Initial fears over the three reactor meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant were intense. I still remember the explosions in March of 2011 and how foreboding they were; then, six months later, most of our anxiety was forgotten as we headed over to Zuccotti Park and into the jubilation and the euphoria of the Occupation. The world largely forgot about Fukushima by year’s end, swept up in uprisings around the globe. But for those in Japan, there was no uprising, and things went from bad to much worse.
In that insane act of near genocide, municipal governments had incinerated radioactive disaster debris all over Japan. Today, radiation well beyond safe limits contaminates much of the country, its air, agriculture, and seas. Citizens everywhere test their food and environs with Geiger counters. The results: 43% of children in Fukushima City have thyroid abnormalities, up from 1% before the disaster. People in many parts of Japan are getting sick, most notably the young, with symptoms of radiation poisoning including heart attack, eye disease, diabetes, nosebleed, nausea, skin disease, diarrhea, and pain. The reactors are beyond anyone’s control, emitting over 10,000,000 becquerels per hour of cesium, among many other radio-isotopes, and the molten cores are burrowing down into the earth. The Pacific Ocean is being continuously contaminated with radiation from the reactors, which is slowly spreading around the planet.
Continue reading at Awakening from the Dream: The Real Facts on Fukushima
