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Page added on June 9, 2011
Evacuation zone, permanent, expanded as radiation expands
Japan has doubled its estimate of the amount of radiation spewed out by the Fukushima nuclear plant in the week after the crisis began. It comes after confirmation that plutonium has been found outside the facility for the first time.
Even before these revelations Japanese authorities were urging residents living just outside the Fukushima no-go zone to leave. Thousands are now packing up and evacuating, fearing radiation in soil and the atmosphere could lead to health problems, especially in children.
One of the districts being evacuated is Iitate, less than 40 kilometres from the crippled plant.
North Asia Correspondent Mark Willacy filed this report for PM.
(High pitched beeping)
MARK WILLACY: It’s a piercing sound you can’t get out of your head, the constant clicking of a Geiger counter. Travelling into Fukushima, just a few dozen kilometres from the crippled nuclear plant, these radiation readers are an essential device.
And it’s clear, looking at the readings in the Iitate district, that it’s time for people to go.
(A cow mooing)
For cattle and crop farmer Takeshi Yamada it means moving his family out of the home they’ve lived in all their lives. It also means selling off his pampered Wagyu cattle.
(Takeshi Yamada speaking)
“At first my anger was boiling, but now it’s passed its peak,” he tells me. “But I still feel very confused because our home wasn’t destroyed by the earthquake or the tsunami. Instead we have to move because of radiation,” the farmer says.
But some here are ignoring the government’s plea to evacuate voluntarily.
Yoshitada Yamada runs a small semi-conductor business which supplies some of Japan’s biggest car and electronics firms. And while half of his employees have packed up and left Iitate, others are hanging in there.
(Yoshitada Yamada speaking)
“Although this area was designated an evacuation zone, my workers wanted to continue to work here,” he tells me. “So we use a Geiger counter to check radiation levels twice a day,” he says.
Yoshitada Yamada is among several hundred Iitate residents out of a total population of 6,000 who are refusing to budge. Those who are leaving go not knowing when they’ll be allowed back.
Until this nuclear disaster, Fukushima was celebrated for its farm products. Now, like Chernobyl, it will be associated with radioactive contamination.
(Takeshi Yamada speaking)
“Yes I worry about that,” says farmer Takeshi Yamada. “Unfortunately it’s not just rumour but fact because readings show a high level of radioactivity in vegetables from here. I don’t think we’ll be able to grow anything from here for at least 10 years,” he says.
For the people of Fukushima, leaving is hard enough; not knowing when they’ll be able to return is even more painful.
This is Mark Willacy in Fukushima for PM.
3 Comments on "Evacuation zone, permanent, expanded as radiation expands"
Bloomer on Fri, 10th Jun 2011 6:12 am
I can’t imagine not being able to grow vegetables in my yard for fear of radiation poisoning. What I find sad about this incident is that no lessons will be learned here in North America. As anytime someone speaks out against nuclear energy, they are branded as a eco-terrorist or liberal and ridiculed by the media.
I am not advocating the complete shutdown of nuclear energy. But I do feel we need to do some unbiased auditing and take steps to ensure that nuclear energy is as safe as it can be. The problem is can we do this in a climate of deregulation and cowboy economics?
Derek on Fri, 10th Jun 2011 7:27 am
This is the cold hard reality of nuclear energy:
Until this nuclear disaster, Fukushima was celebrated for its farm products. Now, like Chernobyl, it will be associated with radioactive contamination.
Nuclear energy and life is not compatible. I personally want every reactor on earth shutdown, dismantled and vaulted. All waste vaulted, all DU everything vaulted, all nuclear weapons destroyed and vaulted. TPTB love nuclear reactors-they turn useless vast mineral deposits into a ton of money and a ton of energy to run their economies. And they just DO NOT GIVE A SHIT if EARTH is contaminated with radiological waste for the next couple billion years. My parents are enjoying their bomb testing cancers now, im going to love my nuclear bomb testing, nuclear reactor waste leakage,and nuclear reactor meltdown cancer when Im 50. Great way to die! Ill put a bullet in my head before fukushima takes me.
If shutting down every reactor would also shut down my way of life then so be it. Contaminating the genome of humanity till the end of the universe is not worth sitting on my computer enjoying the air conditioner. Fossil fuels are a whole other sad story but nuclear energy should only be for mankind’s greatest feats of engineering, like a massive starship that actually needs a reactor, not keeping my computer and internet on.
RICHARD RALPH ROEHL on Fri, 10th Jun 2011 9:51 am
Fukushima is an extinction level event; only a $ociopath or a fool in extreme denial would disagree with this sobering assessment. We think that most of Japan, certainly all of northern Japan, will have to be abandoned… eventually. And it will remain uninhabitable for at least the next 10,000 Earth years.
Nuclear plutonium fission is not like nuclear fusion. It is a manmade process… an invention. It is the fruit of pure insanity. Actually… nuclear power is more than insane. It is EVIL! It is evil that even Satan would not do.