Nuclear Disaster: Coverup, Radiation, and Damage.

Nuclear Disaster: Reactor Defect Covered Up. 10,000X Radiation. Core damaged.

Fukushima news grows grimmer and grimmer. The core of one reactor was defective on installation—and it was known. The Japanese government refused to investigate.

by Heidi Stevenson

25 March 2011

Bad news from the Fukushima nuclear plant is flooding in. The workers being treated for burns were exposed to 10,000 times more than expected. Number 3 reactor is damaged and may be leaking radiation, though no one is saying how much. And, a reactor core's manufacturing damage was covered up.

Lies of omission have been the reason for the lack of news. Nothing could spin the bad news to give it a hopeful appearance, so they stayed quiet as long as they could. And they're still not telling us—or the citizens of Japan—the whole truth.

World governments' declarations are proving to be the stuff of optimistic imaginations. In spite of no studies about damage from ingesting radioactive food and water, the public is told don't worry, it's safe. The stories about documented serious radiation found miles from the plant seem to disappear shortly after appearance. Meanwhile, the bad news builds.

Workers Exposed to Deadly Amounts of Radiation

Two days ago, Fukushima workers were hospitalized for radiation burns after stepping in radioactive water. Those burns were an obvious indication that the radioactivity was extremely high. Now, it's coming out that it's 10,000 times higher than normally found in recirculated water from nuclear power plants. (Though one must question the concept of any amount of radioactivity ever being treated as "normal".)

This is confirmation of radiation biologist, Edmund Lengfelder's claim, reported in Gaia Health, that most of the radiation plant workers will suffer grievously from radiation exposure.

Reactor Number 3 Damaged and Leaking Radiation

It's been fairly obvious for days that reactor number 3 is particularly bad. Simply looking at pictures of the damaged facility makes it clear that severe problems should be expected. The nature of the fuel, which includes recycled plutonium, adds to the concern. Now, we're finally being told officially that reactor 3's core is damaged, possibly cracked—and leaking radiation.

And still, no one is saying how much. How could they not know how much? Surely they have adequate facilities for measuring radiation on site. Just how bad is this situation?

Coverup of Defect in Reactor 4

Bloomberg reports that Mitsuhiko Tanaka reported to Japan's Trade Ministry that there was a manufacturing defect in the steel container housing reactor 4. Tanaka was the lead engineer on the project to build that pressure vessel.

The process of making the containment vessel takes 2½ years. One of the last steps is to blast it in a furnace. Braces should have been placed inside the cylinder before the blasting. They were either forgotten or fell over. That resulted in the walls of the containment vessel warping.

Hitachi, the company that made the flawed containment vessel, was Tanaka's employer. They acted to hide the damage. They draped the flawed containment unit with a sheet and distracted Tokyo Electric Power Company's inspector by wining and dining him, playing golf, and soaking in a hot spring. Tepco's inspector never actually examined the vessel. However, according to Tanaka, it wouldn't have made any difference if he had seen it:

The guy wouldn’t have known what he was looking at anyway. The people at the utility have no idea how the parts are made.

Tanaka's boss asked him to cosmetically reshape the vessel, which he did, and for which he received a 2 million yen bonus. He stated, "I saved the company billions of yen. At the time, I felt like a hero."

Later, though, Tanaka had pangs of conscience. He narrated a Russian documentary film about Chernobyl. The director had died of radiation poisoning a year after filming. Tanaka had a breakdown. He says, "All of a sudden I was sobbing and I started to think about what I'd done. I could be the father of a Japanese Chernobyl."

A couple of years later, he reported the problem to Japan's Trade Ministry. Hitachi denied his claims, and the government refused to investigate. Tanaka stated:

They said, if Hitachi says they didn't do it, then there's no problem. [But,] companies don't always tell the truth.

Tanaka then wrote a book that detailed what happened, Why Nuclear Power is Dangerous.

How Bad Is It?

At this point, we still don't know how bad the Fukushima situation is. The only thing that's clear is that it's bad. It's leaking radiation in amounts so severe that, apparently, they're afraid to inform the public. They're officially evacuating the area 30 kilometers around the plant. (Before, evacuation was simply advised.) A wide variety of Japanese vegetables have been found to be radioactive. Water supplies have been contaminated with radiation. Radiation has been found in the sea near the nuclear plant.

Yet, the public is still told that everything's okay, that the situation is under control, and that there's no risk to health if people just follow some simple instructions, like not giving their babies the radioactive water. Nothing supports their advice—the same people who scream about how important evidence is when it suits them—but they keep telling people not to worry.

Tepco's Fukushima nuclear plant is simply another example of multinational corporations that have run amok. In spite of the severity and potential extent of this disaster, notice that the only people involved in trying to resolve it are employed by the corporation responsible for it. The Japanese government is not running the show. If the same thing happened in the United States or the United Kingdom, it would be no different.

It's no different after a disaster than it is before. The workers trying to resolve the plant's problems are not the most capable. In fact, most of them are simply part time workers who had taken low-skill jobs to increase their incomes. Even in terms of the skills required to avert disaster, corners are being cut.

The Tepco Fukushima disaster is the wave of the future. As long as profits come before everything else, then we must expect more of the same. When the risks are borne by everyone but the profiteers, nothing stops them.

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