Fukushima Meltdown 4 Years Later
From Fairewinds Energy Education
Excerpt:
Four years have passed since the tragic triple meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plants, and the hits keep on coming as massive amounts of radioactively contaminated water continue to flow into the Pacific Ocean and no solution exists for safely containing the ongoing accumulation of radioactive debris contaminating the prefecture. Created in two parts, Fairewinds Energy Education presents you with a 5-minute retrospective followed by a 25-minute in-depth reflection on the Fukushima Meltdown 4 Years Later. (Click on the link below)
Fairewinds Energy Education Board Member Chiho Kaneko and Arnie Gundersen discuss Chiho”™s recent visit to her homeland of Japan. Born and raised in the neighboring prefecture of Iwate, she traveled to the evacuated and decimated area near the plant and met with displaced victims of this nuclear travesty.
As she shares heartbreaking stories, Chiho describes her trip through the ruins of the Fukushima Prefecture. She observed rusting vehicles flipped over on the side of the road, destroyed homes waiting to be cared for amidst a string of empty towns marked by devastation from the 2011 tsunami and resulting nuclear power catastrophe. Despite Prime Minister Abe”™s assurances to the contrary, everything remains too contaminated by radiation for residents to return home. Warning signs along the radiation contaminated roadways instruct drivers not to leave their vehicles, not to roll down any windows, and not expose themselves to the outside air.
Attempts to clean up the once fertile farmland surrounding the destroyed Fukushima Daiichi nuclear site are seen along road after road in huge trash bag bundles stacked like fortresses. These bundles contain the radioactive top layer of soil, branches, bushes, and other land debris slowly being cleared in a futile effort to decontaminate the soil and possibly make the prefecture habitable again. More than 70,000 of these debris-laden sites are spread throughout the Fukushima Prefecture with no permanent method for disposal of this waste that is temporarily stuffed into deteriorating trash bags littering the once fertile and pristine countryside.
The catastrophic nuclear meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi decimated communities and dislocated an entire population from their homes and families. It exposed innocent people to extreme doses of toxic radiation that cause cancer and carry a death sentence, and it forcibly removed those people from the mountains, ocean, rivers, forests, and land that they loved. “No disaster like this should ever be allowed to happen,”ťa victim told Chiho. “But, as long as nuclear power plants are allowed to operate, we cannot guarantee that a disaster like this will never happen. You cannot guarantee.”ť
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