4 ms·

Keep in mind that the death toll from Fukushima was zero.

by ori_b 9y ago

fludlight 9y ago
There are other considerations than immediate direct deaths. From Wikipedia: > though there have been no fatalities linked to radiation due to the accident, the eventual number of cancer deaths, according to the linear no-threshold theory of radiation safety, that will be caused by the accident is expected to be around 130–640 people in the years and decades ahead...in the most contaminated areas faced a 70% higher relative risk of developing thyroid cancer for females exposed as infants... > However, an estimated 1,600 deaths are believed to have occurred due to the resultant evacuation conditions... > Summarizing all responses to questions related to evacuees' current family status, one-third of all surveyed families live apart from their children, while 50.1% live away from other family members (including elderly parents) with whom they lived before the disaster. The survey also showed that 34.7% of the evacuees have suffered salary cuts of 50% or more since the outbreak of the nuclear disaster. A total of 36.8% reported a lack of sleep, while 17.9% reported smoking or drinking more than before they evacuated. > We know from Chernobyl that the psychological consequences are enormous. Life expectancy of the evacuees dropped from 65 to 58 years – not because of cancer, but because of depression, alcoholism, and suicide. Relocation is not easy, the stress is very big. > A frozen soil barrier has been constructed in an attempt to prevent further contamination of seeping groundwater, but in July 2016 TEPCO revealed that the ice wall had failed to stop groundwater from flowing in and mixing with highly radioactive water inside the wrecked reactor buildings, adding that they are "technically incapable of blocking off groundwater with the frozen wall"...every day 300 tons of contaminated water leak from the crippled nuclear plant... > On 22 August 2011, a government spokesman mentioned the possibility that some areas around the plant "could stay for some decades a forbidden zone". > The amount of compensation to be paid by TEPCO is expected to reach 7 trillion yen. Costs to Japanese taxpayers are likely to exceed 12 trillion yen ($100 billion). In December 2016 the government estimated decontamination, compensation, decommissioning, and radioactive waste storage costs at 21.5 trillion yen ($187 billion), nearly double the 2013 estimate. > In 2014 Japan enacted the State Secrecy Law. The Fukushima incident falls under this law and, as a "state secret", independent investigations and reports are forbidden by law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...
- nitrogen 9y ago
  Compare that number to the number who died in or were displaced by the tsunami.
- yongjik 9y ago
  > We know from Chernobyl that the psychological consequences are enormous. Life expectancy of the evacuees dropped from 65 to 58 years – not because of cancer, but because of depression, alcoholism, and suicide. Relocation is not easy, the stress is very big. In other words, nuclear accident is (pardon the Orwellianism) so un-dangerous that "fear of radioactivity" is more lethal than radioactivity itself. Another way to put it is: when I see a group of anti-nuclear activists posing with children of Fukushima prefecture, asking "How long can they live?", it makes me shake my fist with anger, because they are literally harming these children more than the nuclear accident itself.
- CapTVK 9y ago
  > ...are "technically incapable of blocking off groundwater with the frozen wall"...every day 300 tons of contaminated water leak from the crippled nuclear plant... That article is out of date. The frozen wall has been working for quite a while but TEPCO wasn't (isn't) allowed to completely close it. June 29, 2017 Tepco applies to the NRA for permission to finish the Fukushima Daiichi ice wall. Closure of the wall has been throttled down by Tokyo’s Nuclear Regulation Authority due to fears concerning groundwater outside the turbine buildings falling below the level of water inside. Tepco has been forced to freeze the last half-dozen seven-meter-wide sections individually, wait to see what it does to external groundwater levels, and then proceed to the next section if groundwater level is maintained according to plan. One section on the inland side of the 1.5 kilometer ice structure is all that needs to be activated to complete the wall. To date, the sequential closure of Tokyo-mandated gaps has dropped the groundwater influx from 400 tons per day down to about 100 tons per day. No projections are being made as to how much more the in-flow will abate after the last part of the wall is frozen. https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20170627_01/ https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20170627_01/ I would also like to give a pointer to the "Fukushima Accident Updates" blog-page at hiroshimasyndrome.com. It collects and summarizes a lot of Japanse news and updates concerning Fukishima and related on a regular basis that will never reach the mainstream/ international press. http://www.hiroshimasyndrome.com/fukushima-accident-updates.html http://www.hiroshimasyndrome.com/fukushima-accident-updates....
alphonsegaston 9y ago
To the parent's point, this is entirely untrue. The yakuza colluded with the energy companies to round to their debtors and homeless people to clean up contamination. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/05/how-yakuza-and-japans-nuclear-industry-learned-love-each-other/327691/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/05/ho... https://www.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSBRE9BT00520131230 https://www.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSBRE9BT00520131230 The idea that they all escaped unscathed with no impact on their health or some weren't simply "offed" for being uncooperative is laughable on its face. That there were no deaths associated with Fukushima is only possible if you accept a demonstrably false construction of the energy industry in Japan that ignores its intersection with organized crime and government corruption, which is something that goes back decades.
- ori_b 9y ago
  Let me rephrase that: "Keep in mind that more people were killed by organized crime making a buck off the disaster, than by the disaster itself."

Keep in mind that the death toll from Fukushima was zero.

by ori_b 9y ago

Keep in mind that the death toll from Fukushima was zero.

There are other considerations than immediate direct deaths. From Wikipedia: > though there have been no fatalities linked to radiation due to the accident, the eventual number of cancer deaths, according to the linear no-threshold theory of radiation safety, that will be caused by the accident is expected to be around 130–640 people in the years and decades ahead...in the most contaminated areas faced a 70% higher relative risk of developing thyroid cancer for females exposed as infants... > However, an estimated 1,600 deaths are believed to have occurred due to the resultant evacuation conditions... > Summarizing all responses to questions related to evacuees' current family status, one-third of all surveyed families live apart from their children, while 50.1% live away from other family members (including elderly parents) with whom they lived before the disaster. The survey also showed that 34.7% of the evacuees have suffered salary cuts of 50% or more since the outbreak of the nuclear disaster. A total of 36.8% reported a lack of sleep, while 17.9% reported smoking or drinking more than before they evacuated. > We know from Chernobyl that the psychological consequences are enormous. Life expectancy of the evacuees dropped from 65 to 58 years – not because of cancer, but because of depression, alcoholism, and suicide. Relocation is not easy, the stress is very big. > A frozen soil barrier has been constructed in an attempt to prevent further contamination of seeping groundwater, but in July 2016 TEPCO revealed that the ice wall had failed to stop groundwater from flowing in and mixing with highly radioactive water inside the wrecked reactor buildings, adding that they are "technically incapable of blocking off groundwater with the frozen wall"...every day 300 tons of contaminated water leak from the crippled nuclear plant... > On 22 August 2011, a government spokesman mentioned the possibility that some areas around the plant "could stay for some decades a forbidden zone". > The amount of compensation to be paid by TEPCO is expected to reach 7 trillion yen. Costs to Japanese taxpayers are likely to exceed 12 trillion yen ($100 billion). In December 2016 the government estimated decontamination, compensation, decommissioning, and radioactive waste storage costs at 21.5 trillion yen ($187 billion), nearly double the 2013 estimate. > In 2014 Japan enacted the State Secrecy Law. The Fukushima incident falls under this law and, as a "state secret", independent investigations and reports are forbidden by law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...

nitrogen 9y ago
Compare that number to the number who died in or were displaced by the tsunami.
yongjik 9y ago
> We know from Chernobyl that the psychological consequences are enormous. Life expectancy of the evacuees dropped from 65 to 58 years – not because of cancer, but because of depression, alcoholism, and suicide. Relocation is not easy, the stress is very big. In other words, nuclear accident is (pardon the Orwellianism) so un-dangerous that "fear of radioactivity" is more lethal than radioactivity itself. Another way to put it is: when I see a group of anti-nuclear activists posing with children of Fukushima prefecture, asking "How long can they live?", it makes me shake my fist with anger, because they are literally harming these children more than the nuclear accident itself.
CapTVK 9y ago
> ...are "technically incapable of blocking off groundwater with the frozen wall"...every day 300 tons of contaminated water leak from the crippled nuclear plant... That article is out of date. The frozen wall has been working for quite a while but TEPCO wasn't (isn't) allowed to completely close it. June 29, 2017 Tepco applies to the NRA for permission to finish the Fukushima Daiichi ice wall. Closure of the wall has been throttled down by Tokyo’s Nuclear Regulation Authority due to fears concerning groundwater outside the turbine buildings falling below the level of water inside. Tepco has been forced to freeze the last half-dozen seven-meter-wide sections individually, wait to see what it does to external groundwater levels, and then proceed to the next section if groundwater level is maintained according to plan. One section on the inland side of the 1.5 kilometer ice structure is all that needs to be activated to complete the wall. To date, the sequential closure of Tokyo-mandated gaps has dropped the groundwater influx from 400 tons per day down to about 100 tons per day. No projections are being made as to how much more the in-flow will abate after the last part of the wall is frozen. https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20170627_01/ https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20170627_01/ I would also like to give a pointer to the "Fukushima Accident Updates" blog-page at hiroshimasyndrome.com. It collects and summarizes a lot of Japanse news and updates concerning Fukishima and related on a regular basis that will never reach the mainstream/ international press. http://www.hiroshimasyndrome.com/fukushima-accident-updates.html http://www.hiroshimasyndrome.com/fukushima-accident-updates....

alphonsegaston 9y ago

To the parent's point, this is entirely untrue. The yakuza colluded with the energy companies to round to their debtors and homeless people to clean up contamination. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/05/how-yakuza-and-japans-nuclear-industry-learned-love-each-other/327691/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/05/ho... https://www.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSBRE9BT00520131230 https://www.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSBRE9BT00520131230 The idea that they all escaped unscathed with no impact on their health or some weren't simply "offed" for being uncooperative is laughable on its face. That there were no deaths associated with Fukushima is only possible if you accept a demonstrably false construction of the energy industry in Japan that ignores its intersection with organized crime and government corruption, which is something that goes back decades.

ori_b 9y ago
Let me rephrase that: "Keep in mind that more people were killed by organized crime making a buck off the disaster, than by the disaster itself."