest, most dangerous jobs for Japan's power utilities.

The industry has relied on temporary workers for maintenance and repair work since the nuclear plant construction boom in the 1970s. Now, as then, those from the lowest rungs of Japanese society work for meagre wages, with little training or experience of hazardous environments.

"I've never thought working at the plant was dangerous," Rune tells the Guardian after a day's work, for which he receives 12,000 yen (£95). "And I think my wage is fair for the kind of work I do. It's more than I used to get driving a truck."

He arrived at Fukushima in early June after seeing an advertisement for labourers in a magazine. His 73-year-old mother knows her son is working in the area, but she has no idea he spends half of every day at the site of Japan's worst-ever nuclear accident.

Rune, who is divorced, generally gets two days off a week, when he travels to nearby Ibaraki prefecture to see his sons. "When I told them about my work the first thing they said was, 'Please don't get irradiated.' They worry, but they also think that what I'm doing is kind of cool."

He says he has been exposed to five millisieverts (mSv) in little over a month – more than double the worldwide average background dose of 2.4mSv a year. While Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) engineers working inside reactor buildings are allowed an annual radiation dose of up to 250mSv, Rune's firm has imposed a cut-off point of 30mSv for staff and 15mSv for casual labourers.

"I have about two months left before I reach my limit, but I'm hoping they will make an exception and let me work for longer," he says.

The next morning, at 5.45am, the bus is already waiting when Rune emerges from his hotel, where he shares a room with five other workers.

Before them lies a 45-minute journey to J-Village, a football training complex, where they will be briefed on their duties for the day before changing into radiation suits, masks and goggles, protective gloves and glass-encased monitors which they must carry with them at all times on site.

At 8am they begin the first of two 90-minute shifts at Fukushima Daiichi, separated by a break of similar length. Radiation exposure and heat bring their working day to an end by early afternoon.

Rune gave the Guardian a rare insight into working conditions inside the plant.

As he leaves his place of work for his 90-minute break, he must remove his cotton gloves before opening a door into a second room, where he takes off two pairs of rubber gloves and strips down to his underpants. In a third room, he is scanned for radiation. If he gets the all clear, he is given a new uniform and underwear. The process is repeated again after his second 90-minute shift of the day.

"It is so hot there at the moment, we have to take lots of breaks, so I don't think this will be done by January," he says, referring to Tepco's self-imposed deadline for stabilising the plant. "That said I have seen signs of progress, like the treatment of contaminated water."

He is part of the team of 25 men removing and packing 23,000 firefighters' uniforms dumped near reactors No 1, 2, 3 and 4 in the first chaotic days of the crisis, when three of the plant's six reactors suffered core meltdowns. One group retrieves the uniforms, which he collects by truck and drops off for another crew to sort and pack before they are taken away for disposal.

"We don't have any contact with the Tepco engineers or technicians," he says. "My company is about six places down the pecking order."

None of the men the Guardian spoke to was confident that Tepco would meet its deadline of January to bring the reactors to a safe state, known as cold shutdown.

In April, Tepco said it would reduce radiation leaks by this month and achieve cold shutdown by January. But that timetable is expected to be revised when the utility company releases its latest roadmap on Tuesday.

The prime minister, Naoto Kan, said this week that it may be a decade before work can even begin on decommissioning the reactors.

In the aftermath of the 11 March disaster, Tepco called on major construction and maintenance companies to help. Those firms in turn hired workers from a sprawling network of 600 contractors of varying expertise and reputation.

For the time being Iwaki-Yumoto will comprise three disparate communities – about 30,000 locals, 2,000 plant workers and 1,000 people evacuated from towns and villages near Fukushima Daiichi.

The presence of so many contractors, and the sheer number of men, has led to fears that not all are observing health and safety regulations.

One restaurateur complained of workers returning in the evenings still wearing their uniforms, even down to the boots they wear inside the plant's grounds.

Tourism to the town, with its hot springs and mountain views, has dried up since the nuclear accident.

"There's not much exchange between the workers and local people," says Katsue Takahashi, an Iwaki city official.

"The inn owners are pleased to be fully booked for months ahead, but they are beginning to worry about how long this will go on. With the evacuees here, too, no one wants to come here for a holiday."

Toshiyuki Sasaki, an employee at a construction firm in Hokkaido, is one of the better-paid contract workers who have made Iwaki-Yumoto their temporary home.

He is earning twice his monthly salary of 350,000 yen clearing debris from in front of the No 3 reactor, preparing it for the arrival of a 700-tonne crane that will erect a huge steel shroud over the unit to prevent further radiation leaks.

"I'm not allowed inside the reactor itself, and I work for just one or two hours a day," says Sasaki as he drinks a cold beer at a local restaurant. "If my reading reaches 40mSv for the a year, I have to leave for good."

Sasaki, like other machinery operators, spends his shift inside crane and digger cabins, the only way they can clear dangerously radioactive debris.

He has helped build nuclear power plants, but never helped rescued one from catastrophe. Yet he says he will work at Fukushima for as long as his radiation readings permit.

"We are very careful," he says. "If my dosimeter hits a certain level during a single shift, I have to get out. But that hasn't happened yet."

Not all of the firm's staff share his optimism. About half the company's employees have refused to work at the plant at the pleading of their families.

All of the men who spoke to the Guardian said they believed the most immediate threat to their health came not from radiation but from hours spent wrapped in masks, goggles and protective suits sealed tight with tape at the ankles, wrists and neck. "Radiation doesn't bother me, but I am worried about falling ill because of the heat," says a 34-year-old man from Osaka who declined to give his name. "It is unbelievably hot inside those suits. I know of several people who have been taken ill on the job."

The food, meanwhile, has improved since the early days of the crisis, when Tepco and the government were criticised for not providing workers with enough to eat and drink. Lunch is usually a boil-in-the-bag curry and rice, bottled water and tea, jelly-like vitamin supplements sucked from a tube and packets of sweets.

"But there is not enough room to get your head down for an hour during breaks," says Rune, who travelled to Fukushima from the south-western island of Kyushu, about 600 miles away. "That said, there are more toilets and drinks and more space for relaxing."

When the Fukushima crisis is finally over, accolades will deservedly go to the Tepco engineers, soldiers and emergency workers who battled serious radiation leaks and exploding reactor buildings in the days after the tsunami.

But Rune expects there will be little praise, at least in public, for the men who cleaned up the devastation the waves left in their wake.

"People like me came here partly out of a sense of duty, but mainly to make more money," he says. "Some came because they were unemployed. And others are here because they have never been able to hold down a regular job. Until now, no one has ever wanted to give them a chance."
Edited by Audi-Tek, July 14 2011, 08:01 PM.
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NISA slaps Tepco over worker overexposures

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency on Wednesday issued an improvement order to Tokyo Electric Power Co. over its failure to manage radiation levels for workers at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, citing the exposure of six workers at the site to levels in excess of the 250 millisieverts per year emergency limit.

NISA's specific orders include boosting manpower to better manage the radiation discharges, creating a system that enables workers to quickly check their total external and internal exposure, and better educating workers on protective gear.

On June 10, Tepco said two workers were exposed to 678 and 643 millisieverts, respectively. In late June and earlier this month, the utility announced that another worker was exposed to 352 millisieverts, while three more employees were exposed to dosages of 308, 475 and 359 millisieverts, respectively.

The legal annual limit for a nuclear plant worker is 50 millisieverts. However, the emergency limit, which is normally set at 100 milisieverts, was raised to 250 millisieverts, given the gravity of the Fukushima crisis. If someone absorbs 500 millisieverts in one go, experts say the impact causes a reduction in the lymphocyte count.

According to the report Tepco submitted to NISA on June 17, the first two employees were working in the central operating rooms of reactors 3 and 4 during the early stages of the accident. One worker, whose internal exposure is 590 millisieverts, was wearing glasses that likely caused his mask to bulge and allowed in radioactive materials.

The other worker, whose internal exposure was 540 millisieverts, was working near an outside door that could not be shut completely when the reactor 1 hydrogen explosion occurred, spewing radioactive materials.
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Fukushima plant suffers a leak in water filtering [14 July, 2011]
"A system for decontaminating and recycling radioactive wastewater at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has been halted again after operating in fits and starts.

Plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, found a leak through a broken plastic joint in a French-made facility on early Wednesday afternoon, forcing a shutdown for more than a day.

As of late Thursday afternoon, Tokyo Electric has not finished replacing the damaged polyvinyl chloride joint. The PVC joint, which was the cause of earlier leaks, is thought to be structurally too weak.

The company says the latest shutdown does not affect its operation to pump coolant into the reactors.

The system is designed to filter radioactive wastewater pooled in the basement of reactor buildings, and then sent the cleaned water back into the reactors as coolant.

A series of troubles since the start of operations in June has resulted in operation rates of only about 73 percent during the past week, far below the targeted 90.

Tokyo Electric considers the system critical in meeting its target of putting in place a stable reactor cooling system by July 17th. The date would mark the end of phase one in a timetable it has set for bringing the reactors under control."
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Japan: Jump in Heatstroke Deaths [13 July, 2011]:
"Heatstroke deaths quadrupled this spring and summer as many Japanese switched off their air-conditioners in response to government appeals to curb electricity use. Twenty-six peopled died of heatstroke from June 1 to July 10, the government said, and almost 13,000 were taken to hospitals for treatment. Japan has shut down 35 of its 54 nuclear reactors since the March earthquake and tsunami, reducing national power capacity by 11 percent."
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NW Pacific: Storm Alert issued at 14 Jul, 2011 12:00 GMT
Typhoon MA-ON (08W) is forecast to strike land to the following likelihood(s) at the given lead time(s):
Yellow Alert Country(s) or Province(s)
Japan
probability for CAT 1 or above is 10% in about 120 hours
probability for TS is 15% in about 96 hours
Yellow Alert City(s) and Town(s)
Kagoshima (31.5 N, 130.5 E)
probability for CAT 1 or above is 10% in about 120 hours
probability for TS is 15% in about 96 hours
Note that
Yellow Alert (Elevated) is CAT 1 or above to between 10% and 30% probability, or TS to above 50% probability.
CAT 1 means Typhoon strength winds of at least 74 mph, 119 km/h or 64 knots 1-min sustained.
TS means Tropical Storm strength winds of at least 39 mph, 63 km/h or 34 knots 1-min sustained.

Posted Image

Typhoon Ma-On Targeting Japan
A powerful typhoon is on track to strike mainland Japan early next week.

Widespread adverse impacts from rain, wind and heavy seas would result from a direct hit on the southern mainland. Heavy rain, high winds and rough seas could also impact the site of the tsunami and nuclear disaster north of Tokyo.

Ma-on, which gained typhoon status east of the Northern Mariana Islands Wednesday, will continue to intensify into Saturday as it spins westward over the northern Philippine Sea. This dramatic strengthening of Ma-on could culminate in super typhoon status for a time over open water.

As of Thursday night, local time, the typhoon packed maximum sustained winds of 110 mph, with higher gusts. At the time, the heart of Ma-on's fury was paying a raucous visit to the northernmost Mariana Islands, tiny, uninhabited Farallon de Pajaros, and Maug and Asuncion islands.

Storm movement, toward the west Thursday, is likely to become northwesterly or even northerly by the end of the week.

Given a forecast late-week turn toward the north, the center of Ma-on could be nearing the southwestern shores of Japan early next week, packing potentially destructive winds, flooding rain and dangerous storm tides.

Storms of the kind that Ma-on is likely to become can unload extreme rainfall of 10 to 20 inches, with flooding and mudslides, upon reaching Japan.

Depending upon storm intensity at landfall, winds above hurricane strength could unleash widespread destruction.

Greater Tokyo is unlikely to feel the worst of the storm, no matter its ultimate track. Still, flooding rain and damaging winds could hit at midweek.

Likewise, in northeastern Honshu, at the site of the March tsunami and nuclear disaster, there is potential for heavy rain, high winds and rough seas next week.

Posted Image
Typhoon Ma-on near Northern Mariana Islands, taken July 14, 2011 (Navy Research Lab Monterey/NRLMRY)

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Edited by Audi-Tek, July 14 2011, 08:59 PM.
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420 million yen stolen from ATMs near Fukushima nuclear plant

Some 420 million yen was stolen from ATMs near the crisis-hit Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant between the onset of the nuclear disaster and the end of June, National Police Agency (NPA) figures have shown.

Figures released by the NPA on July 14 showed thieves broke into convenience stores within the 20-kilometer evacuation zone around the plant 25 times during the period, stealing roughly 420 million yen from ATMs in the stores. There were also 106 cases of vacant houses being burglarized.

Access to the zone was restricted by the government on April 22. Police stepped up checkpoints and other control measures from early April, and the NPA believes that most of the burglaries occurred between the onset of the nuclear disaster and the end of March.

Convenience store ATM burglaries also occurred in areas outside the 20-kilometer zone where residents evacuated due to tsunami damage. As of the end of June, there were 14 confirmed cases in Miyagi Prefecture in which some 165 million yen was stolen, four cases in Fukushima Prefecture in which 57 million yen was taken, and two cases in Iwate Prefecture in which thieves took 27 million yen.

Operators of convenience stores in the disaster area have been collecting money from abandoned ATMs at the request of police. So far, they have collected around 3 billion yen from 192 locations.

Senior NPA officials say that the burglaries are dying down. Overall crime from March to June in the three prefectures was down compared to last year.
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Debris from Japanese tsunami headed for Pacific 'garbage patch'.

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Japanese police search for bodies of victims of the earthquake and tsunami, Miyagi Prefecture Photo: KeystoneUSA-ZUMA/Rex Features

The French environmental group Robin des Bois estimates that a large percentage of the 25 million tons of debris created by the magnitude 9 earthquake and the tsunami that it triggered has been sucked out to sea.

After being caught in the swirling currents for a number of years, it will congregate into two floating "garbage patches," one in the east and the other in the west of the Pacific.

The debris includes damaged fishing boats, cars, shipping containers and the contents of thousands of houses, including refrigerators, along with plastics, wood, rubber and items made of PVC.

Many of the vehicles will discharge their oil and fuel, creating numerous spills, while containers from industrial facilities will leak pesticides, chemicals and a wide range of other pollutants, the organisation said.

The waste will move at a speed of between 5 and 10 miles a day, catching the North Pacific Current and crossing the ocean in as little as 12 months.
Off the coast of California, debris is expected to circulate either north or south, taking either the Alaskan or North Equatorial currents back to the western reaches of the ocean.

Much is predicted to end up caught in the vortex of the Eastern Garbage Patch, which is estimated to measure between 270,000 square miles and 5.8 million square miles.

"Over time plastic debris eventually fragments into tiny particles creating 'plastic plankton' or 'microplastic,' which is a serious long-term concern, particularly for marine food webs." the organisation said.
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Japan's Ohi nuclear reactor shuts down after fault.

Japan's Ohi nuclear power station is being shut down, after a technical fault.

Pressure in a safety tank fell for no apparent reason, and although it is now back to normal, the plant's operators said they would "give the top priority to safety and find out the cause".

There was no release of radioactive material.

The closure will compound power difficulties in the wake of March's earthquake and tsunami.

There has been growing public disquiet over the continuing crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which was damaged by the disaster.

Fukushima continues to leak radioactive material.

Pressure in a tank containing boric acid, which is used to slow down nuclear fission in emergencies, dropped on Friday at Ohi's No 1 reactor.

The pressure levels have since returned to normal, but the reactor will be completely shut down by 2100 (1200GMT)

The reactor, 350 km (220 miles) west of Tokyo, has a capacity of 1.18m kW.

With the closure at Ohi, only 18 of Japan's 54 reactors remain operational.

The Kansai Electric Power Company, which operates Ohi, could not say when the reactor would be restarted.
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Workers toil under intense heat at crippled nuclear plant
Tokyo, July 16, 2011

Workers are struggling under intense heat at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant with as many as 31 people having fallen sick complaining of apparent symptoms of heat stroke, according to Tokyo Electric Power Co. While the utility, which operates the plant, has taken steps
to ease labor conditions such as shifting work hours, they are apparently not enough. Sweat begins to build up inside masks, for instance, within seconds of them being donned.

Workers also appear to feel pressured and refrain from taking sufficient breaks for fear of slowing down work to contain the crisis.

Mitsuo Sakamoto, 57, from Miyakonojo, Miyazaki Prefecture, is operating heavy machinery to remove rubble in a room several meters away, controlling it through a TV monitor as the machine picks up highly irradiated pieces of rubble one by one and moves them to containers.

Because of manpower shortages, he says he works three-and-a-half-hour stretches without a break.

The operation room, made from a truck rear deck, has walls made of lead, which shields radiation but turns the room into a sauna during the day. An air conditioner was only installed recently but even after it was set up, it is sweltering hot, Sakamoto says.

"Concentration is needed for my work but I tend to get distracted because of sweat that runs down to my eyes and the heat," Sakamoto says. "It's also tough psychologically."

Satoru Hayama, 39, from Kaukabe, Saitama Prefecture, is using a crane to set up tanks to store water that is to be injected into reactors for cooling them down. His work starts at 7:30 am and ends at 12:30 pm., with a one-and-a-half-hour designated break from 9 am.

Since he cannot remove his mask during work, he cannot wipe it with a towel even when he sweats.

"Sweat trickles down from the mask," he says. "You wouldn't know what that heat is like until you experience it."

He wears a "cool" vest that contains refrigerant but it gets warm quickly, he says.

Though his supervisor urges him to take a break, he says he is hesitant to do so because if he does, other workers engaged in the installation of the tanks will also have to stop.
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Students' belongings go unclaimed

The Yomiuri Shimbun

ISHINOMAKI, Miyagi--Dozens of backpacks and other school supplies found in the debris after the March 11 tsunami sit inside a sports gym in Ishinomaki, but many parents of the dozens of children killed by the disaster apparently still cannot bring themselves to pick up the items.

The school gear, much of it clearly named, was found near Okawa Primary School. Seventy-four students, or about 70 percent of the school's students, died or went missing due to the disaster.

Fukuchi Taiiku Kenshu Center, a sports gym in the Okawa district, is one of five locations for displaying personal belongings found in the debris. In one corner of the center sit neat rows of backpacks and other school gear that belonged to the children who died or remain missing.

Some of the items, such as keyboard harmonicas, had the mud cleaned off them by volunteers. School gym uniforms have not been cleaned, but just folded, so that the names written on them would not be erased.

Some parents are still reluctant to accept the deaths of their loved ones even though more than four months have passed since the tsunami.

Miho Suzuki, 43, who visited the center, said that her oldest son, Kento, who was a sixth-grader of the primary school at the time of the disaster, died, and her oldest daughter, Hana, who was a fourth-grader, is still missing.

Among the items at the center, Suzuki found a test paper belonging to Kento and a school newspaper that Hana had made.

She looked at the newspaper and said, "I'll be glad if Hana is found."
(Jul. 17, 2011)
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Fukushima Daiichi prepares for typhoon arrival

Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, is rushing to put a makeshift roof over a turbine building at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant as typhoon
Ma-on approaches Japan.

TEPCO released a new photo on Sunday showing its preparation work.

Posted Image

The metal roof will cover the turbine building of reactor Number 3. The hole in its roof was caused by a hydrogen blast in March.

The new roof is 5-meters long and 16-meters wide. It is designed to cover up the hole to prevent an increase of radioactive water in the building.

TEPCO says the roof is scheduled to be installed with a crane on Monday.

Fearing high waves, a hose was temporarily disconnected from the "megafloat" barge, which contains relatively low-level radioactive water.

But no measures have been taken to prevent rainwater from entering reactor buildings 1, 3, and 4. The structures were damaged by hydrogen blasts.
However TEPCO says it does not expect any drastic increase of the water level in those 3 buildings.

At the Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant the doorway of reactor number 1 was also repaired to prevent rainwater leaks.

Monday, July 18, 2011 05:50 +0900 (JST)

Trouble in water injection at Fukushima Daiichi

Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, says it discovered a drop in the amount of water injected into a reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

TEPCO says water was moving at a rate of
3.8-cubic-meters per hour to cool down nuclear fuel in reactor number 1 on Sunday morning.
But an alarm warned that the rate had decreased to 3-cubic-meters per hour.

This was third time this month that such trouble had occurred, causing TEPCO to replace the pump in order to stabilize water injection.

Reactor number 2 shares the same pump but has not seen similar trouble. TEPCO says some deposits in the plumbing might have been behind the unstable flow of water.

TEPCO says a decrease in water injection of this level should not trigger a sudden temperature rise in the reactor.

Monday, July 18, 2011 05:50 +0900 (JST)

Typhoon Ma-on moving near Daito Islands

A very large and powerful typhoon is moving east of Minami Daito Island in Okinawa Prefecture.

The Meteorological Agency says typhoon Ma-on was 220 kilometers east of Minami Daito Island and moving north-northwest at 20 kilometers per hour as of 5 AM on Monday.

The typhoon has a central atmospheric pressure of 945 hectopascals.

Winds of up to 162-kilometers per hour are blowing near its center, and more than 90 kilometers per hour within a radius of 170 kilometers.
Strong winds of up to 144 kilometers per hour are expected in southern Kyushu and the Amami Islands, and up to 126 kilometers per hour in the Daito Islands.

Waves are forecast to reach a height of 9 to 12 meters in the Daito Islands and southern Kyushu, Shikoku and the Amami Islands.

Six to 8 meters waves are also expected in the main island of Okinawa, northern Kyushu, southern Kinki, Tokai regions and the Izu Islands.

High waves are also expected as far away as the Kanto region.

Heavy rainfall of 50 to 70 millimeters per hour is expected in the Daito Islands and from Kyushu through the Tokai region along the Pacific coast on Monday.
Up to 350 millimeters of rain is expected to fall in southern Kyushu and Shikoku, 250 millimeters in Tokai region, 200 millimeters in northern Kyushu, the Kinki region and the Amami islands and 180 millimeters in the Daito Islands.

Monday, July 18, 2011 05:49 +0900 (JST)

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Soccer: Fairytale finish as Japan beat U.S. on pens to win Women's World Cup

FRANKFURT, July 17, Kyodo

Saki Kumagai completed a fairytale finish with the decisive spot kick as Japan stunned favorites the United States 3-1 on penalties to win the Women's World Cup for the first time after a 2-2 draw in extra time in Sunday's final in Frankfurt.

Tournament MVP Homare Sawa forced penalties with an equalizer in the second extra period as Japan twice came from behind, and goalkeeper Ayumi Kaihori saved two penalties in the shootout before Kumagai buried the winner.

''I'm both delighted and surprised,'' said Kumagai. ''I just hit the ball as hard as I could.''
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'Colossal blunder' on radioactive cattle feed / Govt officials admit responsibility for foul-up that let tainted beef enter nation's food supply

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Officials of the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry have admitted they did not consider the possibility of cattle ingesting straw contaminated by radioactive substances emitted from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

"This is nothing less than a colossal blunder by our ministry. It was beyond our expectations that straw would become a source of radioactive contamination," a ministry official said.

A total of 143 beef cattle suspected of being contaminated with radioactive cesium after ingesting straw that was stored outdoors have been shipped from Fukushima Prefecture and distributed to wholesalers, retailers and consumers in various prefectures.

Livestock farmers and others in the meat industry have attacked the government for its failure to prevent the problem.

On March 19, about one week after the outbreak of the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, the agriculture ministry issued written instructions regarding livestock feed to farmers via local governments. The documents stipulated that any grass fed to livestock should have been reaped before the accidents at the plant, and stored indoors since the accident.

However, the instructions made no reference to rice straw.

In late April, the ministry set new regulations on livestock feed, stipulating that all feed must contain less than 300 becquerels of radioactive material per kilogram. However, the ministry failed to communicate this order to rice farmers who sell straw to livestock farmers.

Rice straw, which contains very little vitamin A, is unsuitable as a principle nutrition source for livestock. However, feeding it to beef cattle promotes the development of marbled fat, which is favored by many consumers. For this reason, many livestock farmers feed rice straw to cattle for several months prior to the animals being shipped to market.

Rice straw is generally reaped in autumn and then stored in warehouses, to protect it from the winter elements. "So we thought rice straw wouldn't have been affected by radioactive substances [leaked from the plant]," a senior agriculture ministry official said.

However, a man who works in the livestock industry in Fukushima Prefecture said it is "common knowledge" that in areas with little snowfall, some farmers leave straw in the open air in winter to dry.

"If grass is contaminated with radioactive substances, so is straw. Is that so difficult to figure out?" said a 33-year-old owner of a butcher shop in Hakusan, Ishikawa Prefecture.

The butcher used to sell top-grade beef from the Tohoku region at his shop, but since the nuclear accident sells only beef produced in western Japan.

"Until the government takes more effective action against this problem, I'll be scared to sell [Tohoku] beef at my shop," he said.

On April 18, the agriculture ministry ordered livestock farmers near the Fukushima No. 1 plant to have their cattle checked for radioactivity before shipment.

Experts soon voiced concerns about the value of the inspections, pointing out that while they may prevent workers at meat-processing plants from being exposed to radioactive substances, they do not measure the amount of radioactive substances absorbed internally by the cattle.

The checks involved electronically measuring the amount of radioactive material on the surface of the animals' bodies. Shipment is allowed if the detected radioactive emissions are below 100,000 counts per minute. The same amount of radioactive material on a human would require that person to undergo full-body decontamination.

So far, about 12,000 cattle have been subjected to the checks, and all have passed, the agriculture ministry said.

The ministry has asked livestock farmers to report the details of feed and water given to their cattle. But it is known that at least one farmer, who is based in Minami-Soma and shipped cattle contaminated with radioactive substances in excess of the provisional limit, gave an inaccurate report, the ministry said.

The contamination of beef from that farmer's cattle was discovered July 8.

The senior agricultural ministry official said: "We've sought to secure the safety of beef by managing the processes by which livestock farmers raise their animals. However, from the standpoint of protecting consumers, maybe we should have directly checked the safety of the meat."

Some Fukushima prefectural government officials said all cattle from the prefecture should be checked for internal radioactivity. The officials noted that mandatory checks for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, were introduced for all cattle after the disease was detected in Japan in 2001.

However, checking 90 brain tissue samples for mad cow disease takes only about three hours, whereas testing a single animal for internal radioactivity takes about an hour.

Also, germanium semiconductor devices used to conduct radioactivity checks cost 20 million yen each.

The local governments will inspect the safety of all beef and beef cattle if the central government orders them to do so, but they are already busy monitoring the safety of other food products.

The central government plans to restrict shipments of cattle raised in Fukushima Prefecture soon. However, it is estimated that several thousand beef cattle have already been shipped from the prefecture since the nuclear crisis began. Tracking and testing all the meat from those animals would be a difficult task.

"First of all, we need to restrict the shipment of beef, and then reorganize the framework for inspections," an official of the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said.

"It would be difficult to inspect all the beef that's already been shipped. The priority is to find out which cattle might have been contaminated by eating rice straw. We do that by inspecting straw and cattle," the official said.
(Jul. 18, 2011)
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Fukushima repairs suspended over typhoon fears

Posted Image
Fukushima. Photo: EPA



Repair work at Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant has been put on hold as a strong typhoon, packing gusts up to 50 meters per second near its center, is moving in from the Pacific.

Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said on Sunday that it had stopped pumping radioactive water out of the station’s nuclear reactors and the construction of a protective cap over them.

Experts still fear rainwater may leak into some of the damaged units, thus sending more radioactive water into the plant’s basement.
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Tsunami reached record 40.4 meters in Miyako

The Omoeaneyoshi district of Miyako, Iwate Prefecture, was hit by a 40.4 meter tsunami--the largest on record--following the Great East Japan Earthquake, according to a national joint survey.

A group of about 150 researchers from 48 research organizations presented the results at a meeting held in Osaka Prefecture on Saturday.

The data was collected from 5,400 locations from Hokkaido to Okinawa Prefecture.

The researchers surveyed the runup height of tsunami from the traces of waves left on building walls or trees, and compared the data with observation data compiled by the central and local governments.

In a survey conducted in April, it was confirmed Omoeaneyoshi was hit by a tsunami measuring 38.9 meters during the March 11 disaster, beating the 38.2-meter record set in 1896 when the area was hit by the Meiji Sanriku Earthquake. But the latest survey has revealed the March 11 tsunami reached a massive 40.4 meters elsewhere in the distric

Posted Image

Study shows reactors are safe

At least 37 of the 54 nuclear reactors in this country would be able to withstand tsunami as powerful as the one that hit the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant on March 11, an organization of industrial facility maintenance experts claims to have proved through its research.

The Japan Society of Maintenology recently investigated reactors' resistance to tsunami, applying assessment criteria almost the same as those that will be used for reactor stress tests being planned by the government.

The research covered 37 reactors--specifically, all the reactors in the nation that are not operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co.

Taking into account emergency safety measures implemented at nuclear power plants after the March 11 disaster, which included raising the respective plants' maximum expected tsunami height by 9.5 meters, the JSM concluded that should tsunami strike, a serious accident--such as damage to a reactor's core--would not occur.

The cooling functions of reactors would continue to operate safely, even if they were hit by tsunami as large as the one that struck the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant on March 11, the JSM concluded.

The research was based on a scenario in which external and emergency power sources were disabled due to an earthquake and subsequent tsunami.
(Jul. 18, 2011)
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Govt renews Fukushima plant stabilization plan

The Japanese government has announced new stages of a plan to bring the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant under control.

The announcement came at a meeting of the government's nuclear disaster taskforce attended by all Cabinet ministers on Tuesday evening.

The taskforce said the first stage of the plan outlined in mid-April for the stable cooling of the reactors has been completed on schedule by mid-July. It added radiation levels in the plant's surrounding areas have been steadily reduced.

The meeting approved a renewed plan, including the second stage to be completed by next January, and mid-term targets to be achieved within about three years after that.

Under the renewed plan, the government will carry out regular health checks for about 30 years on residents in Fukushima Prefecture, where the plant is located. The checks will include thyroid cancer screening tests for children, the estimate survey of external exposure, and the measurement of internal exposure.

The government will also start a safety assessment of radiation levels in the evacuation advisory zone around the plant, in an aim to lift the advisories currently in place there.

As for the evacuation zone and the 20-kilometer no-entry zone, the government will start monitoring radiation levels earlier than planned. The government will start lifting its evacuation orders for areas where safety has been confirmed, after the plan's second stage is achieved by next January.

Also on Tuesday, the government and Tokyo Electric Company formally announced that the target of the first stage to steadily reduce radiation levels from the plant has been achieved, according to a joint assessment.

The assessment said the radiation level from the turbine buildings of the plant's reactors has been reduced to 1 two-millionth of what it was just after the nuclear accident in March.

In the second stage of the plan for the cold shutdown of the reactors, TEPCO plans to improve its systems to decontaminate wastewater and to cool reactors and fuel rod pools at the plant.

The government and the utility will have to face tough challenges, as the decontamination system has been developing one problem after another and the plant's reactor buildings have been seriously damaged.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011 20:44 +0900 (JST)
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Govt bans beef cattle shipments from Fukushima

Japan's government has suspended all beef cattle shipments from Fukushima Prefecture for fear of widespread radioactive contamination caused by the troubled nuclear plant.

The government's nuclear disaster task force ordered the suspension on Tuesday.

The health ministry says rice straw contaminated with radioactive cesium in amounts exceeding a government standard was fed to cattle at farms in Fukushima, Yamagata and Niigata prefectures.

The ministry says 648 head of cattle were shipped from the farms, and that beef from the cattle was distributed to 35 prefectures.

The government said beef from farms in Fukushima was found to be highly radioactive, and that one sample was found to contain radioactive cesium in amounts 9 times the government standard.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the government will fully compensate cattle farmers affected by the suspension.

Edano also said inspections will be conducted to determine whether contaminated rice straw was used at cattle farms in neighboring prefectures.

Cattle farmers in Fukushima Prefecture affected by the suspension of local beef shipments are calling for compensation from the government and Tokyo Electric Power Company.

Morio Yokoyama raises about 70 head of cattle at his farm in the town of Aizubange, some 120 kilometers west of the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Yokoyama said the situation is very frustrating because it's unclear when he will be able to resume shipment of his cattle.

He called for an inspection of all cattle stock, and said that if any are found to be inedible, the government and the utility should be responsible for removing them from distribution and compensating farmers.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011 20:01 +0900 (JST)
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Miyagi man who sold contaminated straw blames gov't for scandal.


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Prefectural officials interview livestock farmers after radioactive cesium was detected in cattle raised in Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture, on July 10. (Mainichi)

OSAKI, Miyagi -- A man in Osaki, Miyagi Prefecture, who sold straw contaminated with high levels of radioactive cesium told the Mainichi on July 18 that he had never imagined that his straw was contaminated because the city is about 150 kilometers away from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant.

"The wind was in a different direction immediately after the hydrogen explosions, so I never thought it was contaminated. I really feel sorry," the man said.

The man made the remarks in response to recent revelations that cows shipped from Fukushima Prefecture were fed with contaminated straw that he had shipped.

The man purchased straw from rice farmers in Osaki between late March and April and shipped it to Fukushima and Yamagata prefectures.

After learning that radioactive cesium was found in beef cows in Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture, earlier this month, the man sent straw samples to a private research entity to obtain a safety certificate.

But his straw was found to be contaminated even before he received the results of the sample survey.

"I have been in this business for some 20 years. I have really worked hard not to damage the trust of my customers, so these results are regrettable," the man said.

He said ordinary farmers cannot take steps to deal with such cases unless the state and Miyagi Prefecture forewarn them of the dangers of rice straw. "If there had been a possibility of danger, even if only slightly, authorities should have conducted surveys much earlier," he said.

Radioactive cesium has also been found in straw sold by traders in Tome and Kurihara in Miyagi Prefecture.
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Japan Won't Rule Out Possibility Radioactive Fukushima Beef Was Exported

By Aya Takada and Yuriy Humber - Jul 20, 2011 2:53 PM GMT

Japan’s government said it can’t rule out the possibility beef contaminated with radioactive material has been exported, as consumers and lawmakers accused authorities of negligence on food safety.

The government yesterday imposed a ban on beef shipments from areas near the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant after finding 637 cattle were fed hay containing radioactive cesium. Supermarkets including Japan’s biggest, Aeon Co., said the beef was sold in Tokyo and other cities.

“We cannot completely rule out the possibility” contaminated beef was also sold abroad, Yuichi Imasaki, the deputy director of the farm ministry’s meat and egg division said by phone today. “The chances are very low” because most countries have tightened rules on Japanese beef imports or banned them, he said.

The ban comes more than four months after the earthquake and tsunami wrecked the Fukushima Dai-Ichi power station causing the worst nuclear fallout since Chernobyl. Concerns about food contamination before yesterday’s ban cut beef exports by 16 percent in the last two months, while hotels and restaurants in the region, including Shangri-La Asia’s luxury chain dropped Japanese seafood from their menu.

“There has to be at least an independent investigation regarding the level of contamination to farming,” said Chris Busby, a visiting professor at the University of Ulster’s school of biomedical sciences and scientific secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, a think-tank.
Radioactive Hay

Busby is due to speak to Japanese lawmakers later today and has been testing radiation levels in Fukushima prefecture north of Tokyo and other areas.

Tainted hay was given to cattle in 19 farms in Fukushima, Niigata and Yamagata prefectures. Twelve cases of beef contamination were detected in eight prefectures, according to a statement from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.

Some beef from the 637 cattle contained cesium exceeding government standards and was sold to consumers, said Kazuyuki Hashimoto, an official at the food-monitoring division of the Tokyo metropolitan government. Aeon, Seven & I Holdings Co., and Marui Group said this week they had sold the tainted beef.

Seven & I traced back the origin of the beef it sold after the government announced the cattle contamination this week, spokesman Hiroyuki Hanamitsu said today by phone.

U.S. Import Ban

The U.S. has not allowed beef imports from Japan since April, 21, 2010, because of the possibility they may harbor foot-and-mouth disease, Matt Herrick, a spokesman for the Department of Agriculture, said today in an e-mail.

The danger from less-than-rigorous testing of produce leads to contaminated products on supermarket shelves and that creates a lack of confidence in all products, said Peter Burns, a nuclear physicist and former Australian representative on the United Nation’s scientific committee on atomic radiation.

“Like with Chernobyl, you don’t have people buying anything from Ukraine because it might be contaminated,” he said. “I would have thought that within two or three months they would have formed some sort of task force who has somebody in charge,” Burns, who has 40 years of radiation safety experience, said.
Contaminated Products

Products including spinach, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, tea, milk, plums and fish have been found to be contaminated with cesium and iodine as far as 360 kilometers (225 miles) from Dai- Ichi. Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the stricken station, said on June 14 it found cesium in milk tested near another nuclear reactor site about 210 kilometers from the damaged plant.

“The contamination occurred because the government did not take appropriate measures,” Yoko Tomiyama, chairwoman of the Consumers Union of Japan, said in a telephone interview yesterday. “They should take responsibility for their negligence.”

About 437 kilograms (963 pounds) of beef from a farm in Minami-Soma city, 30 kilometers from the Dai-Ichi nuclear station, was consumed in eight prefectures, according to the Tokyo metropolitan government, which detected the first case of tainted beef from the farm earlier this month.
Cesium Beef

As much as 2,300 becquerels of cesium a kilogram was detected in the contaminated beef, according to the July 18 statement from the health ministry. The government limit is 500 becquerels per kilogram. Rice hay produced in Fukushima prefecture was found to contain as much as 690,000 becquerels, exceeding the 300-becquerel limit, according to the local government office.

For people who have eaten the beef, “the overall long-term implications of this are extremely minor as far as any potential harmful health effects,” said Burns. Though the reputational damage can end up “destroying whole industries,” he said.

Fukushima is the 10th biggest cattle-producing region in Japan, representing 2.7 percent of the total. The nation exported 541 metric tons of beef worth 3.4 billion yen ($42.8 million) last year, including premium wagyu meat.

Japan exported 49.1 tons of beef in May, 50.6 tons in April and 58.6 tons in March, according to the farm ministry’s data. Vietnam, Hong Kong and the U.S. were the biggest markets for Japanese beef in the year through March 2010.

“We are currently tracking all beef shipped from Fukushima prefecture. So far we’ve found no case of contaminated beef exports,” said Tomohiro Hagiya, an official at the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare’s food safety department.

Japan imported 204,543 tons of beef in the five months ended May 31, an increase of 11 percent from the same period last year, according to the agriculture ministry.
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Japan's nuclear gypsies: a day in the life
By Justin McCurry | Wednesday, July 20, 2011

IWAKI-YUMOTO, Japan — Most residents of Iwaki-Yumoto are still fast asleep when the first stirrings of human activity join the din of crows picking through garbage bags.

The men who emerge from their hostels and inns, blinking when confronted by the dazzling early-morning sun, say little as they board waiting buses, the only traffic around at 6 a.m. in this hot-spring town of 30,000 people, located just 30 miles from the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant.

Within a couple of hours they will be doing jobs that few others would be prepared to even consider; yet it is to the hundreds of workers in Iwaki-Yumoto to whom Japan is looking to help solve the worst nuclear accident in its history.
In addition to 373 staff employed by the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO), the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant is teeming with 2,529 contract workers, all braving dangerously high radiation on what must be the most hazardous industrial site on earth.

Many of them have taken up temporary resident in Iwaki-Yumoto, lured by the promise of guaranteed work during another economic downturn, and wages that, while not high, are better than average.

They are the modern day "nuclear gypsies," as described in Kunio Horie's 1979 book of the same name — largely unskilled and untrained laborers on whom Japan's utilities have depended for cheap labor since the nuclear power plant building boom of the 1970s.

Ariyoshi Rune isn't altogether comfortable with that description. The 47-year-old truck driver began working at the Fukushima plant at the beginning of June after answering an ad in a recruitment magazine in his native Kyushu in Japan's southwest.

He is phlegmatic as he described the conditions at Fukushima Dai-ichi between gulps of beer and long drags on a cigarette. His daily wage of 12,000 yen is, he says, fair remuneration for his efforts, even though skilled TEPCO employees earn an average of 7.6 million yen a year. "I think my wage is fair for the kind of work I do. It's more than I used to get driving a truck."

Besides payment, Rune and the 24 other men on his cleanup crew receive free accommodation, three meals a day and transport to and from their hotel.

Like many of the other contract workers, he has not been totally honest about the nature of his work with members of his family. "When I told my children about my work the first thing they said was, 'Please don't get irradiated,' said Rune, who is part of a team that is removing and packing 23,000 firefighters uniforms, dumped near Fukushima Dai-ichi's crippled reactors in the first days of the crisis.

"They worry, but they also think that what I'm doing is kind of cool." His 73-year-old mother knows he is working in the Fukushima area, but has no idea his job takes him to the power plant for several hours a day.

The president of a construction firm based in Hokkaido in Japan's far north says about half his 40 employees refused to work in Fukushima, citing opposition from families worried about the long-term effects of prolonged exposure to radiation.

"Our employees can earn about double their 350,000 yen salary working at the plant," said the president, who asked for the name of his firm to be withheld. "As a company, we have lots of extra overheads, such as transport and accommodation, so we're not going to make much money from this, however long it drags on."

The laborers' working day begins at 8 a.m., and ends at about 1 p.m., their two 90-minute shifts separated by a break of similar length when they are served a lunch of curry and rice, bottled water and tea, jelly and candy.

"There isn't enough room to get your head down for an hour during breaks," says Rune, "But there are more toilets and drinks and more space for relaxing."

The estimated 9,000 men and women who have worked at the Fukushima plant since it was badly damaged by the March 11 tsunami have more reason than anyone to worry about their exposure to dangerously high levels of radiation.

At least nine have exceeded the annual exposure limit of 250 mSv, an unusually high threshold introduced in the wake of the disaster to allow TEPCO engineers more time in the most hazardous parts of the complex. According to international guidelines, in normal circumstances nuclear workers must not be exposed to more than an average of 20 mSv a year.

But with Japan now well into the hot and uncomfortably humid months of summer, it is the heat, not contamination, that contract workers say they fear most.

"Radiation doesn't bother me, but I am worried about falling ill because of the heat," says one man, a 34-year-old from the western city of Osaka who declined to give his name. "It is unbelievably hot inside those suits. I know of several people who've been taken ill on the job."

Last week TEPCO conceded that as many as 31 workers had fallen sick with heatstroke. The utility has attempted to improve conditions at the site, including the introduction of shorter shifts, more resting spaces and the distribution of coolant vests and refrigerant packs.

"We are very concerned about the health of all the workers on site and have taken appropriate measures to protect them against the heat," said Yoshikazu Nagai, a TEPCO spokesman.

But the measures do little to mitigate the effects of working in high temperatures dressed in masks, protective suits sealed with tape at the ankles, wrists and neck, gloves and personal radiation monitors they must carry with them at all times.

Experts have also warned of the psychological impact of being engaged in such high-risk work, often in defiance of anxious relatives, along with the relentless pressure to complete the cleanup and bring the reactors to a safe state known as cold-shutdown by TEPCO's self-imposed deadline of January.

"Their level of stress is unimaginable," said Takeshi Tanigawa, a professor of public health at Ehime University, adding that, without counseling, some were at risk of developing post-traumatic stress syndrome. TEPCO has since acknowledged that the risk of radiation exposure and concern among relatives has created "multiple" sources of stress for Dai-ichi workers.

At this time of year, local hoteliers and inn owners would normally be inundated with tourists and weekend visitors eager to soak in the area's therapeutic spring waters.

But due to radiation fears, and an influx of about 1,000 nuclear refugees and 2,000 contract workers, tourism has dried up.

"The inn owners are pleased to be fully booked for months ahead, but they are beginning to worry about how long this will go on for," said Katsue Takahashi, an Iwaki city official. "With the evacuees here, too, no one wants to come here for a holiday."

Koichi Ando, whose traditional-style inn has been home to hundreds of railway engineers and police officers since the tsunami, said: "We reckon the situation will stay like this for at least another three years, and that it will be 10 years before we see the first tourists arriving."

But Japan's prime minister, Naoto Kan, has since said it may be 10 years before work can even begin decommissioning the reactors, a dangerous process that could last several more decades.

Rune's daily brush with radiation could force his departure well before the cleanup has ended. After about five weeks on the job, checks revealed he had been exposed to 5 mSv a year; company rules dictate that contract workers who are exposed to 15 mSv — or 30 mSv for full-time staff — can no longer work at the plant.

"I have about two months left before I reach my limit, but I'm hoping they'll make an exception and let me work for longer. I've never thought my job was dangerous."
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Tuna Fish from Pacific Ocean is Radioactive (Contaminated by Fukushima Nuclear Fallout).


Video Link ........ http://youtu.be/ve6eyj0qcMQ
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Inside nuclear no-gone fast reverting to a wilderness, villagers hold memorial
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By Associated Press, Updated: Sunday, July 24, 8:34 AM

OKUMA, Japan — Under tight government supervision, dozens of villagers from a town where the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant is located ventured deep into an irradiated no-man’s land Sunday to hold a belated memorial for friends and relatives killed by Japan’s earthquake and tsunami.

They found that their town — evacuated for more than four months — is fast becoming a wilderness.
“There is nothing left but debris and empty streets,” said Norio Kimura, a villager who lost his father, wife and a daughter in the disaster.

With no one left behind to care for them, cattle roam the streets. Tall grass has grown out of rice paddies and meadow flowers bloom in farms. Weeds have grown knee-high out of cracks in the streets.

Wearing full-body protective gear and white face masks because of the continued risk of radiation exposure, the families bowed their heads in silence before a shattered public hall as a Buddhist priest chanted sutras and burned incense for the dead. Their village, Okuma, is where four of the crippled nuclear plant’s six reactors are located.

The priest also wore a radiation suit Inside nuclear no-gone fast reverting to a wilderness, villagers hold memorial

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By Associated Press, Updated: Sunday, July 24, 8:34 AM

OKUMA, Japan — Under tight government supervision, dozens of villagers from a town where the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant is located ventured deep into an irradiated no-man’s land Sunday to hold a belated memorial for friends and relatives killed by Japan’s earthquake and tsunami.

They found that their town — evacuated for more than four months — is fast becoming a wilderness.

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“There is nothing left but debris and empty streets,” said Norio Kimura, a villager who lost his father, wife and a daughter in the disaster.

With no one left behind to care for them, cattle roam the streets. Tall grass has grown out of rice paddies and meadow flowers bloom in farms. Weeds have grown knee-high out of cracks in the streets.

Wearing full-body protective gear and white face masks because of the continued risk of radiation exposure, the families bowed their heads in silence before a shattered public hall as a Buddhist priest chanted sutras and burned incense for the dead. Their village, Okuma, is where four of the crippled nuclear plant’s six reactors are located.

The priest also wore a radiation suit underneath his purple robes.

“Many of us are still living in difficult circumstances. We cannot yet even imagine when this crisis will end,” said Mayor To(censor)suna Watanabe. “But those of us left behind must carry on. May our dead rest in peace, and may this crisis end soon.”

The residents were brought in on government-chartered buses, allowed to stay less than one hour and then screened for radioactive contamination.

Okuma had several thousand residents before the March 11 tsunami, but it has been completely evacuated because of the ongoing crisis at the plant, which has suffered meltdowns, explosions and fires. Though other villages farther away from the plant have held memorials, this is the first time that Okuma residents have been allowed into the 12-mile (20-kilometer) evacuation zone to do so.

All told, about 23,000 died or were left missing across wide swaths of Japan’s northeast coastline. Another 80,000 have been forced to evacuate their homes because of the radiation threat from Fukushima Dai-ichi.

Though their village has been deemed unsafe due to the radiation, only 11 Okuma villagers have been confirmed dead and one — Kimura’s daughter — is still missing. Search and rescue missions were severely hampered by the dangers of operating near the nuclear plant and most of Okuma’s victims were found just recently.

Officials say the situation at the Fukushima plant is improving and has stabilized somewhat. But it remains unclear if villages like Okuma will ever be habitable again.

“I want to return someday,” said Kimura. “But I worry about the safety of my family if I did. Realistically, I imagine it will be 10 or 20 years before it will be safe. But I want to come home someday.”
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Sunday, July 24, 2011

Hospitals turn away patients at record rate
Kyodo

A record 16,381 people in serious condition were refused admission by hospitals three times or more while being transported by ambulance in 2010, up 3,217 from the previous year, the Fire and Disaster Management Agency said.

The agency said Friday the rise came because hospitals still aren't prepared to receive an increasing number of elderly patients amid the graying population.

Among the reported cases, 727 people were rejected 10 times or more, with a 60-year-old man in Tokyo rejected the most, 41 times.

The man had to wait more than three hours while ambulance crews kept searching for a hospital that could accept him, according to the agency.

Among reasons for rejection, 21 percent of hospitals responding to the agency's survey said it was because they were engaged in operations or dealing with other patients, and another 21 percent cited a lack of medical staff or equipment. About 19 percent of the hospitals said they didn't have any empty beds.

2010 was the fourth consecutive year that more than 10,000 people in serious condition were refused hospital admission three or more times.
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Health and Safety Considerations: Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Workers at Risk of Heat-Related Illness

Cara O’Connell

What more can be done to protect the workers—those on the front lines of protecting the nation—so they can continue their efforts to stabilize the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant? The Japanese state and TEPCO should recognize the health and safety of front-line workers as a national priority

Concepts and best international practices presented in this document draw on current Japanese and international research and literature to provide information that may be of value in protecting the health of Fukushima workers and others who experience extreme heat and radiation.

The Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami devastated the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant on March 11, 2011, causing three reactors to melt down and melt through the containment vessels. This crisis is of profound importance affecting the health of workers at Fukushima, the people of Japan’s Northeast, and potentially people around the world. The buildings suffer from major structural damage, limiting cooling of the spent fuel pools and causing high levels of radiation and humidity. Workers inside the reactor buildings are subject to excessive heat due to their protective gear. If workers continue to suffer from heat-related stress, impeding efforts to gain control of the plant, they may not be able to avert a disastrous chain of events. The primary purpose of this paper is to provide research-based information that could reduce the probability of death and disability from heat-related illness and facilitate their ability to work efficiently and safely.

Heat stress is of great concern, both from ambient temperatures and high temperatures generated by failing nuclear reactors. “Tsuyu-ake,” the end of the rainy season, was announced July 9 for the Kanto region around Tokyo. The temperatures in Northern Japan are increasing, impacting the health and safety of the workers who are already toiling in sweltering temperatures inside the buildings while burdened by several layers of protective gear. Research from the areas of sports and occupational medicine can provide valuable insight in developing further strategies to ameliorate the extreme conditions the workers face. Currently workers at Fukushima number in the thousands, and the scope of their needs has yet to be fully determined under these unique conditions.
Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has been criticized for reliance on contract workers for the dirtiest and most dangerous tasks, and for lack of concern and oversight for their health care. Reuters reported in June on a call by physicians to the Japanese government to provide a system of care that would ensure improved worker safety at Fukushima. The Japan Times reported TEPCO is making further provisions for medical care at the plant with government assistance. Under the guidance of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA), a Japanese regulatory agency, TEPCO has taken several steps to improve the work environment. Their efforts include large-scale plant modifications, providing additional protective actions and resources, as well as medical and psychiatric care.

Since May, TEPCO has been gradually taking corrective actions after one worker died and several workers began suffering from heat-related illness while working in their personal protective equipment (PPE). Excessive levels of humidity and heat near the reactors and in the microenvironment of the PPE have caused some workers to suffer from heat-related illness and cardiac arrest. Workers have only been able to tolerate 10-15 minutes of work in the contaminated buildings due to high levels of radiation, humidity and heat. If the levels of humidity and heat can be effectively reduced, workers will be safer and able to work more efficiently to remove contaminated water, fix the water level gauge to help stabilize the reactor, and cool the spent fuel pools in the buildings. NISA required TEPCO to develop a plan to ensure worker safety in building #2 and to take extra measures to ensure the procedure was environmentally safe. On June 2, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported that the cooling system at reactor #2 was restored. TEPCO has initiated a plan to vent reactor building #2, reducing the amount of radioactivity from .16 bq/cm3 and humidity from 99.9%. They began opening the double doors (Airlock) slowly to reduce the high levels of radiation and humidity on June 19th, and installed an air filtration system a few days later.

TEPCO provided an updated “road map” July second and eighth, with plant diagrams showing progress on multiple rest spots provided with coolers and drinking stations throughout the plant. They also purchased hundreds of “cool vests” and masks with blower motors. TEPCO has procured three types of cool vests: paraffin phase change vests, icepack cool vests and lighter duty vests containing chloride. The Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA), an American regulatory agency, provides guidelines to protect workers from injury. They report “water-cooled garments” and forced air personal cooling systems provide optimal cooling under encapsulated suits, but they are expensive. TEPCO is under no obligation to follow American guidelines, but they may be useful in this extreme situation. Unfortunately, as of July 19th another worker has succumbed to severe heat stroke, bringing the total number to 33.

Professionals in Occupational Health can provide valuable direction for safely combating the extreme conditions at Fukushima. Assessment of workers’ medical history, medications, health conditions, substance abuse, and normal weight can provide valuable baseline information for understanding levels of tolerance of excessive heat. Providing a proper nutrition and hydration program is essential. Measuring and understanding actual working conditions and workload can give an indication of the heat stresses workers experience and the work-to-rest ratio required for safety. Portable heat stress meters are used to calculate the wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT) index. OSHA OTM Section III Chapter IV provides a method to estimate the tolerable work-to-rest ratio using the WBGT index. The WBGT index reflects variables of ambient temperature, solar radiation, and humidity to indicate the levels of heat stress on humans (Howe, 2007).
Training the workers to monitor dehydration, assess symptoms, and treat heat-related illness is essential. The situation is quite complex and requires a well thought-out plan that includes worker training and access to basic healthcare for heat-related illness. Once all options are understood by experts in the field, appropriate modifications can be made that will allow workers to maximize energy conservation.

Many factors, both physical and environmental, impact an individual’s response to heat stress. Physical factors include: age, weight, workload, metabolism, level of acclimatization and fitness, medications, current level of hydration, and consumption of alcohol and caffeine. Prior history of a heat-related injury predisposes a person to further heat illness. Medical conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and hypertension are also contributory. Medical clearance would be advisable for all workers at Fukushima. Administrative controls can alleviate the heat stress workers are exposed to by reducing their work-to-rest ratio and limiting work in the heat of the day. Environmental factors include: ambient temperature, relative humidity, solar radiation, conduction, convection, wind speed and evaporative cooling. Providing proper PPE, equipment and tools to increase efficiency would markedly reduce heat stress.

Workers are subject to very high heat stress risk at moderate ambient temperatures, when factors for the high levels of humidity in the buildings and PPE suits are considered. The body generates metabolic heat when working that is normally dissipated through the skin and respiration. Evaporation is critical in maintaining thermal homeostasis (Howe and Borden, 2007), but it is markedly restricted by the microenvironment of the PPE. The standard adjustment factor for a fully encapsulated suit is 11°C of WBGT stress (Bernard & ACGIH, 2006). Looking at a heat stress index at a temperature of about 30°C (85°F) with a 90% relative humidity, we find a heat stress of 38.7°C (101.6°F). Using the heat stress index as an estimate of actual WBGT in the reactor buildings, and a rough correction factor for the PPE of 10°C, we get an exceptionally high heat stress of 49°C (120°F). However, under these conditions the adjustments for PPE may not be enough and the actual temperatures may be even higher than 49°C (120°F), according to Thomas Bernard, an expert in the field of occupational heat exposure from the University of Southern Florida.

Workers at Fukushima should wear respirators and their fully encapsulated PPE (assumed to be Tyvek 1422A or 1427 with cotton anti-C base layers underneath). Thomas Bernard asserted that under conditions at the plant where water is present, the coated Tychem QC suits would be preferable to the Tyvec suits currently in use. Tyvek and Tychem suits are relatively impervious to moisture and thus inhibit evaporative cooling. One can infer that there is very high relative humidity inside the suit and that a thin layer of wicking material may reduce conduction of heat. One worker reported that wearing the PPE was like wearing “a sauna suit;” after a short time the facemask fogs and fills up with sweat several cm deep.

A releasing agent on the glass has micro-pores, which tend to collect water droplets that cause fog in the facemasks. To address this problem, divers typically use toothpaste, spit or a drop of baby shampoo rubbed inside the mask to reduce fogging. Watersorb beads may be useful for absorbing the excess moisture in the facemasks and can tolerate microwaving to dry them out. The cooling scarves TEPCO has purchased contain polymer substances that absorb water like Watersorb. The cooling bandana may not provide enough surface area to be very effective in cooling but may be effective in absorbing excess moisture if placed along the inner rim of the mask. Perhaps ERGODYNE Chill-Its® Evaporative Cooling Towel would be worth a try. TEPCO has plans to purchase 1,300 masks with blowers (three types) that can be used in high dose radiation.

When workers are in their PPE, there may be better alternatives to wick the moisture away from the body than usual under-garments. Under-layers of tech-wear might be preferable to cotton. DragonFur base layers are specialized clothing for high heat conditions. OEL Structure Wear Base Layer Clothing with Outlast Thermocule technology developed for NASA is the only base layer that absorbs, stores and releases body heat, balancing body temperature and reducing sweat. In conditions of exceptionally high heat more advanced cooling vests with circulating water, reflective layers, thicker layers of polyester or wool can provide an extra thermal barrier from radiant heat.

American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) provides guidelines for heat exposure limits for nuclear power plant workers and threshold limit value. Under the extreme conditions and potentially high metabolic workload at Fukushima it is very difficult to know what the actual levels of heat stress are inside the workers’ suits and at the plant, so tools that can monitor physiological conditions while working may be valuable in determining what workers can tolerate.

In 2010 researchers from the University of Occupational and Environmental Health (UOEH) conducted a small study attempting to measure core body temperature with a thermocouple device in an earplug, attaining accurate core body temperature readings while individuals worked in a high heat situation. Heat flux transducers can be worn by workers to assess the true level of heat stress on the body.

TEPCO Administration assigned a Heat Stroke Manager as of July 1. They will develop an action plan based on the WBGT (Wet Bulb Globe Temperature) heat stress index and a heat stress management plan. For workers not acclimatized to the heat, the work-to-rest ratio will be adjusted. OSHA provides guidelines for acclimatization to heat; it takes about one week and can be achieved by gradually increasing workload with minimal exposure on day one and increasing exposure at 20% increments per day. TEPCO will also prohibit work between 2-5 PM in July and August to reduce workers’ exposure from solar radiation. Other administrative actions include provisions for educating managers and workers on the signs and symptoms of heat illness and basic first aid, physiological monitoring, an acclimatization program. Provisions should also provide access to emergency whole body cooling treatment and a comprehensive hydration program.

In a hot environment, the primary way to dissipate heat is through evaporation of sweat. Under severe conditions large amounts of fluids, salt and electrolytes can be lost. Maximal sweating for those not acclimated to the heat is 1,500 cc/hr. In a hot, humid environment thirst and hunger do not provide enough incentive to provide for adequate intake of fluids. In American military activities in desert conditions, soldiers are required to drink 8-10 liters of water and take 3-5 gm of salt per day to prevent dehydration. Camelbak ® or other backpack hydrating systems may provide enough hydration to keep workers from having to spend the time to don and doff their gear as frequently for hydration breaks.

The content of the fluid also affects intake requirements; it is quite complex to determine the amount and type of hydrating fluid needed. The American College of Sports Medicine recommends pre-hydrating two hours prior to an athletic event with 500 ml of fluid and 30-60 g/hr of carbohydrates to delay the onset of muscle fatigue. Athletic training guidelines from the National Athletic Trainers Association (2000) recommend including 6% carbohydrate ratio to fluid intake while exercising. Replenishing fluids lost to sweat while exercising with ample isotonic or hypotonic sports drinks is more effective than water for improving performance (Maughan, Bethell and Leiper, 1996). A post-hydration protocol with sports drinks to restore electrolyte balance lost to sweat is also recommended by these organizations.

Research from the University of Connecticut (UConn) has shown that pre-hydrating with fluids containing glycerol can reduce the volume of sweat produced during exercise. Anderson, Cotter, Garnham, Casley, & Febbraio (2001) used a ratio of 1 g glycerol in 20 ml of water per kg of body weight (BW) 90-120 minutes pre-exercise and found the glycerol group retained more water and thus had less cardiovascular stress. Researchers at UConn studied trained cyclists after repeated dehydration. A group rehydrated with glycerol (1g/kg BW with water) had a 19% increased endurance and were slower to dehydrate than the water only group.

Researchers Horie, Tsutsui, and Miyazaki (2003) from the Department of Health Policy and Management, Institute of Industrial and Ecological Sciences at UOEH, Kitakyushu, Japan studied the use of diluted sports drinks with workers exposed to high heat at a steel factory. They found a 2% solution was preferred by the workers and resulted in less dehydration than the non-diluted beverage. Experts in the field may provide valuable resources for developing an effective hydration program for the workers on the ground at Fukushima.

Dehydration monitoring stations should strive to prevent weight loss of > 3% body weight (BW) after working (Howe et al, 2007). Assessing body weight before and after work sessions will indicate how dehydrated a worker is becoming and assist in developing an individualized hydration program. Calculators and multiple scales (Tanita) for assessing body weight can be used to determine the percentage of fluid loss. Workers could also self-monitor their urine volume and color; the goal is copious amounts, light in color (Howe et al, 2007).

Training workers in the signs and symptoms of heat illness and basic first aid is of primary importance. Heat stroke may progress rapidly, and under these conditions workers should not work alone. The stages of hyperthermia may not progress in a linear sequence, and a person can develop heat stroke without having heat exhaustion. Fatigue, lack of sleep, dehydration, chronic illness, and fever can alter the body’s ability to regulate itself and can contribute to development of hyperthermia. Knowing this, workers can modify their behavior and protect themselves and each other.

Heat-related illness can become severe and life threatening quickly. Accurate assessment of the levels of dehydration, heat stresses, and available options may avert disaster. Workers developing fatigue with exposure to heat may result in uncoordinated movements and irrational behavior, which may limit their ability to work effectively and make good decisions. TEPCO is making progress and has provided 8 rest areas so far; a high priority is to continue to find ways to protect workers who continue to suffer from heat illness in the field. Rest areas can serve as acute care emergency reviving stations, providing rapid cooling for workers suffering from heat-related illness and reducing the risk of disability or death.
Fukushima workers would benefit from having the rest areas include an area for monitoring levels of dehydration, first aid and treatment of emergent heat illness. First aid response to the onset of pronounced symptoms of heat-related illness should be to cool first and transport second. Rapid cooling initiated as soon as possible after collapse or after reporting other symptoms of heat exhaustion is imperative in limiting death and disability. TEPCO reported transporting workers almost immediately after they were found to have been ill. The best course of future action would be to hydrate and provide first aid with whole body cooling and monitoring prior to transporting workers suffering from heat stroke. Temperatures should be read every few minutes to assess the progress of the cooling efforts. Rectal temperatures are recommended for assessing actual (aortic or esophageal) core body temperature.

Resources for treating individuals suffering from heat stroke are essential. If body temperatures are near 40.4° C (104.7° F), the most rapid cooling of the body can be achieved with full body ice water emersion. This measure is crucial if core body temperatures reach 41.7° C +-.3°C (107° F) to 42.2° C (108° F). In this setting small plastic pools with ice water would suffice to cool the body to 38.8° C (102° F) in 20 minutes at a rate of .2° C/min.

TEPCO announced June 30 their updated Medical System, which includes doctors at 24 hour off-site offices in J Village and Dai-ni. Hiroshima University organized an enhanced emergency medical system at Fukushima in concert with TEPCO and government agencies. They have opened a new eight bed Emergency Medical Treatment Room in Unit 5/6 Service Building, covered by doctors from UOEH and the Japan Labor Health and Welfare Organization that will focus on treating more significant injuries and heat-related illness from July 1 till the end of September. While TEPCO is currently addressing many of the administrative issues to protect the workers from heat stress, attention needs to be paid to the symptoms of heat related illness in each individual, and their symptoms must not be ignored.

Heat-related symptoms may or may not occur along a continuum. A summary of potential effects of heat-related illnesses from muscle cramps to heat stroke follows. Muscle cramps are most common in the legs and may be severe and spasmodic, lasting 15 minutes or longer. Inadequate salt in-take or water intoxication may cause heat cramps. Stretching and gentle massage or shaking may relax the muscle. Heat rash is also common and will dissipate once the body is cool.

Heat syncope and heat exhaustion are two forms of heat-related illness that are caused by exertion in a hot environment. Inadequate fluid intake produces dehydration causing decreased blood flow to the brain. This in turn causes syncope (fainting); victims feel faint and perceive a rapid heart rate that is often accompanied by nausea, vomiting, headache, dizziness, restlessness, and brief loss of consciousness. Facial color is usually red and sweating is common, but both may vary.

Heat syncope occurs within normal body temperatures. If someone feels faint, they should lie down with their feet elevated and be protected from the sun. The person should be moved to a cooler environment as soon as possible, and fluids should be provided with salt if available. Only after urine output is normalized should the person cautiously attempt to resume work.

Heat exhaustion, with a core body temperature between 39-40°C (102-104°F), limits people’s ability to perform normal tasks. They are usually sweaty and pale with low energy and weakness. They may stagger, hyperventilate or have the urge to defecate. Treatment for heat exhaustion is the same as that for heat syncope, but temperature should be monitored along with more aggressive cooling efforts. Victims of heat exhaustion are dehydrated, sometimes with low sodium, and should be seen by a doctor before returning to work.
Heat stroke is a medical emergency. Uncompensated heat stress produces a core body temperature >40°C (104°F). It is the most severe form of heat illness and is likely to cause permanent disability or death. Workers may develop sudden symptoms of altered mental status or lethargy after working in a hot, humid environment. Confusion, irrational behavior, delirium, convulsions, collapse, coma and lack of coordination may occur. Heart rate and respiratory rates are elevated and become faint as multisystem failure rapidly ensues. Early recognition and immediate actions to cool the victim may prevent death and disability. In the case of heat stroke full body immersion in ice water or cold water at about 15°C (59°F) is most effective and requires less time to cool the victim than other methods. Superficial temperatures are not accurate at these high core body temperatures. Taking a rectal temperature every few minutes is of value to prevent overcooling. Emergency first aid is needed to monitor respiration, pulse and blood pressure and provide hydration until emergency medical assistance is available. Cardio pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) may be necessary if blood flow is inadequate. Once cooling has been achieved to 38.9°C (102°F), the worker should be evacuated as soon as possible.

Clearly, to prevent heat-related illness under the extreme conditions found at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, it is advisable to have professional guidance to develop a well thought-out heat stress management plan that includes environmental modifications and human factors. Providing workers with proper equipment and rest areas equipped with a first aid zone to assess hydration issues and treat heat-related illnesses will safeguard workers’ health. A basic management plan should include: health screening, acclimatization, a hydration protocol with regular rest breaks, worker monitoring with vigilance, and training to detect early symptoms of dehydration such as irrational, argumentative behavior or unsteady ambulation. With these things in place, trained workers should recognize signs and symptoms of heat-related illness and be able to take immediate action to save lives and avert potentially disastrous workplace accidents. Furthermore, additional research on extreme conditions at Fukushima can create a new body of information on heat-related illnesses that will improve conditions for workers of today and in the future.

Cara O’Connell is a physical therapist.

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Contaminated water on increase at Fukushima plant

Tokyo Electric Power Company is injecting fresh water from a nearby dam to make up for the shortage of water in its system for cooling the reactors at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

The system decontaminates radioactive water that has accumulated in the plant and circulates it.

TEPCO halted the process of removing salt from contaminated water after an alarm went off around noon on Sunday due to a problem with the installation of the desalination equipment. It resumed the operation in the evening after installing another device.

The new device is only able to treat half the amount of water. The amount of contaminated water has been increasing since the problem occurred.

TEPCO began using the new circulatory water injection system late last month. Last week, the government and the utility announced the completion of the first stage of the plan to stabilize the cooling of the reactors.

NHK's reporter points out that as a result of Sunday's trouble, the amount of contaminated water is increasing. He adds that the recycling of cooling water, a key element of bringing the accident under control, cannot be maintained.

TEPCO is investigating the cause of the problem. The utility says the decontamination system as a whole is not operating stably and it needs to improve its reliability.

Monday, July 25, 2011 14:12 +0900 (JST)
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July 25 (Bloomberg) -- Aeon Co., Japan's biggest supermarket chain, said beef suspected to be contaminated with radioactive cesium was put on sale at a total of 174 of its stores across Japan.

Aeon found 4,108 kilograms (9,056 pounds) of the beef was put on shelves in stores in Tokyo and 28 other prefectures, according to a faxed statement from the company today. The figure includes locations previously announced by the company.

Supermarkets throughout Japan have been testing beef sold in their stores after the Tokyo Metropolitan Government found cesium levels in slaughtered cattle. Some of the beef had already been sold before testing began. The government banned sales of beef from Fukushima on July 19.


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Workers at Fukushima plant report harsh conditions

Workers involved in the restoration of the areas hit by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami and the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant say their working conditions have been harsh.

About 1,500 temporary workers of subcontractors hired by leading construction companies gathered in Tokyo on Sunday to discuss the situation.

A man who took part in the construction of emergency housing in Iwate Prefecture said he had been promised 20,000 yen, or 250 dollars, per day, but received only about one-third of the amount.

He said there were inadequate meals and workers had to sleep together 40 per room.

There were also reports about the conditions for those engaged in treatment of radioactive water and piping construction at the Fukushima plant.

The workers were forced to work without any explanation about the risk of radiation or any measures against heat strokes.

Another worker said he has received only half of the wages he had been promised for building temporary housing in Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture. He said he wants the government to do something about the unfair working conditions.

The organizers say these issues have not surfaced before because many workers find it inappropriate to complain when they think about the hardships of people in the disaster-hit areas.

Monday, July 25, 2011 09:51
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FSC shows intake benchmark of 100 millisieverts

A government food safety panel has recommended that safeguard measures be implemented to limit cumulative radiation exposure during a person's lifetime to no more than 100 millisieverts.

The working group at the Food Safety Commission, which was set up at the request of the health ministry, released its report on Tuesday.

The report says more than 100 millisieverts of exposure and radioactive intake during a lifetime could increase the risk of developing cancer and other conditions.
The amount does not include radiation a person receives naturally.

The report also pointed out the vulnerability of children, who have greater risks of developing thyroid cancer, leukemia and other illnesses than adults do. But it did not give clear guidelines on setting standards for children, citing a lack of research.

In the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear crisis, the government set its provisional radioactivity safety limits on foodstuff such as meat, and vegetable.

The health ministry and other agencies are expected to review the provisional limits based on Tuesday's report.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011 19:15 +0900 (JST)

Santa visits children at shelter in Japan

Santa Claus has made an unseasonable visit to Japan to encourage children affected by the March 11th disaster.

Santa arrived from Finland at a shelter in Saitama Prefecture, north of Tokyo, on Tuesday. Residents of Futaba Town in Fukushima Prefecture have been staying at the shelter after the nuclear power plant accident.

About 50 children cheered when Santa arrived and handed them presents.

The visit was arranged by Japanese mothers living in Finland.

A Finnish airline covered the airfare for the trip, and a confectionery maker provided the children's presents.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011 18:16 +0900 (JST)

Nuclear plants urged to brace for biggest tsunami

A senior member of a Japanese government council on disaster preparedness says nuclear plants must prepare for the biggest possible tsunami, no matter how small the likelihood of such an event.

Kansai University Professor Yoshiaki Kawata, who heads the council's survey team, briefed the Nuclear Safety Commission on the council's new tsunami measures on Tuesday.

Kawata said a nuclear plant that Chugoku Electric Power Company plans to build by the Seto Inland Sea could be at risk. He cited new findings that a past massive earthquake in the Pacific off central to southwestern Japan sent tsunami waves into the sea.

Kawata also cited old documents that say a tsunami hit Wakasa Bay in Fukui Prefecture after an earthquake about 400 years ago. Thirteen nuclear reactors are located by the bay in the Sea of Japan.

Kawata said even an inland quake could send earth and sand crashing into the sea, triggering a tsunami.

He said the impact of an accident caused by failure to prepare for the biggest possible tsunami would be enormous.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011 17:03 +0900 (JST)

New decontamination unit to arrive at Fukushima

A new system to decontaminate radioactive water will arrive at the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on Tuesday. The current system, the key to cooling the reactors, has been plagued with problems.

The new equipment, SARRY, consists of 14 cylindrical tanks containing minerals. It is designed to reduce radioactive substances in water, such as cesium, to less than one millionth.

The first shipment of tanks and parts left a port in Iwaki, Fukushima on Monday.

The existing device at the plant was hit with problems from Sunday to Monday. Its operating rate has been reduced to 53 percent, far below the goal of 90 percent.

The plant's operator Tokyo Electric Power Company plans to use the new system, along with the existing one.

The utility will bring the remaining components to the Fukushima plant in 2 more shipments. It then aims to begin operating the new system around early August.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011 07:16 +0900 (JST)
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2011 July 26th 00:00
It announced that July 15th, Kumamoto prefecture detected the radioactive cesium for the first time from the pig. Not only the beef, to the pork it became clear for those which were polluted to the cesium to have circulated to all parts of the country.

The local paper reporter says, “this time, the pig which is dismantled it is to be something which is raised in Fukushima prefecture Kawamata Cho”, but as for the person in charge of pig farming union of Fukushima prefecture “there is no individual identification number in the pig different from the cow because, shipment area becomes production area”, that you explain. In other words, it means the pig which was transported without becoming with the “Fukushima prefecture product”, becoming “the other prefectural product” from the area which was shipped as the flesh.

As for the person in charge of pig farming union of the front coming out “emergency evacuation preparation area approximately 10,000 head is moving to outside the prefecture so far from deliberate evacuation area. As for being shipped, mainly Nagano prefecture and Gunma prefecture, Niigata prefecture and Kumamoto prefecture etc. Each of them is shipped” as the prefectural product ahead evacuating, that you reveal.

Government and the prefecture after knowing this fact, the movement outside the prefecture of the pig have recognized. As for the consumer depending in order to protect the dining table area of production indication. But, therefore “0 prefectural product” all right, with, the kind of judgment which is said is to have become not be able to trust. With this journal, raising trader the actual condition of flesh circulation intense white!
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