Photographer sneaks into Fukushima 'Red Zone'

Last month, under the cover of night, photographer Keow Wee Loong and two colleagues slipped past authorities and made their way into the exclusion zone, taking a three-hour walk through the woods to reach the abandoned towns.

The Malaysian photographer described an eerie silence and a stench that greeted the visitors -- an odor he attributed to rotting meat and vegetables.

"Have you ever had a dream that you are the only person left on the planet? Arriving in the exclusion zone is similar to that," he told CNN, comparing the experience to apocalyptic video games and movies like "I am Legend."

LINK

The story linked to above should put an end to any "the Fukushima disaster was a hoax" talk. Believe it or not, I know many on this site still subscribe to that belief.

The fact is, a disaster such as what occurred at Fukushima Daiichi could happen in most of the world.

As of May 2016, 30 countries worldwide are operating 444 nuclear reactors for electricity generation and 63 new nuclear plants are under construction in 15 countries.

LINK

Please don't use an argument such as "most of those nuclear reactors aren't in earthquake zones" to attempt to 'prove' I'm wrong. Most people don't think about how nuclear reactors could be used in an all-out war between countries. A typical missile would be the equivalent of a nuclear bomb if it hits a nuclear power plant.

a reply to: Profusion

And an EMP...

shuts down all the reactors...

maybe they go in to some automatic safe storage?

OR

some of them go full meltdown and make fukushima look like baby radiation and destruction.

no High population in the US is far from radiation zones.

if we don't keep the power on we are all dead here.

yuck.


the only alternative is preventing war. Preventing economic crisis.

If we can do those two things humanity has a bright future.

I think.



The pictures are interesting.
The calendar stuck on 2011 makes me really sad.

I wonder how many rads they soaked up for that journey.
I use google earth to wander around the streets of the red zone. pretty wild, and yeah, if you wanna risk massive exposure, it is a treasure hunters dream, however, its not the japanese way to loot...not sure how long it will be uninhabitable. decades more than likely as they slowly clean closer and closer to the red zone.

Japan cant afford to have any of its land uninhabitable, so they will clean it all up right up to ground zero. I do hope they learned from it though. I hope we all have.

originally posted by: Profusion
The story above should put an end to any "the Fukushima disaster was a hoax" talk. Believe it or not, I know many on this site still subscribe to that belief.

...that was a thing? lol...

a reply to: SaturnFX

My first thought was at what risk were they putting their health on the line for?

We might all worry about our nuclear reactors but until other means of generating electricity come on line nuclear will simply have to stay because our societies can't do without electricity. We desperately need those batteries that store sunlight generated electricity but for many unless the technology can utilise the suns rays despite the heavy cloud, we are in difficulty, which is a lot of the northern hemisphere.

Maybe the had some Rad-X. You know..just in case.

a reply to: Profusion

That was dangerous for them to do.

Fukushima is a problem. Other nuclear reactors deliver power flawlessly and are well-maintained. The Fukushima reactor was kept up cheaply.

a reply to: Reverbs

We've had emp events. We had a solar superstorm in 1859. I am thinking they will shut down. Scientists seem to have a knack for figureing out shut down protocals?

In 1859 we had almost no way of knowing such a thing would haoppen. Even if a few giood astronomers knew, it effected few things and would have taken too long to warn. There are lots of warnings now. though it is true not every single one would be detected.

originally posted by: Profusion

Please don't use an argument such as "most of those nuclear reactors aren't in earthquake zones" to attempt to 'prove' I'm wrong. Most people don't think about how nuclear reactors could be used in an all-out war between countries. A typical missile would be the equivalent of a nuclear bomb if it hits a nuclear power plant.

No it wouldn't, that's not how it works.
It definitely wouldn't be a good thing, but those plants are hardened structures. A missile would cause structural damage no doubt, but fail-safes would send the reactors into shutdown.

Worst case scenario it would be like a dirty bomb, just spreading radioactive material around a localized area, but a missile hitting a nuclear reactor would not result in any kind of weapon type nuclear yield.

a reply to: Profusion

If you want to take out a nation. (Or the world to finalise the matter). Just target reactors. Once meltdown commences, there is nothing you can do with limited resources destroyed in the first hit.

My thoughts,

Kind regards,

Bally

Haven't read the article, but a photo shoot from a fallout zone due to a nuclear meltdown explosion sounds interesting. I guess you can tour Chernobyl now with permission and basic protective gear.

Concerning possible disaster in my locality, though I live in the middle of the Great Lakes area that experiences no real natural disasters as compared with Japan, the near continuous westerly winds could carry a lot of fallout my way from numerous power plants in Wisconsin and Illinois. Let's not forget that nuclear power plants need to be near water to operate, so you can include lakes and rivers as possible exclusion zones if something big happened to a lot of plants (possible with an EMP).

a reply to: Profusion

For the most part, I agree with you completely. But, a few things...

- The concept of a Fukushima accident a hoax? WTF? Wow....gotta read up on that garbage....what in the world could a hoax regarding this possibly serve?

- Photographs are far from proof. They can be quite easy to fake.

- A missile hitting a nuclear power plant is essentially a nuclear bomb? At best, it would be the mother of all dirty bombs. The impact would be in radioactive debris due to the nuclear material, the and the heavy water. The long term environmental impact would be devastating. But, it would not have anywhere near the impact, at least the initial impact, of am actual nuclear bomb.

IMHO, the fear and impact of a "dirty bomb"...is grossly overstated. If you happen to be impacted by shrapnel, yes...horrible. But nothing compared to the full on impact of an actual weaponized nuclear explosion.

originally posted by: watchitburn

No it wouldn't, that's not how it works.
It definitely wouldn't be a good thing, but those plants are hardened structures. A missile would cause structural damage no doubt, but fail-safes would send the reactors into shutdown.

Hardened? As in, armor hardened? No, I highly doubt that. Built to withstand earthquakes and the like? Certainly.

One bunker buster and that power plant is down.

Otherwise, I completely agree with your sentiment.

So... apart from sneaking into a restricted area, what did they find that they thought was being hidden that warranted them risking their lives/health to do?