Amazing Photos Released 4 Years After Japan's Nuclear Disaster

a reply to: sycomix

Where the fallout is above any standard of safe it is not near as bad as people say. That is why the plant and wild life has retaken the area. As far as the cars being safe to move, they were safe to move as soon as it was safe for people to come in and start clean up. (I suspect some over exaggeration in severity)

The exclusion zone isn't "safe" to go in and 'start to clean up'.

my mother in the navy stationed at misawa air base when this happened and was part of the evac team to get people out, the way she tells it is a bit different than the media and story book versions.

I know a member here that also was stationed at the time of the accident who told me that they were out on rescue everyday after the Tsunami and that base personnel at the gates checked vehicles returning at the end of the day with detectors , finding all of them hotter than hell in the wheel wells, on the tires and the radiator.

He is back home now and concerned about constant nosebleeds and other symptoms he can't explain. The medical people have told him not to worry, but didn't run any tests, like whole body dose with a scintillator, for instance.

a reply to: donktheclown

I'm not sure but I hope it's Nuclear Power's death throws. Perhaps we can switch to Thorium reactors instead.

Throrium isn't safe nor is it cheap, thats why they haven't build any. Thorium reactors are lauded as a solution to our current nuclear problems, somewhere down the road. Mean while, they are planning and building more BWRs.

a reply to: StoutBroux

They might not dispose of it because they don't have any place to do so. Unless they plan on loading barges up and sinking them somewhere, which I hope they don't

You're right, why pay the cost to move radioactive contamination somewhere else? The risk of spilling it on the way, more leakage at a new site, now they got two messes to clean up.

a reply to: tiredoflooking

Yes WHERE it will all go is the question. The article that accompanies the pics says the government plans to dispose of the contaminated soil…

You're right they don;t know what to do with it either. This is the worst case scenario, containment has failed and this is the result… fields of growing waste piles, water tanks and dirty equipment. The more they work on the site the more they will create ever more waste, all of it stored temporarily in make shift containers… But whats the alternative, just abandon the place? They can't do that, they have to look like they are at least doing something.

a reply to: TrueBrit

but metals and alloys can have their properties drastically changed by exposure to radiation. They can blister, swell, crack, or become more prone to accelerated rusting.

Not only but shed contamination everywhere they go, spreading it on roads and parking lots.

a reply to: charlyv

The bags of contaminated soil are obviously so dangerous, they must remain on the site. It is probably the best place for them presently, until they can figure out how to dispose of them. Burial in probably not an option as it may find ground water.

Stored on site, until a solution can be found. Thats why all the spent fuel rods were still in the fuel pools when the earthquake and Tsunami struck. They been keeping them on site since the plants construction until a better solution can be found.

There is np better solution and thats why the water and sacks of scraped dirt are still there and building. Tank site is full, they are letting water run off to the ocean now. Every time it rains the basements overflow and the surface around the planet has to be decontaminated again and the dirt stored in more sacks. Thats where the dirt is coming from, we see the growing acearge of sacks, all 'temporary' storage…

originally posted by: korath
If there's so much radiation still going into the ocean, why not just dump the bags of soil in there as well? Can't make much difference at this point.

Intentionally polluting the world with radioactive contamination is illegal. Accidents are okay.

originally posted by: cosmania
a reply to: tiredoflooking

These guys are brilliant. Let's store the contaminated soil right next to the ocean from whence the Tsunami originated. What could possibly go wrong with storing soil in water?

Or building reactors right on the beach in the first place? Good point.

originally posted by: carewemust
Thank-you for posting this. For some reason, I imagined a several square mile area barren of life around the reactor.

How is it that plants, grass, flowers grow, but the cars are not safe to drive away? As an aside, I found that photo of the stack of televisions interesting. In 2011, the residents (apparently) didn't have flat-screen TVs?

As we discovered after Chenobyl radioactive material actually encourages plant growth, it's an area of heavy scientific study right now because no one really knows why. Plants love radioactive wastelands.

The cars aren't safe to drive away because of radioactive dust that contaminates them, it would be very harmful to the driver and passengers to use them.

originally posted by: tiredoflooking
Yes looks like lots of seemingly healthy cows there, I suppose looks could be deceiving. I did see something recently abut Chernobyl that stated basically evacuating all of those people was more damaging to them then not, wildlife there is flourishing without problems and those that stayed in the region do not have much higher incidence of cancer than is normally recorded. I wonder if this is conspiracy, or if the horrible damage we are all meant to believe is the conspiracy. Interesting.

There have been a lot of studies on radiation, there's a thread around here from a week or two ago asking if radiation is really harmful. The short answer is yes but it depends on the type. There have been long term studies of people exposed to certain radioactive material for decades and they have a lower rate of cancer. That's not to say that radiation isn't damaging but people and animals can tolerate various types fairly well.

In the case of the animals, most of them don't live long enough to develop cancers. Cows live for about 15 years, but in the wild it's probably a couple years less than that. A 13 or 14 year lifespan reduces the amount of time where long term damage can occur.

originally posted by: tiredoflooking
There is no easy way to get rid of the soil, I say they should blast it into space...nuclear toxic waste along with a lot of the other garbage we need to not put in this planet's soil. I know it would probably be way too cost prohibitive but really, how can we put a price on the wellness of this planet?

It's not just cost prohibitive but risky. If you load a rocket up with radioactive material and it explodes mid launch, which does still happen from time to time you're going to have a major problem on your hands. Until we have a better way to launch things into space such as a space elevator no one is going to take the risk of launching nuclear material.

Why are there cobwebs from top to bottom in the supermarket but none in the supermarket checkout or that room with the piano? Why does the farmer bother keeping the cow with the white spots on it if he thinks it's contaminated"? Why bother feeding and housing it? Why did the grass and bushes grow where the vehicles where parked. but no grass grew in front of the picture of the motor bike? Why not back the camera off and show the hundreds of volunteers scrubbing the houses inside and out instead of just 4 guys in a close up? Why not let a photogragher in the danger zone go snap a few pictures and let the world know how things are going instead of backing him off, yet cleaning crews can go in there all they want? Why bother stacking television sets when they should have just been thrown into heaps of radioactive rubble with all the refrigerators and whatnot? How much is the people who own this plant paying for all this, or is it just falling on the Japanese tax payer?

my first thoughts were that if that was in the united states
radiation or no
all those cars homes and stores would have been looted and stripped by crackheads over night and you would have irradiated materials floating around everywhere for decades

truly a very different culture

originally posted by: tiredoflooking
a reply to: carewemust

I expected the same, you would think all of this incredible plant growth would be affected by "contaminated soil". Seems not.

I can't speak for other plant species, but Hemp was used extensively around Chernobyl to remove radioactive contamination from the soil after the meltdown. The plant is able to efficiently absorb heavy metal toxins and store them within (phytoextraction). When the plants are mature, they're pulled and sent off for proper disposal. The whole process is known as phytoremediation.

All the best

originally posted by: carewemust


How is it that plants, grass, flowers grow, but the cars are not safe to drive away? As an aside, I found that photo of the stack of televisions interesting. In 2011, the residents (apparently) didn't have flat-screen TVs?

Erm, because the cars are irradiated maybe. This is basic knowledge, and I don't understand how you don't realise this.

And not all of Japan is sitting on the cutting edge of technology. If you've been there, you would know that a lot of seaside towns like fukushima are like the countryside, and a lot of people have better things to spend money on than a flat screen tv.

a reply to: tiredoflooking

Just goes to show, humans are but a speck on this planet and nature willingly and rapidly wants to reclaim what is hers.

From Uphill, a reply to: tiredoflooking

As I said a few days ago on the big ATS Fukushima thread, the caption under the photo of that Polish photographer should be

Dead Man Walking?

For example, the location of that photo (showing the destroyed Fukushima NPP in the background) has been recently measured by others, coming in at 135 millisieverts for airborne radiation. I get it that the photographer wanted to remove his face mask and hair covering to look recognizable in that photo, but he obviously doesn't understand that that picture also shows him breathing in that radiation, which the human lung cannot breathe out ... it's in his lungs to stay. And oops, airborne ionizing radiation sticks to hair also ... you can't just shampoo it out. That's why the IAEA site team at Fukushima wore those dumb-looking hairnets, because they actually know how to protect themselves from ionizing radiation, which this hapless photographer apparently does not. Anyway, I hope he at least understands his subsequent need to sport the "cueball" look for awhile ... in other words, he should get a temporary skinhead haircut ASAP.

The most important thing I see in that photo, therefore, is a tragic degree of ignorance about the human health risks of ionizing radiation.

Also, for those of you who think some types (or levels) of ionizing radiation do not pose a significant threat to human health, please remember that the biggest problem with the continuing Fukushima radiation releases in Japan is its virtually guaranteed incorporation into the food chain, via air and/or water. Through bioconcentration and biomagnification, humans have been and will continue to drink in, breathe in, and/or eat much Fukushima radiation since 3/11, especially but not only in Japan. This type of radiation ingestion in humans then becomes a problem of "internal contamination," producing a vastly greater scale of radiation exposure for human beings, and a vastly greater risk of diseases ranging from cancers to immune system damage to heart disease (ever hear of Chernobyl heart?) to mental retardation in some of the subsequent generations to permanent genetic damage in future generations, for example.

Great thread and link. But it is especially uninteresting that common media outlets portray the effects of fukushima through the lens of an overdramatic, overindulged tv show.