November 20, 2012
Major news in Japan has been relatively quiet but many bits
of smaller news do piece together a picture of what is going on now. The
disaster continues to evolve and is far from going away.
Lake Kasumigaura in the northern are of Tokyo’s metro area has
been concentrating cesium (and probably other isotopes) from the Fukushima
Daiichi disaster. Various rivers run into the lake, those rivers are fed by
other rivers and streams. This has turned the lake into a hot spot for
contamination in the mud and sediment. Levels in the lake were as high
as 5,800 Bq/kg in February.
The Onagawa River that runs into the lake was found to
have 13,200 Bq/kg of cesium in May. Levels gradually went up and some of
the levels went back down slightly on the last round of testing leading some
government officials to prematurely declare the problem to be over.
Experts say the runoff into the lake is slow and sediment is
greatly varied leading to readings that can show a range of readings. The river
is a major source of fresh water, 960,00 people depend on it for drinking
water. Fish in the lake are also being found to be over limit. Catfish and carp
(both bottom dwellers) have tested over the legal limit for consumption.
This should have been expected. Radioactive contamination
that falls over land will have some of it wash away with soil and debris. This
will follow the natural water routes taking the contamination with. Some
have suggested opening a dam to drain down the lake but this would not solve
the problem as the contamination has settled in as mud in the lake.
As was found in Russia with lake Karachay,
lower levels of water turn that sediment to dust that then blows around causing
more problems.
Any contamination that would run downstream doesn’t solve anything;
it just moves the contamination somewhere else. In this case the river that
drains into the Pacific, causing the river to be more contaminated and adding
to the Pacific contamination.
Radiation in various freshwater fish around the region are
also showing up as highly contaminated. Trout found in one river were 11,400
bq/kg of cesium
Radiation testing done soon after the start of the disaster
showed that people outside the evacuation areas also had high levels of
exposure. Government dose reconstructions found a woman in the north of
Fukushima prefecture had an 11 mSv exposure during the early days of the disaster.
Local government staff
shortages as high as 30% are hindering recovery in the north east region of
Japan. This seems to be a combination of displaced residents and people
unwilling to move the the heavily damaged contaminated region.
The Environment Ministry is planning on using children in Nagasaki as a control group study to compare
thyroid damage to children in the Tohoku region of Japan. Information about who
or how the study would be conducted was not available. There was a 2001 study of children in Nagasaki for thyroid
abnormalities but the study cohort was quite small. That small study found
extremely low incidence of thyroid abnormalities of about 1% or less.
ED Noor: See accompanying article below. The
Japanese PTB are intimating these children have eaten too much seafood..
Japan’s upcoming election has considerable speculation that
the LDP party will take back over from the DPJ and that this
will cause even more stagnation in the country. The LDP is frequently blamed
with being too entrenched and unable to change, contributing to Japan’s
economic problems that existed before the Fukushima crisis.
An even worse potential is seen lurking among the election.
Osaka’s governor Hashimoto and Tokyo’s former governor Ishihara recently teamed
up for a new political party.
Now they are busy talking about Japan
needing nuclear weapons. Both politicians have a reputation for crazy
behavior with Hashimoto going on a witch hunt for public workers with tattoos and Ishihara
frequently stoking up the Senkaku Island dispute.
Head of the Fukushima Health Survey, Dr. Yamashita has apologized for the Health Survey Committee holding secret
meetings though gave no assurances anything with the health survey would
change.
Kansai Electric has removed
fuel from a number of their reactors indicating they don’t see them
restarting any time soon. Mihama Unit 1 (121 assemblies) Unit 3 (157
assemblies), No. 1 Oi ( 193 assemblies),, and Takahama Unit 1 (157 assemblies).
Better late than never, TEPCO has admitted that March 16th, 2011 there was a considerable spike in radiation
that had not been reported. At the time radiation jumped suddenly from about 20
mSv to 80 mSv over about 10 minutes. This was the same time white steam was
seen pouring out of the reactor well of unit 3. TEPCO claims they do not know
the cause of the two events at this point but they will investigate.
This
article would not be possible without the extensive efforts of the SimplyInfo
research team
.
GERMAN TV: 42% OF
FUKUSHIMA CHILDREN NOW WITH THYROID DISORDERS ~ OFFICIAL BLAMES TOO MUCH
SEAFOOD? (VIDEO)
November 19,
2012
German TV channel ZDF’s segment on the Fukushima Health
Survey translated
by SimplyInfo:
More than 42% of
57,000 tested children have nodules or cyst, reports Dr. Suzuki who leads the
examinations. In Chernobyl they found only 0.1 – 1%. Nobody asks the experts for
the reasons.
He explains the
results mainly by improved diagnosis methods, but people don’t believe him.
There are no reference
[sic] studies, Dr. Suzuki tells us, and maybe the children simply took too much
iodine or seafood. He doesn’t know if this has something to do with radiation.
ED Noor: And here we thought the Japanese to be so smart!
ED Noor: And here we thought the Japanese to be so smart!
“We are mainly
here to inform the parents of the results of our study.”
But what do such
results mean to parents without proper explanations?
The official
handling of the disaster is more than questionable.
Many people have
completely lost trust in government and believe that the disaster is played
down to protect the mighty nuclear industry of Japan.
RELATED POSTS:
“Astonishing”:
Thyroid abnormalities found in Fukushima kids declared ‘ok’ by gov’t ~
Officials ordered doctors to stop examining patients November 8, 2012
Just
0.8% of children in 2001 Japanese control group had thyroid cysts or nodules ~
36% in Fukushima study July 15, 2012
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