“Most Japanese have this feeling in their heart. The question is whether you step forward, or of the plant’s workers were severely you stay behind and watch.” few injured or killed by the disaster resulting from the earthquake. -yasteru There wereconditions no immediate deaths due to direct exposures, but at least six workers have yamada radiation exceeded lifetime legal limits for radiation and
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more than 300 have received significant radiation doses. Predicted future cancer deaths due to accumulated radiation exposures in the population living near Fukushima have ranged from none to 100. On 16 December 2011, Japanese authorities declared the plant to be stable, although it would take decades to decontaminate the surrounding areas and to decommission the plant altogether. On July 5, 2012, the parliament appointed The Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission (NAIIC) submitted its inquiry report to the Japanese parliament, while the government appointed Investigation Committee on the Accident at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Stations of Tokyo Electric Power Company submitted its final report to the Japanese government on July 23, 2012. Tepco admitted for the first time on October 12, 2012 that it had failed to take stronger measures to prevent disasters for fear of inviting lawsuits or protests against its nuclear plants. Mr. Yamada got so busy working from home that he found some office space in a narrow walk-up in Tokyo’s Shimbashi neighborhood. In a spartan room with a couple of computers, a hot water pot and a few folding chairs.
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“We have fukushima daichii
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he plant comprises six separate boiling water reactors originally designed by General Electric (GE), and maintained by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO). At the time of the quake, Reactor 4 had been de-fueled while 5 and 6 were in cold shutdown for planned maintenance. Immediately after the earthquake, the remaining reactors 1-3 shut down automatically, and emergency generators came online to control electronics and coolant systems. However the tsunami following the earthquake quickly flooded the low-lying rooms in which the
emergency generators were housed. The flooded generators failed, cutting power to the critical pumps that must continuously circulate coolant water through a nuclear reactor for several days in order to keep it from melting down after being shut down. As the pumps stopped, the reactors overheated due to the normal high radioactive decay heat produced in the first few days after nuclear reactor shutdown (smaller amounts of this heat normally continue to be released for years, but are not enough to cause fuel melting). At this point, only prompt flooding of the
to work but never die.� reactors with seawater could have cooled the reactors quickly enough to prevent meltdown. Salt water flooding was delayed because it would ruin the costly reactors permanently. Flooding with seawater was finally commenced only after the government ordered that seawater be used, and at this point it was already too late to prevent meltdown. As the water boiled away in the reactors and the water levels in the fuel rod pools dropped, the reactor fuel rods began to overheat severely, and to melt down.
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“The reason is simple, J
apanese officials initially assessed the accident as Level 4 on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES) despite the views of other international agencies that it should be higher. The level was later raised to 5 and eventually to 7, the maximum scale value. The Japanese government and TEPCO have been criticized in the foreign press for poor communication with the public and improvised cleanup efforts. On 20 March, the Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano announced that the plant would be decommissioned once the crisis was over. The Japanese government estimates the total amount of radioactivity released into the atmosphere was approximately one-tenth as much as was released during the Chernobyl disaster. Significant amounts of radioactive material have also been released into ground and ocean waters. Measurements taken by the Japanese government 30–50 km from the plant showed caesium-137 levels high enough to cause concern, leading the government to ban the sale of food grown in the area. Tokyo officials temporarily recommended that tap water should not be used to prepare food.
the skilled veterans corps A group of more than 200 Japanese pensioners are volunteering to tackle the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima power station.The Skilled Veterans Corps, as they call themselves, is made up of retired engineers and other professionals, all over the age of 60. They say they should be facing the dangers of radiation, not the young. It was while watching the television news that Yasuteru Yamada decided it was time for his generation to stand up.No longer could he be just an observer of the struggle to stabilise the Fukushima nuclear plant. The retired engineer is reporting back for duty at the age of 72, and he is organising a team of pensioners to go with him.For weeks now Mr Yamada has been getting back in touch with old friends, sending out e-mails and even messages on Twitter.
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They need
...if we don’t take responsibility, who will?”
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he plant is still spewing radiation, nearly three months after an earthquake and tsunami knocked out its cooling systems, triggering explosions. Its operator, Tepco, has now confirmed three of the reactors probably suffered meltdowns. The plan is to bring the plant to a cold shutdown by January, although some experts believe that is over optimistic.To cope with the disaster Japan has raised the radiation exposure limit for emergency workers from 100
millisieverts to 250 millisieverts. But Tepco announced this week two workers at Fukushima might have already been exposed to more. Many of Mr Yamada’s veterans are retired engineers like him. Others are former power station workers, experts in factory design - and even a singer and two cooks - Mr Yamada says they will be useful to keep his team amused and fed. Michio Ito used to be a primary school teacher but is spending his retirement helping out in a cafe that offers work experience to people with learning difficulties.He is keen to swap his apron for a radiation suit. “I don’t think I’m particularly special,” he says. “Most Japanese have this feeling in their heart. The question is whether you step forward, or you stay behind and watch. “To take that step you need a lot of guts, but I hope it will be a great experience. Most Japanese want to help out any way they can.”
clean up fukushima Now 700 plus members strong, they are retired workers from Fukushima, and engineers and technicians from other branches of industry. They made this extraordinary offer only four weeks after the Fukushima disaster. However 14 months later TEPCO has not yet given them permission to wrk. The Skilled Veterans are alerting the international community to the serious problems with the cleanup at Fukushima Daiichi. 11,400 fuel rods are stuck in damaged buildings, and in Unit 4 100 feet up in the air. If they were to lose cooling
“my generation, the old generation, promoted the nuclear plants
-Kazuko Sasaki 11
Featur
i CAN’T ALLOW JUST YOUNG PEOPLE TO DO THIS.” Masaaki Takahashi
“WE’RE DOING NOTHING SPECIAL... W
eeks after the devastating earthquake and tsunami struck, he and Nobuhiro Shiotani, a childhood friend who is also an engineer, formed the Skilled Veterans Corps in early April. They sent out thousands of e-mails and letters, and even set up a Twitter account. On his blog, bouhatsusoshi.jp/english, Mr. Yamada called on people over age 60 who have “the physical strength and experience to bear the burden of this frontline work.” The response was instant. About 400 people have volunteered, including a singer, a cook and an 82-year-old man. Some 1,200 others have offered support, while donations have topped 4.3 million yen, or $54,000. His blog has been translated into 12 languages. Although Mr. Yamada, a soft-spoken cancer survivor, started with a simple goal, he has triggered a much wider debate about the role of the elderly in Japan, the meaning of volunteerism and the growing reality that the Tokyo Electric Power Company, which owns the reactors, will face an increasingly difficult time recruiting workers. Some experts expect that Japan will ultimately import laborers to help with the cleanup. More than 3,000 workers, many of them poorly paid part-timers, are at the Daiichi site. Already, several have suffered heat stroke and nine have absorbed more than their legal limit of radiation. Dozens of workers have stopped showing up.
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What can you do? Japan is a little different than the USA. While the Japanese government and bureaucracy are quite conservative, they are very sensitive to international public opinion and pressure, especially from the USA. Your voice may carry a much heavier weight with the Japanese government than ours. It can be done by asking your government officials to let Japan know this problem is an international one which effects them, not Japan alone, and to request that the Japanese government permit outside assistance and adopt the SVCF’s four point program. Putting pressure on your government may or may not yield immediate results. Regardless, there are other things you can easily do, which may be far more useful than this. I’d like you to write letters to your newspaper editors, and not only you, but all your friends.