Fukushima China Syndrome 'clearly a concern': Expert

Since Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear energy plant has reportedly released 20 times the radiation contamination amount of the Hiroshima bomb, and its molten core is sinking through the Earth's crust, it appears to be in early stages of a "total China Syndrome meltdown" according to a Russia Today report Thursday during which Beyond Nuclear's Paul Gunter answered why media is blacking out the catastrophe, as noted by numerous scientists, and he revealed the increasing threat of a nuclear explosion.

 

"The total amount of leakage [is] about 29.6 times the amount of contamination caused by the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Assuming the source material to be uranium, we think the total amount of leakage to be about 20 times what was caused by the Hiroshima bomb."

 

Those were among alarming words stated by Dr. Tatsuhiko Kodama, 58, head of the University of Tokyo Radioisotope Center Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology in Meguro-ku in an interview with The Mainichi Daily News on August 20.

 

Dr. Kodama had reported the same data as he testified before Japanese Parliament's Committee for Health, Labor and Welfare of the Lower House of the Diet on July 27. His testimony made headline news in Japan, but not in the U.S. according to Russia Today's Tom Hartmann who wanted to know why media is continuing its blackout campaign against best interest of the public.

 

It is not as though Dr. Kodama is not highly qualified to be collecting and analyzing radiation data. He has been working to develop cancer treatment methods using isotopes; is well informed about internal radiation exposure problems; and has been visiting the city of Minamisoma in Fukushima Prefecture every weekend to conduct radiation measurements and decontamination at locations such as kindergartens according to The Mainichi Daily News.

 

"Radiation has a high risk to embryos in pregnant women, juveniles, and highly proliferative cells of people of growing ages. Even for adults, highly proliferative cells, such as hairs, blood, and intestinal epithelium cells, are sensitive to radiation," he stated, becoming impatient with government's delayed reaction in helping the people survive the worsening conditions.

 

As the molten core sinks into the ground, increasing the nuclear plant's lethality, an unidentified Fukushima employee said, "A lot of the cracks came up in the ground. Massive steam is coming up from there. It's too smoggy here. Can't see a thing. It seems like nuclear reaction is happening underground. Now, we are evacuating. Watch out for the direction of the wind." 

 

The statement was sent via a Tokyo friend of Hartmann who interviewed Gunter.

 

Dr. Kodama told Mainichi Daily on Saturday, "What's more, the radiation will decrease at a much slower rate than after the A-bomb. When the amount of radiation is small, it's enough to consider on-the-spot radiation. But when the total volume is huge, we have to think about how the particles will disperse."

 

"This happens in a non-linear manner, which is very difficult to calculate scientifically, because concentration is apt to occur in unpredictable locations. This will keep happening, such as when feed-hay for cattle was contaminated by cesium, and when contamination was found in tea and leaf mulch."

 

 "So what exactly is going on there?" asked Hartmann on Russia Today. "And why the media back-out on this increasingly severe nuclear disaster?"

 

It has been 160 days since the earthquake and tsunami crippled Japan's nuclear energy plant at Fukushima, but information is still not forthcoming according to Hartmann.

 

Director of the Reactor Oversight Project at Beyond Nuclear, the regulatory watchdog over the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and nuclear power industry, Paul Gunter joined Hartmann to shed light on what media is blacking out. 

 

Gunter was a 2008 recipient of the Jane Bagley Lehman Award from Tides Foundation for his work on the nuclear power and climate change. He has appeared on NBC Nightly World News, The Lehrer News Hour, BBC World News and Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now!" He co-founded  Clamshell Alliance in 1976 to oppose Seabrook (NH) nuclear power plant construction through non‐violent direct action that launched the U.S. antinuclear movement.

 

Before joining Beyond Nuclear, Gunter served 16 years as Director of the Reactor Watchdog Project for Nuclear Information and Resource Service. He is a New Englander, born in Mississippi, and reared in Detroit, MI.

 

"Cracks came up in the ground; massive steam coming up from there," Hartmann repeated. 

 

"That sounds a lot like the China Syndrome. The core melting down into the Earth and hitting the water table."

 

Gunter replied, "We know now there have been three meltdowns at the six-unit site and the vessel has failed.

 

"This melted reactor's melted core has burned through the concrete floor of the buildings, into the Earth and is reaching the ground water and creating steam."

 

"The readings we're seeing now, suggest that it's off-scale for the instrumentation used by the workers," he said.

 

"Five-hundred REM is the lethal dose. This is 1000 REM coming out of these cracks. So, we're seeing doses that could cause fatalities within days."

 

According to Gunter, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) permissible radiation amount for the public is 100 millirem per year. This is 1 million millirem per hour. So, these are lethal doses that are coming out of the ground.'

 

Gunter said, "They have been looking to contain this accident by building tents over the reactor units which os kind of ludicrous of itself and shows their level of desperation."

 

"This accident is clearly more seriously out of control than they are willing to admit," Gunter said.

 

Fuel fragments found over one and a half miles away from the facility did not come from explosions from the spent fuel pools. according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission."

 

"They were ejected from the nuclear core from the beginning."

 

"The problem is that, as we pointed out on our very first interview with you," Gunter told Hartmann, "the first thing to be controlled in these nuclear accidents is the information."

 

"And now, 160 days into this accident and we still see that the information is being withheld. There's an incredible lag time -  months before we really understand the situation," Gunter said.

 

Hartmann reiterated that the catastrophe is releasing 20 to 29 times more contamination than the Hiroshima bomb but he did not see Dr. Kodama's new data "in a single newspaper in the United States."

 

Why not?

 

Hartman said that a global nuclear industry is in control of media.

 

"We're really dependent on indymedia these days," he said. "Shows like yours, like what's on blogs, on Youtube."

 

"This is where news on Fukushima breaks first."

 

 

"In a China Syndrome, like we're apparently seeing at Fukushima right now, the nuclear core melts down," Hartmann said, referring to the 1979 American thriller film. 

 

"If this was in Nevada, it would be no big deal. It would end up in the dirt some place buried forever."

 

Most nuclear energy plants, however, including in the U.S., are built right next to water for cooling, so the water table is right there. 

 

"Isn't this like an inherently insane system?" Hartmann asked Gunter.

 

"It's inherently dangerous," Gunter asserted. "Once it's out of control, the consequences are unacceptable."

 

"The big concern right now is that, we don't really know, because we don't have reliable information on how hot that melted core is."

 

"If it's hot enough, it can separate out the elemental forms of water - hydrogen and oxygen, and that creates an underground explosive environment."

 

Friday, Mainichi Daily reported that another earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.8 shook northeastern Japan, reportedly causing no abnormalities at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear energy plant.