Nuking their own via Beyond Nuclear International

Posted on 2022/04/04 by nfield

Russian soldiers may be suffering radiation sickness from “Red Forest” exposure

By Julia Conley, Commons Dreams

Editor’s note: There are also wildfires raging in the area that Ukrainian authorities said could not be put out due to the Russian takeover, preventing Ukrainian firefighting teams from doing their work. Wildfires can also dramatically raise radiation levels and redistribute radioactivity. The Russian exodus may also have been connected to this, but getting hard and reliable information out of occupied Ukraine remains challenging. Some news outlets, sourcing Energoatom, are reporting that one Russian soldier may have already died due to his exposure to radiation, after camping in the Red Forest. “Seven busloads of Russian soldiers believed to be suffering from the effects of radiation poisoning later arrived at the Belarusian Radiation Medicine Centre in Gomel, according to the Ukrainian news agency UNIAN,” writes the Daily Express.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said Thursday that Russian forces have almost entirely left the site of the former Chernobyl nuclear power plant in northern Ukraine, where officials said they were exposed to “significant doses” of radiation since taking over the site in late February.

The BBC reported that some soldiers are being treated in Belarus for radiation sickness, which can cause a range of symptoms depending on the level of exposure including nausea, vomiting, skin damage, and seizures or coma in extreme cases.

[…]

The agency reported that Russian soldiers dug trenches in the “Red Forest,” which surrounds the former Chernobyl power plant that was the site of the worst nuclear disaster in history in 1986. The forest has the most radioactive contamination of any part of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, a 1,000-square-mile area that was closed to the public after the accident, and was called the Red Forest after pine trees in the area turned red due to radiation absorption.

[…]

One employee told the outlet the Russian military’s actions were “suicidal,” referring to troops who drove armored vehicles through the Red Forest and disturbed radioactive dust without radiation protection, likely causing internal radiation exposure as they inhaled the dust.

“The convoy kicked up a big column of dust. Many radiation safety sensors showed exceeded levels,” a worker told Reuters on Tuesday.

[…]

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This Is What It’s Like to Witness a Nuclear Explosion via New York Times

Posted on 2022/04/02 by nfield

By Rod Buntzen

In the early days of his war against Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin told the world that he had ordered his nation’s nuclear forces to a higher state of readiness. Ever since, pundits, generals and politicians have speculated about what would happen if the Russian military used a nuclear weapon.

What would NATO do? Should the United States respond with its own nuclear weapons?

These speculations all sound hollow to me. Unconvincing words without feeling.

In 1958, as a young scientist for the U.S. Navy, I witnessed the detonation of an 8.9-megaton thermonuclear weapon as it sat on a barge in Eniwetok Atoll, in the Marshall Islands. I watched from across the lagoon at the beach on Parry Island, where my group prepared instrumentation to measure the atmospheric radiation. Sixty-three years later, what I saw remains etched in my mind, which is why I’m so alarmed that the use of nuclear weapons can be discussed so cavalierly in 2022.

Although the potential horror of nuclear weapons remains frozen in films from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the public today has little understanding of the stakes of the Cold War and what might be expected now if the war in Ukraine intentionally or accidentally spins out of control.

The test I witnessed, code-named Oak, was part of a larger series called Hardtack I, which included 35 nuclear detonations over several months in 1958. With world concern about atmospheric testing mounting, the military was eager to test as many different types of weapons as it could before any atmospheric moratorium was announced. The hydrogen bomb used in the Oak test was detonated at 7:30 a.m. A second bomb was set off at noon on nearby Bikini Atoll.

In a nuclear detonation, the thermal and shock effects are the most immediate and are unimaginable. The fission-fusion process that occurs in a thermonuclear explosion happens in a millionth of a second.

As I watched from 20 miles away, all the materials in the bomb, barge and surrounding lagoon water and air had been vaporized and raised to a temperature of tens of millions of degrees.

As the X-rays and neutrons from the bomb raced outward, they left the heavier material particles behind, creating a radiation front that was absorbed by the surrounding air. The radiation, absorption, reradiation and expansion processes continued, cooling the bomb mass within milliseconds.

The outer high-pressure shock region cooled and lost its opacity as it raced toward me, and a hotter inner fireball again appeared.

This point in the process is called breakaway, occurring about three seconds after detonation, when the fireball radius was already nearly 5,500 feet.

By now, the fireball had begun to rise, engulfing more and more atmosphere and sweeping up coral and more lagoon water into an enormous column. The ball of fire eventually reached a radius of 1.65 miles.

Time seemed to have stopped. I had lost my count of the seconds.

The heat was becoming unbearable. Bare spots at my ankles were starting to hurt. The aluminum foil hood I had fashioned for protection was beginning to fail.

I thought that the hair on the back of my head might catch on fire.

The brightness the detonation created defies description. I worried that my high-density goggles would fail.

[…]

Having witnessed one thermonuclear explosion, I hope that no humans ever have to witness another.

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福島の小児甲状腺がんで高い再手術割合〜民間団体公表 via OurPlanet-TV

Posted on 2022/03/30 by nfield

[…]

データを公表したのはNPO法人「３.１１甲状腺がん子ども基金」。２０１６年１２月から今年度までに療養費を給付した１８０人について、再手術数や放射線治療の一種であるアイソトープ治療（RI治療）の実施数を報告した。それによると、福島県内で療養費を申請した１１５人のうち、再手術をしたのは２０人。年代が若いほど、再手術に至っている割合が高く、事故当時１０歳から１４歳の年代では全体の２割にあたる１０人が再手術を経験。４歳から９歳では２３．８％にあたる５人が再手術を受けたと公表した。

[…]

福島県立医科大学（福島医大）で多数の患者を執刀してきた鈴木眞一教授は２０２０年２月の国際シンポジウムで、再手術の割合は６～７％程度と発表したが、これよりはるかに多い割合で再手術が行われいる可能性がある。一方、穿刺細胞診で悪性の疑いと診断されながら、６年間、経過観察（アクティブ・サーベイランス）を続けていた１０代患者が全摘となった例もあり、代表理事の崎山比早子さんは、国や福島県が将来、見つけなくてもいいがんを見つけているとする「過剰診断」論には根拠ないと批判した。

全摘患者が半数を上回る福島県外の甲状腺がん

同団体では、福島県外１５都県の患者にも療養費を給付しており、これまでに６２人に療養費を交付している。このうち、６０人がすでに手術を終えているが、半数を上回る３１人（５１.７％）が全ての甲状腺を摘出する全摘手術を受けていることを明らかにした。福島県外では、自治体による甲状腺検査が実施されていないため、自覚症状によってがんが見つかるケースが多いという。

同団体では、福島県では全摘例が少なく、早期発見の利点が生かされていると指摘。「事故当時年齢の若い人の再手術・RI例の増加は注視すべき」とした上で、医大、県、国といった行政に対し、支援の充実を求めた。

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2045年にどこへ？原発事故で発生した汚染土　福島･中間貯蔵施設の現在地 via 東京新聞

Posted on 2022/03/28 by nfield

東京電力福島第一原発事故に伴う除染で発生した汚染された除去土壌などは、原発に隣接する中間貯蔵施設に一時保管されている。帰還困難区域外の除染はおおむね終わり、帰還困難区域内で今春以降に避難指示が解除される見通しの特定復興再生拠点区域（復興拠点）での除染も進む。しかし、復興拠点外の帰還困難区域の除染は具体策がなく、汚染土の福島県外への搬出も議論が進まない。事故から11年がたっても、放射能汚染によるごみ問題は解決への道筋が見えないままだ。（小野沢健太、小川慎一）

◆福島県52市町村から約1300万袋

　事故で原発から放出した放射性物質は、福島県内など広い地域の土地や建物を汚染した。各自治体では除染が進み、その際に出た土など廃棄物はフレコンバッグ（土のう袋、1袋で1立方メートル）に入れられて集約され、福島第一周辺に造られた中間貯蔵施設への搬入が2015年度から始まった。その総量は2022年3月17日時点で、福島全59市町村のうち52市町村から約1285万立方メートルに上る。[…]

◆汚染ごみの総量は見通せず

　環境省によると、帰還困難区域以外の地域の除染で発生した汚染土は1400万立方メートルとされ、東京ドーム11杯分という膨大な量と見込まれている。それらは22年3月までに中間貯蔵施設への搬入が終わる予定。福島県7市町村に残る帰還困難区域には、南相馬市を除く6市町村に先行して除染を進める「特定復興再生拠点区域（復興拠点）」が指定されている。復興拠点の除染では160万～200万立方メートルの汚染土が出ると試算されている。　これに加えて、復興拠点外の帰還困難区域についても、政府は21年8月に帰還を希望する人の求めに応じて自宅などを個別に除染して、避難指示を解除する方針を決定。24年度から除染が始まる予定だが、どれぐらいの汚染土が出るかは見通しが立っていない。環境省は「搬入状況を見ながら用地取得や貯蔵施設の整備を進める。搬入可能な上限量は分からない」としている。

◆福島県外への搬出は不透明

　中間貯蔵施設での保管は、その名前の通り最終処分のための「一時的」なものとされている。政府は保管を始めた2015年から30年後の2045年には汚染土を福島県外の最終処分場に搬出することを約束している。ただ、原発事故で汚染されたごみを受け入れる自治体があるのかは分からず、候補地は未定だ。　また、保管している汚染土が含む放射性物質は現状で、保管総量の4分の3で、1キロ当たりの放射性セシウム濃度が8000ベクレル以下となっている。これは通常の焼却、埋め立て処分ができる基準をクリアしており、政府は8000ベクレル以下の汚染土を道路工事などの公共工事で再利用することを計画。だが、汚染土の利用については住民の反対が強く、実用化に向けた取り組みは難航している。環境省は「技術開発や関係者の理解を得る取り組みを続ける」としている。

[…]

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One thing nuclear power plants weren’t built to survive: War via Washington Post

Posted on 2022/03/27 by nfield

By Kate Brown and Susan Solomon

[…]

Military strategists routinely target electrical grids and power plants to incapacitate the enemy. But Russia’s is the first invasion of a country that derives more than half its energy from nuclear power. It stands to reason that Russian generals will seek to capture all 15 active reactors in Ukraine. The Russian army appears to be using the nuclear installations as safe havens, calculating that the Ukrainians will not fire on them, but we can still expect plenty more fearful nights spent riveted to scenes of battles over huge concrete towers and rows of basins filled with radioactive spent nuclear fuel: It turns out that reactor containment buildings have never been stress-tested for blows from heavy artillery or missiles.

[…]

Even without a direct hit on a reactor, we are learning of the fragility of nuclear power plants. Normal oversight and operations have essentially been replaced by isolation and disorder. Workers at Chernobyl have been on the job continuously for more than three weeks. They have no clean clothes (important for nuclear workers), no real beds, no contact with family, no proper meals or rest. At the Zaporizhzhia plant, according to a Ukrainian official, Russian soldiers have forced employees into submission. Employee-hostages — exhausted, hungry and stressed — could make mistakes. So could the untrained Russian military personnel who are giving the orders.

Communication to these sites is largely cut off. Independent oversight experts cannot enter to verify safe operations or deliver spare parts. Russian diplomats continue to enjoy a privileged role at the International Atomic Energy Agency, despite the war. We have to rely on what the IAEA and the Russian army tell us. In the past, Soviet nuclear information services specialized in secrecy and mistruths. One of us, while working on a history of Chernobyl, found that the IAEA had difficulty acknowledging the public health impact of the fallout from the 1986 explosion there. Russian information services again appear to be opaque and untrustworthy. If an accident occurs, we don’t have confidence that rescue squads and firefighters can get to captured nuclear installations to deal with infernos and injuries. Nor can we be sure that we will learn the full extent of the damage and spread of radioactive sources.

[…] Ukraine has abundant solar and wind resources that it could harness, but little has been implemented so far. (The combined solar and wind potential in Ukraine would be about 150 percent of what its nuclear power production is now.)

[…]

As power was cut to the Chernobyl plant this month, nuclear engineers explained the importance of the electricity grid — even for plants that have been out of operation for decades. Chernobyl’s molten radioactive lava self-heats inside the belly of the blown reactor. Without ventilation, which requires electricity, hot air forms condensation that rains down inside the building, corroding and damaging equipment. With no electricity, the operators, who are working at gunpoint, have no idea of radiation levels inside the shelter. All anyone knows is that monitoring devices across the Chernobyl zone showed a spike in radioactivity a few days after the invasion. Then the monitors were hacked and went radio silent.

Chernobyl’s spent fuel is another danger. Left to its own devices, it can heat up to 1,000 degrees Celsius. At high temperatures, the zirconium sleeves covering the fuel can ignite. After the Chernobyl accident in 1986, Soviet liquidators hastily built huge basins to store highly radioactive spent fuel rods. Water pumped into the basins cools the fuel and blocks radioactive gamma rays that emanate from the irradiated uranium. Now 20,000 fuel rods are stored in Chernobyl basins designed for 17,000. Officials at the IAEA stated March 9 that there is little risk the fuel will catch fire, since the rods are no longer very hot. Yet a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission study from 2000 found that “the possibility of a zirconium fire cannot be dismissed even many years after a final reactor shutdown.”

When one of us asked a former plant worker, Aleksandr Kupny, from the nearby city of Slavutych, also without power, about the IAEA’s statement that the spent fuel is safe without electricity, he said: “That’s fine for them to say, sitting in Vienna. For those of us here next to the plant, we are not so secure. In Kyshtym [Russia] in 1957, a nuclear waste storage site blew up, and that was just radioactive waste, not fuel.”

[…]

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Testimonies of Japanese fishermen affected by nuclear testing in the Pacific via Manhattan Project for a Nuclear-Free World

Posted on 2022/03/26 by nfield

From March to May 1954, the U.S. conducted six hydrogen bomb tests in the Marshall Islands. In total, 67 atmospheric nuclear tests were conducted there. It is estimated that more than 10,000 Japanese fishermen and 990 fishing boats were affected by the nuclear testing in the Pacific. To this day, the governments of the United States and Japan continue to deny the claims of the fishermen affected by the nuclear tests. Their voices and struggles were deliberately suppressed and erased from history.

More information about the cover-up, please also watch a video testimony of Ms. Setsuko Shimomoto whose father was exposed to radioactive fallout from nuclear testing near the Marshall Islands in the 1950s. https://youtu.be/TuDoMrYf8s4

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A Message from Ms. Setsuko Shimomoto下本節子さん証言via Manhattan Project for a Nuclear-Free World

Posted on 2022/03/26 by nfield

A Message from Ms. Setsuko Shimomoto Ms. Setsuko Shimomoto is originally from Muroto, a fishing village in Kochi, Japan. In the 1950s, Setsuko’s father was a fisherman who was exposed to the radioactive fallout from the nuclear testing near the Marshall Islands. It is estimated that more than 10,000 Japanese fishermen and 990 fishing boats were affected by the nuclear testing in the Pacific, but their voices and struggles were deliberately suppressed and erased from history. Setsuko is one of the plaintiffs of two court cases seeking recognition and workers’ compensation on behalf of her late father who died from cancer. This video was first shared at “Nuclear Colonialism in the Age of the Ban Treaty: From New Mexico to the Marshall Islands and across the Pacific,” an online event that was held on January 25, 2022. The event was co-organized by the Affected Communities Working Group, Manhattan Project for a Nuclear-Free World, and other peace groups in the United States.

For more Information: 太平洋核被災支援センター Pacific Nuclear Disaster Assistance Center http://bikini-kakuhisai.jet55.com/ (in Japanese) 動画の中で紹介しました紙芝居「ビキニの海のねがい」の絵は、 高知県の画家の森本忠彦氏による作品です。

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The Russian takeover of the defunct Chernobyl site challenges the ‘peaceful, safe and sustainable’ branding of nuclear energy via The Conversation

Posted on 2022/03/24 by nfield

At least seven forest fires continue to burn around the Russian-held Chernobyl nuclear site in Ukraine, raising fears radionuclides could spread from the defunct facility.

[…]

According to the statement, the fires now cover an area ten times larger than the emergency criteria for the site’s exclusion zone, but the ongoing war prevents firefighters from putting them out.

Nuclear power plants are not designed to be in war zones. They are highly complex technologies that can be sensitive to even minor disturbances.

Nuclear disasters are caused by a mix of technical, environmental, social and political conditions. And these contingencies don’t always match with the branding of nuclear energy as peaceful, safe and sustainable. This contrast is at its starkest in war zones, but also in the growing advocacy for nuclear energy as a low-carbon solution to climate change.

Are nuclear disasters really beyond expectation?

Consider how Tokyo Electric Power Company knew in 2008 that a tsunami of more than 15.7m could hit Fukushima Daiichi, but did nothing to prepare.

Or consider the current situation at the Chernobyl nuclear power complex. The site has experienced years of hot and dry environmental conditions and contains dry plant material filled with uranium-derived radionuclides from the 1986 nuclear disaster.

While the threat of wildfires in the Chernobyl exclusion zone exists even in peacetime, the Russian takeover increased concerns because soldiers could be cooking, smoking or firing weapons in the area.

As was the case in 2020, fires in the exclusion zone could again result in uranium-derived radionuclides being transported to neighbouring countries.

Expecting the possible onset of a war-induced nuclear disaster, people and schools in Scandinavia and across Europe have begun purchasing iodine tablets. These pills are used to saturate people’s thyroid glands to prevent the absorption of radioactive iodine-131, which could be released if one of Ukraine’s nuclear reactors or nuclear waste storage facilities were to be damaged in the war.

[…]

As wind and rain carried uranium-derived radionuclides throughout Japan and around the world, these materials were continually described as “safe” to live alongside, drink and eat. As their measurable levels increased, so did the expectation that people simply needed to accept the new risks to their health.

[…]

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福島第一原発事故当時中学生だった避難者のスピーチが実現・Speech by an evacuee who was a junior high school student at the time of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster.

Posted on 2022/03/23 by nfield

現在開催中の第 49 回国連人権理事会本会議において、福島原発事故避難者の金本暁（Atsuki Kanemoto）さんのスピーチが実現しました。（2022年3月16日）
金本さんは原発事故当時中学生で、福島県から九州にご家族で避難されました。
福島原発事故からの 11 年間、そして現在も避難者たちは様々な困難に直面していることを国際社会に訴えました。
最近、原発事故当時子供だった被害者の若者たちが、次々と声を上げてくれています。そして今回、国際社会に訴えてくれた金本さん。
現在オンライン参加となる国連人権理事会本会議には、多くの団体がスピーチの申請をしました。そのため、スピーチが採用されるのは、重要な問題と認識されたからです。
残念ながら日本国内では、原発事故やその被害者たちの存在が、どんどんなかったことにされてきています。だからこそ、本会議という国際社会の場でスピーチが流れることの重要性をご理解していただきたいと思います。
そして、金本さんの訴えが、日本国内でも伝わりますよう心から願っております。

■スピーチ原稿の和訳
私は 2011 年 3 月に起きた福島原発事故の避難者です。被災当時は 13 歳でしたが、広島や⻑崎の悲惨な出来事を連想させるような、言葉にできない不安を感じたことを覚えています。
父の言った「せめて苦しまないで死ねるよう祈りなさい」という言葉に、状況の深刻さを実感させられました。
事故から 11 年が経過しましたが、状況は今でも深刻なままです。福島県内外の広大な範囲で土壌や食物などが汚染されています。ガンの発生数も増加しています。
政府は避難者を分断するような分類を制定しているため、避難者の多くは避難という決断に対する謂れのない批判に苦しんでいます。私の家族も同様です。
福島原発事故は、環境破壊と人権についての問題なのです。
他に住むあてのない避難者がいるにもかかわらず、2017 年 3 月に日本政府は住宅支援を打ち切りました。さらに立ち退きを要求され、福島県によって提訴されている避難者もいます。
日本政府は、国内避難⺠の人権に関する国連特別報告者による訪日調査受け入れ要請を 3 年以上放置しています。政府は特別報告者の訪日を直ちに実現させ、福島原発事故のすべての被害者に必要な支援と補償を提供することを強く要求します。

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Editorial: Ruling pressures Japan to set proper damages for Fukushima nuclear disaster　via The Mainichi

Posted on 2022/03/23 by nfield

The amount of compensation has been finalized in a series of class-action lawsuits brought by people affected by the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station managed by Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings (TEPCO). The Supreme Court rejected appeals filed by TEPCO in six cases.

It is a message from the judiciary that relief for victims of the unprecedented nuclear disaster is insufficient. In each of the cases, the amounts awarded exceeded the compensation standards set by the Japanese government. The administration should seriously take the judicial decision to heart, and the standards should be revised immediately.

According to the government’s standards, people who lived in what are now called “difficult-to-return” zones are entitled to 14.5 million yen (about $121,600) in compensation, while those who evacuated voluntarily are entitled to damages of 80,000 yen (about $670). The amount was determined with reference to liability insurance for traffic accidents.

However, those who were forced to evacuate or otherwise relocate were deprived of their lives in their hometowns and local community ties. And people who continued to live in those areas were unable to engage in agriculture, fishing or other such lines of work.

In six high court cases, the courts increased the amounts of compensation to several million yen above the government’s standards and expanded the areas eligible for compensation, among other measures. They judged that the government standards did not set compensation high enough for people who had lost the basis for their livelihoods and had seen their hometowns utterly transformed.

In particular, in a ruling on one case with about 3,600 plaintiffs, the court set compensation amounts by evacuation zone and area. There is accordingly room for those who did not take part in the suit to file for compensation in the future.

To advance relief in line with the actual situations of victims, there is an urgent need to raise the government’s standards and expand the areas eligible for redress. Local bodies in affected areas are also calling for reviews.

Meanwhile, TEPCO’s response is being questioned anew.

In court, TEPCO maintained that it could not accept compensation that exceeded the standards. It even went as far as to claim that the current standards were too high.

The nuclear disaster compensation system is not premised on a presumption of negligence by TEPCO. Yet there have been rulings pointing out inadequate safety measures. The company’s responsibility is extremely heavy.

[…]

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