Fukushima still glowing, Japanese bureaucrats push paper.

You almost don't need to read the English translation at the bottom of this video to feel the human anguish and fear that is part of daily life in Fukushima.

Fukushima release many times larger than previously admitted

The media won't discuss it. Not in Canada, and not in America. Not even Fox is discussing the irradiation of our land. They put up stories about Japan and the aftermath. But nothing about here. Why?

Here is a Canadian gentleman showing the radiation cloud. We have been bombarded with radiation since March 11, 2011. Get out of the rain. Do not drink milk. Do not drink cream. Are we all getting a chest x-ray each day? Is Fukushima equal to 2000 atomic bombs? Eating and drinking radiation is dangerous. And this will go on for another 6 to 9 months? Ridiculous! I'm going to try to buy fruits and vegetables from South America.

Do you think I am nutty because of this? Well let me inform you that there is NO safe level of radiation. Especially not for growing children. As a mother it is my duty to investigate what steps I need to take to keep my children safe.

Is Fukushima worst disaster world has ever seen? Tell me this lady is wrong.

If this lady is right, we had better pray for drought.

Via bankofamericasuck.

Crying cattle starve to death near Fukushima

Shouldn't they be released to forage for grass in the abandoned area? This is too cruel and sad.

Plutonium blasted high into atmosphere, why didn't they TELL us!

There is a concrete block found in Fukushima that, if you sat next to it for 3 hours, you have a 50% chance of dying. If you sit next to it for 6 hours, your chance of dying of radiation poisoning is 100%. No wonder there is plutonium in the soil around this plant. The so-called unimportant hydrogen explosion spewed some very dangerous stuff into the area/atmosphere. Similar highly radioactive debris is scattered around the plant and may delay the cleanup efforts.


Alexander Higgins blog comments, emphasis added:

I was looking at the high resolution photos taken of the complex a few weeks ago, and looking at the shots of unit 3 in particular (the 2nd and 5th photos show it best) – because it was the one using the MOX fuel and was also the one most severely damaged by the hydrogen explosions. I’m sure you guys at UCS have already seen these shots, the link and photos are below:

A few days later I came across an article on the disaster over there that had a good cut away diagram of the reactor buildings:

I was struck by the location of the spent fuel pool on the third floor. (The spent fuel pool in the diagram is in the upper right corner of the building to the right of the top of the reactor, below the yellow beam, which is below the large orange girders.Part of the pool is cut away in the diagram, it appears to extend most of the way across about half of the building on the third floor) I went back to the site with the aerial photos and confirmed that the third floor was pretty much entirely obliterated in the explosion. The spent fuel pool is gone… see for yourself.

Today I had another look at the diagram, and noticed something else quite significant that I had missed before. I realized that the top of the primary containment vessel was flush with the floor level of the 4th floor, and that the top of the reactor itself was in the space between the 3rd and 4th floors, partially surrounded by the spent fuel pool.

Look at those photos again, particularly the 5th shot. At the top of the photo you see the skeletal remnants of the wall of the 3rd and 4th floors. It is easy to see the floor level of the third floor – there are two massive steam pipes running behind and below the building…the lower edge of the lower pipe is almost perfectly aligned with the floor level of the 3rd floor. Follow the floor line of the third floor down from that back wall along the right side of the building, then across the front side of the building near the bottom of the photo. That shows you the floor level of the 3rd floor very clearly, right? There is nothing but air remaining above that level, except for a bit of roof debris which you can see through. The top of the primary containment vessel, as well as the top of the reactor itself, is simply GONE.

Even to a layperson, it is obvious that this means that the huge hydrogen explosion at unit 3 must have occurred in the reactor itself, and that the entire top of the reactor containment vessel was obliterated, ejecting the contents of the core – as well as the spent fuel pool- into the atmosphere.

This means, obviously, that significant quantities of plutonium were released, and that the release of radiation from unit 3 alone must be many times higher than has been admitted for the entire
complex – Chernobyl pales in comparison.

It is apparent that Tepco, the NRC, and the Japanese and American government officials, among others, are participating in a coverup of the extent and severity of this disaster. This almost certainly applies to the blandly misleading assurances about the harmlessness of the fallout on US soil. The whistle must be blown, loud and clear.

Keep in mind that Fukushima has 1760 tons of fuel, Chernobyl had only 180.

Video of rainwater in Colorado Springs placed under a Geiger counter.


Radioactive rainwater in St. Louis, Missouri makes Geiger counter go nuts!


The problem is not just iodine. Cesium and Plutonium had a much longer half-life. And there is plenty of that coming down in U.S. rainwater as well. Keep safe, everybody. Knowledge is power.

Hellish drive to Fukushima, roaming animals, destruction

I saw the movie Omega Man as a child. I was probably too young to see it at the time. All I recall is a nightmarish version of the end of the world. This driving tour reminds me of that. The alarms sound when the radiation exceeds "safe" levels. So many abandoned dogs and livestock. My prayers are with the people of Japan. I hope they can restore their island home for their health and safety. So sad.

Russian coverage of Fukushima meltdown

Granted this "expert" sounds like an anti-nuclear leftist, are his facts correct? Were the fuel rods sitting on top when the hydrogen explosion took place? Is radiation spiking in California? Do robots grind to a halt in the face of high radioactivity?

Update: Some refugees being turned away from treatment centers due to radiation fears.

Highly radioactive water leaking, neutron beams in Fukushima

Neutron beams have been observed coming from the Fukushima plant. What does this mean? It means fission, which is a nuclear reaction that would take place in overheated rods. The neutron beams could either be leaking out through cracks in the reactor vessels or from fission reactions taking place in the spent-fuel pools.

Also of concern are the anonymous "Fukushima 50" nuclear workers who stayed on to try to avert disaster. Most of them are older workers. They are heroes, no matter what radiation dose they end up absorbing, their willingness to sacrifice their health and safety for that of others is heroic.

Three workers this week stepped into highly radioactive water while attempting to hook up electricity. One of the workers had high-sided boots and the other two had lower-sided boots. Those two ended up in the hospital with possible radiation burns on the skin of their feet/legs where the water soaked into their boots. Most official reports deny that the workers received anything higher than 100 milliseiverts exposure. A TIME blogger reports that the workers' dosage tags showed about 175 millisieverts each. One commenter on that article, "squeaksqueak" states (edited for brevity):

"Press reports suggested that the hospitalized workers had been exposed to doses 10,000 times above normal. But the only reliable information on the dosage received by the workers comes from a TEPCO press release, which states that the trio suffered radiation exposure between 170 millisieverts and 180 millisieverts."

No. I was watching NHK World when the information came out. I wrote it down. But I have to say I just about fell out of my chair when I wrote down the numbers.

The radiation in the water that the workers were exposed to was 3.9 MILLION Bq/cc. It was then stated in the news conference that this is 10,000 times the amount of radiation that would be in water in a reactor that is working normally. This is a very important point. It clearly shows that this water that had leaked out of the reactor had been exposed directly to the reactor fuel, which could only have happened if some of the fuel rods melted and the protective coating oxidized off. Otherwise it could not have been so highly irradiated. The estimated radiation exposure was 173-180 millisieverts between the three men. The surface of the water measured 400 millisieverts.

At the hospital, after decontamination, the workers were still radioactive, and that measurement was around 150 millisieverts.

The most recent report is that the feet of the two men were exposed to 2-6 sieverts (2,000 to 6,000 millisieverts). This is usually a fatal amount of radiation exposure if it is full body exposure, so the fact it was only their feet that were exposed likely makes a huge difference. It will take a couple weeks for some symptoms to appear.

A further explanation of a small point. The 173-180 millisieverts exposure the three men had was 173 for one, 179 for another, and 180 for the third. This is the exposure they had from the radiation in the air in that room. This would have been shown on each person's meter.

Two of the men had additional radiation exposure from the water that leaked into their boots.

Every summer I go to the mammography place for my annual dose of 3 millisieverts.  Add this to the average American dose and I end up with about 5 to 6 millisieverts of exposure each year after age 40.