[ART] What's Next Fukushima

Some nice looking art made by paintedtrains displaying tsunamis and the most recent nuclear disasters with the words "What's Next?".

Art by paintedtrains - For more go to Instagram @paintedtrains

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☢ [PHOTOS] After Chernobyl Rural Life Vanished ☢

30 years after the Chernobyl disaster it's shadow still lies heavy over Belarus. No other country was hit so hard. 70 percent of the radioactive fallout landed there, and one in five residents suddenly found themselves on poisoned land. Entire villages were buried in the ground to prevent people from returning. The disaster destroyed an entire rural culture.

Chernobyl Radiation Warning Sign - Photo by Beatrice Lundborg

Text and Photo by Anna-Lena Laurén and Beatrice Lundborg

The following text originally written by Journalist Anna-Lena Laurén have been translated from Swedish to English.

It is important to look for the apple trees. Where there's apple trees, there have once been a home.

Buried under the soil, overgrown with hazel bushes and newly planted pines.

The only thing that stands upright in this former village is a silver statue of a Soviet soldier, he stands at attention at the entrance as a kind of absurd symbol of a past buried under last year's dry leaves and pine plantations.

Chernobyl Apple Trees - Photo by Beatrice Lundborg

Sometimes you find small hills in the countryside. There lies the demolished remains of a house. Or "chutar", as they say in these parts - a Belarus peasant cottage with spacious porch, worn stairs and ornate window frames.

I try to imagine how it once was out here. The cottages, barns, sheds. The sandy village road, which continues to the cemetery a short distance away. The graves are still there and every year villagers from Starinka gather there in early May to celebrate radunitsa, the Orthodox Church holiday when honoring their dead by eating and drinking on the grave yard. Sometimes even dance and sing to. Fistfights also occur. This is a region where the relationship with the ancestors and family's land is concrete and tangible, the ground and the trees are considered to be inspired, to leave them is like leaving a man. Not to speak of burying them.

"I'll tell you how our grandmother said goodbye to our house. She bowed to the barn. She went around and bowed to every apple tree. And when we left our home our grandfather took off his hat."
From: "Pray for Chernobyl" By Svetlana Aleksijevitj

In hundreds of Belarusian villages the farming community survived and remained well into the 1980s, despite the forced collectivization. Many had never left their home and among the elderly, it was still not unusual to not be able to read and write. April 26, 1986 catapulted this archaic society into the atomic age when the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded two hundred kilometers to the south.

The wind was blowing to the north and 70 per cent of the radioactive fallout ended up in Belarus, a country with more than ten million inhabitants. Over two million people were exposed to radioactive fallout, over twenty percent of the country's territory were soiled. There was no other country than Belarus that was proportionally hit so hard by the Chernobyl disaster.

In the buried village of Starenka where we now are the measuring instruments, known as a dosimeters, are showing that the dose is 3.2 microsieverts per hour. As a comparison, the Japanese authorities after the Fukushima accident evacuated residents from areas with a radiation higher than 3.8 microsieverts per hour. In Sweden it is considered 0.1 to 0.3 microsieverts per hour to be normal background radiation. In Belarus levels seen at 0.2-0.4 are now normal, according to our local guide.

Starenka located in the so-called "zone", 600-kilometer-wide area affected by radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl disaster. Here on the Belarusian side, where most of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is located a total of 70 villages have been buried.

The area is in turn subdivided into several zones. On the map it looks like a patchwork quilt. In the deep red zone, nothing appear at all, the radiation level is too high. In the red zone the levels are so high that no one is recommended stay there, but many have returned. In a third zone, the authorities have declared safe even when the radioactivity is elevated. The authorities say they monitor the situation. The fourth zone is located at the tip and have slightly elevated radioactivity.

South Belarus Towns Deserted - Photo by Beatrice Lundborg

"During the war, every fourth Belarusian died, today every fifth now live on contaminated land."
From: "Pray for Chernobyl" By Svetlana Aleksijevitj

Shortly after the disaster, thousands of evacuated people chose to move back to the zone. They simply could not stand to not live in their own homes and villages. One of those who from the beginning refused to move is 63-year-old Nina Perevalova that we found in the abandoned village of Dubna. Like many other older people who have chosen to stay in the empty villages, she believes that the evacuation was unnecessary.

Nina Perevalova - Photo by Beatrice Lundborg

Everyone that left these parts have died. They were promised compensation and went away. They saw it as an opportunity to make money. But they were not happy in their new home and now most of them are dead. We who stayed are still alive on the other hand.

Nina Perevalova goes back and forth between the cabin and the hen house, cattle shed and pigsty. She's practically wearing galoshes, woolen sweater and a green jacket. Red plaid skirt, purple scarf on the head. Actually, she has no time to talk to us, she has chores to attend to and sticks hear head into the cabin and commands her husband to come outside.

Nina Perevalova Photo by Beatrice Lundborg

Kolja! Come out, we've got guests!

Mykola Nikitenko, 58, an unemployed tractor driver. Sometimes he works as a day laborer on construction sites, otherwise he lives off the garden, his pets and his wife's pension. He does not regret the decision to stay, even though they have been left alone in the village.

Here lived some fifty families before the disaster. We had a private shop and nearby there was a collective farm where a large part of the inhabitants worked. Over there was a road... and that's where one of his neighbors had his garden, Nikitenko said, pointing to an overgrown field.

Mykola Nikitenko - Photo by Beatrice Lundborg

Of fifty households there remains only three. Four, five buildings remain, the rest ageing slowly but surely. Houses leaning and gray are the remains on both sides of the village road, they resemble old people who rely on a cane. The logs are gray with age, many houses have no roofs. Others have already fallen over and lies helpless on the ground, eventually becoming the piles of boards where people provide themselves with firewood.

The remaining houses have tin roofs that often goes almost to the ground. They look ancient, part of the landscape, brown and gray with beautiful, ornate window frames painted in bright green or sky blue. Nina Perevalovas and Mykola Nikitenkos house is simple, run-down and poor but impeccably well maintained - from the house to the roost to the pigsty and the sheep house is neat and tidy, everything has its place.

Birdsong sounds everywhere and hazel thicket have small green leaves. Up in a telephone pole there are birds. It is now spring, intense spring. Around one of the fallen houses small white and gray kids are leaping up and down of what is left of the timber wall. Nina Perevalova speak with them. She talks constantly with all their animals and calling them by name - pig named Vaska, the fearless gray hen Sivka and favorite price Gorka.

Fallen Houses - Photo by Beatrice Lundborg

This is my baby. Gorka, my little man .... Gorka my golden boy, says Nina Perevalova and scratches a kid area behind the ear.

Then she looks up.
 
I drink goat milk, gathering berries and mushrooms in the forest, growing in the kitchen garden. We have pigs and chickens. We are doing well. Only sore legs. Maybe it has to do with Chernobyl, what do I know? Everything was better and everyone was happier when we did not know anything about this radiation!

She invites us in the hall and pours fresh goat milk in a tin mug. I drink a sip, it tastes good. Then I set the cup back on the table. Our instruments have shown the normal radiation levels in this village, but I can not bring myself to drink up. After reading about how tired these villagers are and other precautions I feel ashamed before Nina Perevalova, but she says nothing. By all accounts, she is accustomed.

When they last came here and measured how much radiation we have in the body, I had exceeded the norm. My husband had however completely normal levels. He drinks horilka (moonshine). It is said to be good against radiation.

Natalia Krivosjejeva - Photo by Beatrice Lundborg

"I want us to move. But my husband a lumberjack refuses."

A dozen kilometers further away is Sytjyn, another village which was evacuated after the disaster. A few years later, people began to move back and for two years life started to return and the village was rebuilt. But then it was emptied for the second time when unemployment drove people to move away. Today, all the houses are deserted - all but one with intense cobalt blue paint and a handrail made of birch trunks. It houses the unemployed postman Krivosjejeva Natalya, 40 years.

I was ten years old when they evacuated us to a neighboring village, Maksimovskij. But it never felt like home there. The worst thing was not even the horrible, crude damp apartments, but we were shunned by locals. They called us "Chernobyltsi" and felt that we were a health risk. They did not talk to us. We had a serious food shortage in Belarus and they were furious at having to share the bread shipments with newcomers. Their disdain I will never forget, says Natalia Krivosjejeva and wipes away a tear.

Eight years after the evacuation, she returned as a newlywed to Sytjyn. The only thing which by then remained of the family's house was a bare stone base.

- The house had been newly built, it was valuable and was simply stolen, dismantled piece by piece. We moved into the empty library instead and I got a job as a postman in the neighboring village. But now my employment have been revoked and we are the last family who still live in this village. It's very sad to be a young person that does not have someone to talk to! I want us to move. But my husband is a lumberjack and refuses, Natalia regrets.

Natalia Krivosjejeva - Photo by Beatrice Lundborg

She is angry with herself because she and her husband have been waiting too long with the decision to leave.

All the other returnees have left our village. There are no buses here anymore, the line has been completely unprofitable. We can not afford a car, we can not even afford to have a pig for it needs food! We have no electricity or water, I wash clothes by hand. Look at my hands! says Natalia Krivosjejeva and holds out her rough hands.

Natalia does not think very much about the radiation. She and her husband live of their garden and self-catering, like most others in the zone. According to the dosimeters the radiation is at a normal level next to the house, but if you drive a few kilometers away then the radiation is significantly higher. Also, if you live in an area that is permitted in the zone, then some contaminated areas can lie next to you because the zones merge into one another.

Dead towns - Photo by Beatrice Lundborg

"They told us that we could drink the milk of our cows and eat vegetables that we grew. We did this for three years. Then they announced suddenly that we could not eat or drink anything."

Some seventy kilometers further away is a small community with the optimistic name Majsk. The houses there do not resemble the old Belarusian peasant cottages. They are white, modern two-story-straight rows, surrounded by square, fence enclosed gardens. Majsk is one of the villages that was rebuilt on a so-called safe area, which residents themselves scoff at.

Look how it's burning over there on the other side of the field. That area is radioactive, there we can not go. But every spring and summer fires occurs and the radioactivity spread. We must not go into the woods and pick berries and mushrooms. Everything is dangerous. We are completely surrounded by radioactive areas, we are like on an island. What life is that? exclaimed Olga, a thirty year old art teacher who is about to rake the yard.

Her mother glares angrily at us.

We have received orders not to speak to journalists! We are just to keep our mouths shut. I worked at the collective farm in the four years after the disaster. I stood in the field and sowed and breathed in the dust, breathing in all that came out of the earth. Then it turned out that the area was one of the worst polluted by radiation and we moved here. Have we received any compensation? No. Because now we all live in a safe area!

She stops to rake and goes off furiously toward the potato patch behind the house.

All residents of Majsk originally came from a village named Tjudjany, an area the Soviet authorities first considered as safe. Therefore, the inhabitants were sent back home after the first evacuation, just four years later they were evacuated again to the newly built city Majsk - which turned out to be completely surrounded by radioactive soil.

They told us that we could drink the milk of our cows and eat vegetables that we grew. We did this for three years. But then they announced suddenly that we can't eat or drink anything. Clearly many are furious, but what good did it do? Now we live in an ill-chosen location, but what should we do? Where are we moving? Chernobyl has destroyed our lives, says Olga in the same tone as stated by many others I encounter.

People here often don't even regret it happened. They simply state it.

Olga say they have health problems, particularly pain in the joints. It's one symptom that is common among people who live in or near the radioactive zone.

But you can not prove that it has to do with Chernobyl. My children go to school here, they get iodine tablets, and free trips to a sanatorium twice a year. It's the only compensation we get to live next door to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, says Olga, who do not want to be photographed or say his real name.

On the other side of the field is a memorial with a small plaque:

"Here stood the village Tjudjany, with 137 families and 323 inhabitants. Buried in 1999. "

Pavel Moisejev - Photo by Beatrice Lundborg

Our institute has absolutely no interest in concealing the presence of cancer, the opposite. We need all the resources we can get.

Thyroid cancer has soared in Belarus since the Chernobyl disaster. According to Pavel Moisejev leading the State Institute for Cancer Control in Belarus, the figures are quite clear. In 1990, the number of thyroid cancer cases in Belarus was 1.2 per 100 000 inhabitants, in 2014 it was 18.3. It is mainly children who are affected - and especially girls.

Large amounts of radioactive iodine was released into the atmosphere after the disaster. It affects the thyroid. For some reason, girls and women are more susceptible to radioactive contamination. We have not found an explanation for this. Luckily thyroid cancer is usually curable if detected in time, says Pavel Moisejev.

He receives us at the State Belarusian Center for Cancer Research located in Lesnoj, a leafy suburb of Minsk. Here is the country's largest cancer hospital with 832 hospital beds, all of which are occupied when we visit the center. It is not only thyroid cancer that is increasing in Belarus - all forms of cancer has become more common. But according to Pavel Moisejev there is no scientific evidence of a Chernobyl connection, except in the specific case of thyroid cancer.

Moisejev is aware that many belarusians have stopped believing the authorities regarding Chernobyl. He raises his hands.

Guess if I constantly hear that ... I'm just saying what we on a scientific basis can establish! Our institute has absolutely no interest in concealing the presence of cancer, the opposite. We need all the resources we can get. Belarus is undergoing an economic crisis, but we have just built two new research centers and is building a new clinic. The construction will be completed, despite the fact that the state has much less money now. Today we have the resources in a completely different way than before. Our research is the best among all former Soviet countries.

While Moisejev notes that all diseases from Chernobyl's wake are still not known. As for metals like cesium and strontium with thirty years half life.

Radioactive iodine, cesium and strontium were released in large quantities. We do not yet know what consequences it can have - perhaps we'll know in 20, 30 or 50 years.

Only time will tell.

A person who has devoted his life to researching the consequences of the Chernobyl are Juryj Bandazjeŭski. He founded the country's first Chernobyl Institute in Gomel in 1989, one of the largest cities next to the so-called zone. Bandazeŭvski criticized the authorities for not taking the implications seriously and was jailed in 2001, accused of taking bribes from students. Amnesty International considered that the charges were fabricated and appointed Bandazjeŭski a prisoner of conscience.

Four years later he was released and Bandazjeŭski received temporary asylum in France. Today he is researching in Ukraine and I interview him on skype.

Since 2014, we examine children in two regions outside Kiev where there was radioactive fallout, Ivanovskij and Poleskij. Every year we have investigated 4000 children aged between 3 and 17 years. Their general health is poor, 80 percent have various types of heart problems. The mortality in both heart disease and cancer is very high in this area, especially among young working-age people, says Bandazjeŭvski.

He would not comment on the situation in Belarus, because he can no longer work there. What he does want to make clear is that the EU - which admittedly is funding his research - have not taken the consequences of the Chernobyl seriously. Ukraine does not have the resources to invest in research and Belarus is a dictatorship, critical researchers run into major problems.

Research funding should be earmarked for each region and are not be given as lump sums to various authorities. Actually, there should in general not live any children in these areas. We can only imagine the long term effects on their health, and we need much more research. This requires, in turn, more resources to investigate each child individually and accurately determine which factors are interrelated, says Juryj Bandazjeŭski.

Accurate knowledge of how things fit together is something that Chernobyl disaster victims have pondered much over the past thirty years. At first they believed the authorities - which then turned out to lie systematically. Then they started to draw their own conclusions, which in turn led to hysterical rumors.

Today many victims fell a strong sense of still being deceived. They still do not know exactly how polluted the land is, or how sick they are. One only guess and wonder.

Mykola Rasiuk and wife Valentina - Photo by Beatrice Lundborg

Mykola Rasiuk was thirty years old when he drove along the road that is still called "Road of Death" - the road that led out from Pripyat, a model Soviet town next to Chernobyl in the current Ukraine. He drove past the nuclear power plant that was in flames. Above it hovered raspberry-colored clouds. People opened the windows, watched and admired.


When we arrived at the ferry a lot of fish had lost their ability to swim and floated up on the beach. People were fishing with their bare hands... no one understood how dangerous it was. We drove on to dacha and suddenly I was hit by a terrible headache. I stepped out of the car and vomited, and when we arrived, I drank a liter of vodka. Since then I have been living. But many of my friends and relatives are sick or dead, says Mykola Rasiuk.

His wife Valentina Rasiuk worked in a factory that made radios in Pripyat, Mykola worked as an electrician. Pripyat was founded next to the brand new Chernobyl nuclear power plant. It had been built in 1977 and was considered to be the safest in the world. When the accident occurred, very few understood that the whole area had become dangerous to live in.

I was worried for my relatives and friends who worked at the nuclear plant, that they had been injured during the accident. Not for one second I thought of the radiation. It was only when we came to the relatives of Kiev we understood what it was about. They said we would take iodine - something that we had not even heard of. The authorities did not even tell us that the children should not play outside! said Valentina Rasiuk.

Mykola Rasiuk - Photo by Beatrice Lundborg

From Ukraine the Rasiku family decided to move back to their home country Belarus.

When we got to Mogiljev people said to us that we had five years to live. How would you take it? I thought mostly about the children, I wished that the kids could grow up and become adults, says Valentina Rasiuk.

The children survived. By now the couple have lived in Mogiljev for over twenty years. Both their parents were however left in the so-called zone and died early.

Each anniversary of Chernobyl the city authorities make a speech. It's always about the same thing - the heroes who saved us from danger. Never about how many people got sick and died or had their lives ruined. I have requested the floor several times, I have tried to share Svetlana Aleksijevitjs "Prayer for Chernobyl" - but they throw me out by force and now they won't even let me in at the memorial, said Mykola Rasiuk.

The State Institute for Cancer Research in Minsk says that it is not possible to establish any link between the Chernobyl disaster and any other cancer than thyroid cancer. Rasiuk just scoff when I say it.

We who have our roots in the zone have our own statistics. Every spring we go back to our home village to honor our dead on radunitsa. We meet, eat, drink and remember. We count how many are there and how many people have died. We look for ourselves what's really is going on.

Before the interview ends Rasiku pours Belarus balm, traditional herb liqueur in small crystal glasses. He raises his glass.

Cheers we are alive anyway.

Photo by Beatrice Lundborg

Chernobyl radiation map 1996

Please note that the towns named in this story can no longer be found on google maps due to the areas being too radioactive for humans.

CIA Briefing for Reagan on the Chernobyl Disaster

This is supposedly a declassified CIA video briefing made for President Reagan on the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, dated late April or early May 1986.

Declassified CIA Historical Chernobyl Briefing

Somehow all this sounds strangely familiar, it's almost a mirror of a current ongoing disaster...

However the actual cause and events described in this briefing was far from the truth at the time to what was really going on at the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant.

The video was declassified and released 2 Nov 2011 at the "Ronald Reagan, Intelligence, and the End of the Cold War" symposium at the Reagan Presidential Library.


From symposium notes: "This was the first time the Agency used videos on a regular basis to deliver intelligence to the policymaker, and this collection marks the first substantial release of such material in one of the CIA's historical collections."

Youtube Link: CIA video briefing for Reagan: Chernobyl Disaster

☢ [Video] Fukushima Simplified ☢

Hello everyone,

This is a good hour and a half long youtube video called "Fukushima Simplified 2015" that is well worth the watch. 

From video at 4min picture showing cutaway of Fukushima reactor damages

Make sure to check out the Youtube channel for more Fukushima videos too.

FUKUSHIMA 2015

 

FUKUSHIMA SIMPLIFIED ((Warning: GRAPHIC)) 2015 HD

[Video] New Chernobyl Shelter Into Final Construction

It has now been 4 years since the Fukushima disaster and now finally after 29 years the biggest engineering project in history, is entering it's final construction phase. The giant steel arch of Ukraine have been built to seal off nuclear fuel buried inside reactor four which blew up in 1986. It has taken 29 years and 40 countries to acquire the money to make such a engineering project.

Big enough to house the Statue of Liberty

The huge steel arch will entomb Chernobyl's reactor four, and slash the risk of another radioactive disaster. Standing 360 feet (100 meters) tall, and 843 feet (260 meters) wide, the arch is held together by 680,000 bolts. Built by 500.000 workers the giant radioactive arch of Ukraine is big enough to house the Statue of Liberty.

The shelter, will house the nuclear reactor damaged in the 1986 disaster, and the old concrete structure built to cover it which is approaching the end of its life.

The safe confinement is expected to reduce radioactive emissions drastically.

But the 30-kilometre exclusion zone will remain contaminated.

“The area of exclusion zone will not be free of nuclear waste because there is the intention to have the nuclear waste storages in the exclusion zone, so there will be a permanent waste management operation,” said Vince Novak, Director of Nuclear Safety at the European Bank for Reconstruction & Development (EBRD).

Once ready, the shelter will be pushed onto rails to cover the reactor. It is hoped to become operational by the second half of 2017.

Experts say it will be another 300 years before it’s safe to live in the area.

“The ark is protecting the sarcophagus where there’s a lot of nuclear and toxic waste. It will be safe to live here after at least 10 radioactive half-lives have passed. An average radioactive half-life lasts 30 years,” said Volodymyr Verbytskyi, an engineer controlling the exclusion zone.

So the immediate area will remain a ghost town.

The cost of the shelter is 2.15 billion euros.

The EU, members of the G7, Russia, Switzerland and other countries are all donors with the EBRD contributing 675 million euros.

Watch the video

Euronews correspondent Sergio Cantone reports from Chernobyl:

“So the construction of the sheltering structure continues according to schedule. The biggest problem will come afterwards and it’s about removing all the radioactive elements in reactor number 4. At the moment a technical solution seems still to be a long way off.

So just like Fukushima there is no technical solution to the continuing contamination of the environment by "super safe" nuclear power.

Video of Melted Core at Fukushima Reactor 2 ☢

Fukushima Reactor 2 Melted Nuclear Core China Syndrome

This is a video showing the boiling / melting reactor core from Fukushima reactor 2. The corium is seen as a orange and sometimes light pink blob in the video taken.

I would like to thank FC in the chat for bringing this video to my attention and Nowi See on youtube who found it in the TEPCO archives and uploaded it to youtube.

Published on 27 Jan 2015 by Nowi See on youtube. You can also find the video in the TEPCO website archives if you like.

"This is the radioactive sludge and toxic water that they pretend they're doing something about. 40 minutes in underwater hell."

The Daiichi complex in Fukushima, Japan had a total of 1760 metric tons of fresh and spent nuclear fuel on site last year, according to a presentation by its owners, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco).

The most damaged Daiichi reactor, number 3, contained about 90 tons of fuel, and the storage pool above reactor 4, which the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC’s) Gregory Jaczko reported had lost its cooling water, contains 135 tons of spent fuel.

1. The amount of fuel lost in the core melt at Three Mile Island in 1979 was about 30 tons.
2. The Chernobyl reactors had about 180 tons when the accident occurred in 1986.

Going by the reported amount Fukushima has nearly 10 times more nuclear fuel than Chernobyl.

It also means that a single spent fuel pool at reactor 4 has 75% as much nuclear fuel as at all of Chernobyl.

But in reality it gets much worse than that..

Tepco very recently before the disaster transferred many more radioactive spent fuel rods into the storage pools. According to Associated Press, there was at the time of the earthquake and tsunami some 3,400 tons of fuel in seven spent fuel pools plus 877 tons of active fuel in the cores of the reactors.

This all totals up to 4,277 tons of nuclear fuel at Fukushima at the point of the disaster.

Which would mean that there was almost 24 times more nuclear fuel at Fukushima than Chernobyl at the time when it went full meltdown only hours after the earthquake struck the plant..

Fukushima 100.000 Times More Cesium-137 Than Chernobyl

Radioisotopes in the Pacific Ocean. What's There? How Much? How Long?

The release of radioisotopes from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear disaster in March 2011 amounts to the largest ever accidental release of radiation into the ocean. The explosions initially released radioisotopes in the form of iodine-131, cesium-134 and cesium-137 from the reactors. All of these Nobel isotopes cause health problems.

In the weeks after Fukushima nuclear disaster, Ken Buesseler a marine chemist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, organized an expedition with scientists from different fields and institutions to investigate radioisotopes from the damaged nuclear plant that ended up in the ocean and marine life. They used nets to sample organisms and instruments to collect more than 1,500 water samples in 30 locations off Japan. Water and biological samples were sent to 16 labs in seven countries to detect levels of a variety of radioisotopes. The concentrations measured in early April 2011 were all the more alarming.

In June 2011, Buesseler led a quickly organized expedition aboard the research vessel Ka' imikai-o-Kanaloa that took a comprehensive look at the fate of the Fukushima radiation both in the open ocean and in marine life. Beginning 600 kilometers offshore and coming within 30 kilometers of the crippled nuclear plant, the research team sailed a sawtooth pattern, gathering water samples from as deep as 1,000 meters, and collecting samples of phytoplankton, zooplankton, and small fish. They also released two dozen drifters to track currents. These instruments move with to ocean currents over months and report their positions via satellite. Like their Japanese colleagues, Buesseler's team measured elevated levels of both cesium-137 and the telltale cesium-134 in the water they collected.

Read about the whole expedition here [PDF Format]

 

Please also note that the report here have excluded 296.100 tons of radioactive reactor water that have leaked into the Pacific Ocean since this disaster began at the amount of 300-400 tons per day and which continue to leak to this very day.  

 

So 100.000 times more Cesium-137 reported is on the LOW SIDE.

Fukushima Released 100.000 Times more Cesium-137 Than Chernobyl or Nuclear Weapons Testing

The Ocean is Dead Because of Fukushima

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☢ [IMAGE] The Ocean Is Dead Because of Fukushima ☢

 

The Battle of Chernobyl - Best Doc On Chernobyl

With the Fukushima Disaster spiraling out of control, and with Tepco reporting they have spotted cracks in 8 places on the steel brace that holds a 120-meter vertical pipe standing between the number-1 and number-2 reactor. In an area that is contaminated with high levels of radiation measuring 10 sieverts per hour. TEPCO are now wondering how they would be able to send in workers without them dying on the spot.

Russian Bio-Robots Working in Extreme Radiation 1700 Rads - 17.000.000 Millisieverts/Hr

You might ask why don't the Japanese that are so good with Robots and electronics, just don't send in Robots to do the work instead of humans? Well like the Russians learned early on and also TEPCO. The radio controlled robots malfuntion because of extreme radiation. Extreme levels of radiation will interrupt electronics and microships from functioning properly.

That is why it is high time to revisit the Battle of Chernobyl documentary that video shows us how the Russian workers called Bio-Robots suited with 30 kg of lead clothing and plated vehicles dealt with the +10 Sieverts per hour radiation exposure on top of the Single Reactor in Chernobyl. 

All the lies that TEPCO have said these past years that everything is under control, there was no meltdowns, no contamination in the waters, Tokyo is safe and everything will be alright. Smile and radiation wont hurt you.. Everything and everyone is starting to look at them with disgust and screaming for their heads.

This documentary of the Chernobyl disaster is a MUST SEE! The Battle of Chernobyl is the best made movie so far. The Battle of Chernobyl contains rare original footage, pictures and good re-enactments. This along with interviews with political leaders, scientists, soldiers, journalist, photographer and several military personnel and real footage of the damaged nuclear reactor.

There are some very good comments made in this movie from the people involved. And this documentary is something you must watch to better understand the extent of the Fukushima disaster. The things the Russians did to prevent a second explosion is something many can't really grasp. The Battle of Chernobyl tells this story very well.

Movie Player

The Battle of Chernobyl tell us many important things about the situation at Fukushima Daiichi. We get to hear from a worker at reactor unit 4 about the beautiful colors going up into the night sky 1000 meters during the reactor explosion. The cover-up and Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev the former Soviet statesman. Also rare footage from the town Pripyat the day after where we get to see the flashes on the camera during filming caused by radiation.

Russian Bio-Robots working with 30 kg lead suits in 17.000.000 Millisieverts/Hr

We get to hear from the brave workers called Bio-Robots recieving 1700 rads or 17.000.000 Millisieverts/Hr radiation levels when working on top of the reactor. They could only work for 45 sec at time before the radiation would be to much. Working with 30kg makeshift lead suits. Some had nosebleeds coming down afterwards. They felt like they had been sucked dry by a vampire. When their eyes started to hurt and they started to taste a metallic taste of lead in their mouths they knew that they had reacherd their limit. But they did their job even picking up the 15.000.000 Millisieverts/Hr contaminated concrete blocks with their hands trowing it of the reactors roof. In the end they had reduced the radiation levels with some 30%. Got a $100 bonus and a certificate. The Bio-Robots can't work anymore because the high radiation levels they were exposed to. Many not even in their 50s now are unable to make a living because of this.

Russian Radio Controlled Robot malfuntioned because of extreme radiation

The Bio-Robots were used because the radio controlled equipment, looking like something you would send to the moon that should do the job malfunctioned because the extreme radiation affected the electronics. Before this six hundred (600) helicopter pilots were employed to drop lead over the open reactor to help cool it down and put out the fire. All the pilots were exposed to lethal doses of radiation, and “all” six hundred pilots died.  

Not only did the pilots die, but as the lead vaporized with the heat, many people, including children in the city, inhaled high doses of lead. Since there was concern that the meltdown would contaminate the water table below, 2,500 miners were dispatched to manually dig below the plant to make way to encase the reactor core.  Half of those miners died, and many others became very ill with radiation sickness.

The work done and the cost of 18 Billion Dollars in todays money was important not only to limit the radioactive material from spreading around the world but also to prevent a second nuclear explosion. An explosion with the potential of rendering all of Europe uninhabitable. Some would say that the lead dropped in the reactor to try and cool it down were the wrong thing to do. But with the severity of the disaster it was the only right thing to do.

In all, it was said that 500,000 people (other accounts claim 600,000 people) were dispatched to the Chernobyl plant to contain the reactor, half of whom have died since then as a result of radiation exposure and today about 200,000 are on permanent disability due to sicknesses from their radiation exposure.

Again this is a must watch for anyone. Really well done documentary about the Chernobyl disaster. And I really hope you take what is said to heart. And look at what the Russians did in 1986.




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Another MUST SEE documentary about the Fukushima disaster is this NHK Special.

☢ Best Radioactive Fallout Contamination Map NHK TV Special Fukushima Disaster Documentary ☢

What exactly was the extent of contamination caused by radiation from the Fukushima nuclear accident?

What is happening in the contaminated areas? This is a record of a two month survey conducted by scientists working close together.

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MP3 Fukushima Yoichi Shimatsu and Jeff Rense 8-12-13

Yoichi Shimatsu interview on The Jeff Rense Radio Show

▶ Download MP3 
(Clicking download again in the new window to start)
☢ MP3 Yoichi Shimatsu and Jeff Rense 12 Aug 2013 ☢

"Fukushima could trigger a massive hydrogen explosion deep underground triggering volcanos worldwide"

▶ Listen to a short extract 4min MP3 of the above file

Shimatsu concluded, “That’s what we are facing folks. I don’t know what to say, you know? We’re facing the total END OF IT.”

Ecumenical Buddhist Prophecy Fulfilled?

Citing his own work and saying that the Mahayan Buddhists, an ecumenical Japanese form of Buddhism, have an eerily similar end-of-the-world prophecy that mirrors the very apocalyptic scenario echoed by Shimatsu, he added, “The earth will end at a time of ultimate corruption of man, when the earth is covered by molten iron, molten metal. So, this is strange that there is an actual possibility of an ancient prophecy being fulfilled. The end of the world could actually be fulfilled.

That is very deeply disturbing theological and philosophical perspective. This might be a self-fulfilling prophecy by ‘these mad men’ in the nuclear establishment.”
Prophecy Fulfilled!

Earlier Related MP3s with Yoichi Shimatsu [2011-2012]
☢ One year after Fukushima – 2012 Audio Collection Feb-March 11 Updates ☢
☢ MP3 - Fukushima Update - Yoichi Shimatsu and Jeff Rense 26 Dec 11 ☢
☢ MP3 Fukushima Deteriorating with Jeff Rense and Yoichi Shimatsu 12 Dec 2011 ☢
☢ MP3 Fukushima Report with Jeff Rense and Yoichi Shimatsu 28 Nov 2011 ☢
☢ MP3 Fukushima Report with Jeff Rense and Yoichi Shimatsu 14 Nov 2011 ☢
☢ MP3 Radiation Update with Jeff Rense and Michael Collins 7 Nov 2011 ☢
☢ MP3 Fukushima Report with Jeff Rense and Yoichi Shimatsu 7 Nov 2011 ☢
☢ MP3 Fukushima Report with Jeff Rense and Yoichi Shimatsu 10 Oct 2011 ☢
☢ MP3 Fukushima and Secret Japan Nukes Program - Loss of Ozone Jeff Rense and Yoichi Shimatsu 3 Oct 2011 ☢
☢ MP3 Fukushima Report with Jeff Rense and Yoichi Shimatsu 26 Sep 2011 ☢
☢ Fukushima Report 12 Sep 2011 ☢ 
☢ Inside Info Fukushima Disaster Aug 29 and Sep 05 2011 ☢

Fukushima Continues to Boil Over - Livecam

Well this have been going on now for a while, I'm sure if you have been following the livecam you have seen from time to time the "fog" that sometimes makes a complete blackout of the picture. Well actually it has not been this bad in a long time, so I thought I would take a picture of the reactor units when I saw it happening. Time here is 1:50 JPT - Todays Date 2013-7-29.

You usually see some buildings or can make out the reactors and cranes when there is heavy fog, but this time they are all engulfed in this steam of fog whatever you want to call it.

The crisis that radioactive water is leaking into the groundwater is not anything new. But the amount of contamination is hard to comprehend.

"Asahi Shimbun: A liter of the water was also found to contain 750 million becquerels of radioactive substances that emit beta rays, such as Strontium."
"EXSKF: 5,000 cubic meters, or 5,000 tonnes of this water is in the trench.
Note: 5,000 cubic meters of water is equal to 5 million liters. 
One liter was found to contain 2.35 Billion Becquerels of Cesium. 
If this concentration is consistent, the total amount would be nearly 12 Quadrillion Becquerels of cesium in this one trench."

Now when we have heavily contaminated groundwater there is for a certain fact the reactor core is exposed to this water.  And considering the amount of contamination found in the water there is a high probability that the reactor core or should we say molten reactor corium is the cause for the steam seen here.

Fukushima China Syndrome Reactor Melted Through

There have been a lot of talks these last days about Fukushima and the fact that TEPCO have made analysis of the reactor units confirming that the Nuclear Fuel have melted the pressure vessel and eroding it's way down into the earth. They can't seem to find the Corium (melted nuclear fuel) because they can't get near the reactors because of the radiation.

Experts have also come out to say that the Fukushima Disaster is the worst Nuclear Disaster in the worlds history and that there was an Nuclear Explosion when Reactor Unit 3 went boom. This is because if it would have been an Hydrogen explosion that happened, then there would not have been the black smoke and mushroom cloud seen on video afterwards. I have done some hydrogen explosions in the kitchen and I can tell you they are loud and hurt your ears, but I never encountered black smoke. I'm not joking, however if for some reason there was some evaporation of concrete or other flammable materials along with the explosion I could understand that there would be some smoke.

I remember how much crap was said early on from idiots here and on other sites. Media downplaying the Disaster (well still is actually) and Japanese Government coming out with all sorts of crap. Highly respected medical doctors assuring people that if they smile radiation wont hurt them and go ahead and eat the contaminated food, visit Japan.. If not you are not supporting us. Bla bla.. Everything is under control, nothing to see here, move along.. And most people fell for it, again like they do, walking into a trap, believing everything they hear.

I do see a change though, the "internet experts" are not getting much headway in their attempts to downplay this anymore because they have been proven wrong so many times already. Now they are pretty much laughed at and put to the wall when they come online. And I would like to put a shout out to all my buddies that stood their ground and still do in these "battles". We actually saved lifes, we made people move away from affected areas, gave our oppinions and prevented people from moving to Japan. And much more!! So keep going!! If you that are reading this remember even doing something simple as posting a link, then my hats off to you. It counts and it still does.

Anyhow I would need to summarize the past days, but due to some blogger problems I have not had the time to do regular updates and stay updated with the news these last days for that matter. So I give you Arnie Gundersen. Arnie talks this time about the probable China Syndrome that is going on at Fukushima Daiichi and how it would happen, even giving us a clip from the 1976 blockbuster movie The China Syndrome.

Here is the video and below I have the transcribed text if you want to read what's said.
And this is the link to the Fairewinds website where Arnie gives us regular updates of the Fukushima Disaster situation: https://fairewinds.com/content/fukushima-could-it-have-china-syndrome

Fukushima - Could it Have a China Syndrome? from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.

Arnie Gundersen: Hi, I'm Arnie Gundersen from Fairewinds.

Last week, Tokyo Electric announced that the core inside the nuclear reactor had definitely melted through and had also melted partly through the containment at Fukushima. I wanted to talk about that today because I think that there have been a lot of exaggerations and misunderstandings on the internet about what is actually going on.
So the question I would like to talk about today is, can Fukushima become what is called The China Syndrome? And what exactly does The China Syndrome really mean?

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(Clip of The China Syndrome begins)

(male actor #1) "I don't know. They might have come close to exposing the core.
(male actor #2) "If that is true, then we came very close to The China Syndrome."
(Jane Fonda's Character) "The what?"
(male actor #2) "If the core is exposed, for whatever reason, the fuel heats beyond core heat tolerance in a matter of minutes. Nothing can stop it and it melts right down through the bottom of the plant, theoretically to China. But of course, as soon as it hits ground water, it blasts into the atmosphere and sends out clouds of radioactivity. The number of people killed would depend on which way the wind is blowing, render an area the size of Pennsylvania permanently uninhabitable, not to mention the cancer that would show up later."

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Arnie Gundersen: The term is really old; it dates back at least until the 60's. And what it means is that the nuclear core melts, and of course it is an American term, so it melted from America toward China through the center of the earth. That is what the term means. It is an over-exaggeration to begin with, but it does mean that the nuclear core leaves the nuclear reactor, leaves the containment, and gets into the earth. That is what a China Syndrome really means. Now I will be using some rather crude demonstration items today. I realize a lot of engineers watch this and just bear with me here. I think these are analogies and they are always a little risky, but I do think they explain what is happening inside Fukushima.

The first phase of the accident was when the nuclear reactor core lost it's cooling. Now you will remember uranium atoms split; 95% of the power comes from uranium atoms splitting. But these pieces that are left over are called fission products, and they retain a lot of heat. When you shut a nuclear reactor down, a process that takes about 2 seconds, 95% of the heat stops immediately, but 5% of the heat cannot be stopped. That, as long as there is extra water flowing, is all you need to keep a nuclear reactor cool. You remember back in April, I did a video where I talked about a nuclear reactor fuel pellet. It was about as big as my pinkie, and the fuel rod is about the diameter of my pinkie, but 12 feet long. In a lot of ways, it is like spaghetti. It is just as flexible as spaghetti, but of course it is 12 feet long. And there are thousands of these nuclear fuel rods inside a nuclear reactor. A nuclear reactor is not anything but a glorified pressure cooker. A pressure cooker cooks at 15 pounds. A nuclear reactor cooks at 1,000 pounds. But essentially they are the same thing: they are designed to hold really hot water and not to leak.

Well, the nuclear fuel is placed into the nuclear reactor, and as long as the water is in there, everything is fine. But like when you overcook spaghetti, what happens? It can form a blob on the bottom of your pressure cooker. That is what happened at Fukushima. The decay products created enough heat to boil off all the water, the nuclear fuel collapsed, the pasta broke, and is now a blob at the bottom of the nuclear reactor. That happened in about 6-8 hours on Fukushima I and perhaps as long as 10 hours on Fukushima II & III.

So the first phase of this accident is called a meltdown. That is when the pasta collapses and lays in the bottom of the pressure cooker. That is when the nuclear fuel melts and lays in the bottom of the nuclear reactor. Phase one is a meltdown.

The second step in the process is something called a melt-through. Now we are at a point where we have got a blob of nuclear fuel at the bottom of the nuclear reactor vessel. TEPCO is saying that the nuclear reactor vessel is about 8 inches thick, about 30 centimeters thick, and that is enough to hold the nuclear fuel for quite a long time. I do not think that part of TEPCO's analysis is right. I have talked about it before, but on a boiling water reactor, there are over 60 holes in the bottom of the reactor for the control rods to go in and out. And the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has already identified that it is likely that the nuclear fuel did not have to melt through the 8 inches of steel, but instead could do an end run around that and shoot out holes at the bottom of the reactor.

So almost like soft ice cream falling out of a dispenser, it is like hot nuclear fuel pouring out of these holes on the bottom of the reactor. That phase is called a melt-through. Probably within a day of the beginning of the Fukushima accident, we were in the phase where nuclear fuel was melting through the nuclear pressure vessel.

Now remember the nuclear reaction has stopped. None of this is heat from the chain reaction and all of it is coming from the nuclear daughter products. After about a day, instead of about 5% of the heat coming from the nuclear daughter products, we are down to less than 1% of the nuclear heat. So now we have got a blob that has left the pressure cooker, and is now lying flat on the floor underneath the nuclear reactor.

There are some assumptions here. If there were a crater on the bottom of the nuclear reactor, the blob would have fallen into that crater and the heat would have been concentrated. That would have allowed this nuclear blob to work it's way down into the nuclear containment faster. And again, that is an assumption. No one really knows what is really going on underneath that nuclear reactor. No one can get within 100 feet of the bottom of that nuclear reactor. And it will be 20 or 30 years before we really find out what that area looks like. But the assumption is that the nuclear fuel lying on the floor, has begun to eat away at the containment. So phase 2 is when it ate through the containment.

Phase 3 is the beginning of what would ultimately become a China Syndrome. At the bottom of the nuclear containment is about 3 feet of concrete and about 2 inches of steel. We are quite certain that the nuclear fuel has left the reactor and is lying on the bottom of the containment. The question is how deep into the concrete it has worked it's way and has it broken through the steel? I do not think it has broken through the steel and I think it is perhaps as much as a foot or two into the 3 feet of concrete. But that does not make a China Syndrome. The reason it is not working it's way down any further, is because the radioactive daughter products are no longer generating anywhere near as much heat as they did on the very first day of the accident. In fact, they are probably generating less than a million watts of power right now. Now that is a lot of heat: a million watts is ten thousand 100 watt light bulbs and you can imagine that that would generate a lot of heat. But compared to what was available on the first day, and the second day, and first week, the amount of decay heat is very small.

In addition, right above all this nuclear melted fuel, is an awful lot of water. The water is at less than 100 degrees Centigrade. It is not boiling. And what that means is that there is an enormous ability for that water to suck the heat out of the nuclear core as it lies on the bottom of the containment. I do not believe that the nuclear core can melt down through the containment and into the water table. There have been all sorts of postulations about violent explosions from this. And again, I do not think that can happen because the amount of heat available (now we are almost 9 months after the accident) is not great enough to create what is called a steam explosion.

So the good news is I do not think a China Syndrome can happen. I do not think this core can keep melting into the bottom of the earth. And I do not think there will be a steam explosion either. That is the good news.

Here is the bad news. That nuclear core is in direct contact with tons of water. And that containment, while not leaking down, is leaking out the sides. That contaminated water is going into every other building on site. And there is literally thousands and thousands of tons of water in other buildings. That water contains radioactive cesium, radioactive strontium, and it also contains nuclear fuel. There will be uranium in that water and plutonium in that water as well. We know for sure that that water is leaking into the ground water and into the Pacific Ocean. So while it is important to know that we are not going to release the nuclear core directly into the center of the earth, the problem is not over. And as a matter of fact, the problem will last for tens, perhaps even as long as 30 years because this contaminated water is in the basements of all the buildings on site. And not only does it contain cesium (that hangs around for 300 years), strontium (hangs around for 300 years), but it also contains plutonium and uranium and they have half lives of tens of thousands of years.

So the problem is, what do we do with all that water that is contaminated? It is already leaking into the groundwater. It is already leaking into the ocean. TEPCO is frantically catching it and putting it into tanks. But just today, TEPCO announced that they are running out of tank space on site, and eventually they are going to have to release those tanks into the Pacific Ocean. Now they will try to clean up some of the isotopes like cesium. But they have been unable to capture all the strontium. Strontium is a bone seeker that causes leukemia.

So we are not out of the woods. We are far from out of the woods. It will be 30 years before we capture all that nuclear fuel that is underneath that reactor vessel. And until then, it will be surrounded with water that is leaking into the groundwater.

I will keep you informed as situation develops.
Thank you.