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Japan's "throwaway" nuclear workers

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posted on Jun, 25 2011 @ 09:34 AM
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Special report: Japan's "throwaway" nuclear workers

A decade and a half before it blew apart in a hydrogen blast that punctuated the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, the No. 3 reactor at the Fukushima nuclear power plant was the scene of an earlier safety crisis.

Then, as now, a small army of transient workers was put to work to try to stem the damage at the oldest nuclear reactor run by Japan's largest utility.

At the time, workers were racing to finish an unprecedented repair to address a dangerous defect: cracks in the drum-like steel assembly known as the "shroud" surrounding the radioactive core of the reactor.

But in 1997, the effort to save the 21-year-old reactor from being scrapped at a large loss to its operator, Tokyo Electric, also included a quiet effort to skirt Japan's safety rules: foreign workers were brought in for the most dangerous jobs, a manager of the project said.

"It's not well known, but I know what happened," Kazunori Fujii, who managed part of the shroud replacement in 1997, told Reuters. "What we did would not have been allowed under Japanese safety standards."



The article continues:



The previously undisclosed hiring of welders from the United States and Southeast Asia underscores the way Tokyo Electric, a powerful monopoly with deep political connections in Japan, outsourced its riskiest work and developed a lax safety culture in the years leading to the Fukushima disaster, experts say.




How many of you knew that?

I get so tired of hearing how TEPCO and Japanese officials are honest brokers tirelessly working to resolve the crisis.

History suggests otherwise.

These guys are criminals who have no interest in disclosing the truth and obviously have little interest in the safety of human lives.

For example:



Hastily hired workers were sent into the plant without radiation meters. Two splashed into radioactive water wearing street shoes because rubber boots were not available. Even now, few have been given training on radiation risks that meets international standards, according to their accounts and the evaluation of experts.

The workers who stayed on to try to stabilize the plant in the darkest hours after March 11 were lauded as the "Fukushima 50" for their selflessness. But behind the heroism is a legacy of Japanese nuclear workers facing hazards with little oversight, according to interviews with more than two dozen current and former nuclear workers, doctors and others.

Since the start of the nuclear boom in the 1970s, Japan's utilities have relied on temporary workers for maintenance and plant repair jobs, the experts said. They were often paid in cash with little training and no follow-up health screening.


And Japan was supposed to be the nation most likely prepared to handle a nuclear disaster???


Is that what it looks like now?




Although almost 9,000 workers have been involved in work around the mangled reactors, Tokyo Electric did not have a Japan-made robot capable of monitoring radiation inside the reactors until this week. That job was left to workers, reflecting the industry's reliance on cheap labor, critics say.

"I can only think that to the power companies, contract workers are just disposable pieces of equipment," said Kunio Horie, who worked at nuclear plants, including Fukushima Daiichi, in the late 1970s and wrote about his experience in a book "Nuclear Gypsy."

Tokyo Electric said this week it cannot find 69 of the more than 3,600 workers who were brought in to Fukushima just after the disaster because their names were never recorded. Others were identified by Tepco in accident reports only by initials: "A-san" or "B-san."

Makoto Akashi, executive director at the National Institute of Radiological Sciences near Tokyo, said he was shocked to learn Tokyo Electric had not screened some of the earliest workers for radiation inside their bodies until June while others had to share monitors to measure external radiation.

That means health risks for workers - and future costs - will be difficult to estimate.


Outrageous.....and convenient.


Read the rest of the article. It will get your blood boiling.

edit on 25-6-2011 by loam because: (no reason given)



posted on Jun, 25 2011 @ 09:52 AM
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As you say, outrageous.

There is clearly a massive cover up going on with this entire situation. This is also a case of history repeating. We have learned nothing.
Everyone should watch this - www.youtube.com...
It's well made and wonderfully narrated.

"It's a documentary which analyzes the Thursday 26th April 1986 that became a momentous date in modern history, when one of the reactors at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in northern Ukraine, exploded. It was the most significant reactor failure in the history of nuclear power, a Maximum Credible Accident (MCA)."

Will we have to wait over 20 years for the truth from the Fukushima disaster?

And just this week, 3 months after the disaster in Japan the UK announces NEW nuclear sites!
www.bbc.co.uk...



posted on Jun, 25 2011 @ 09:58 AM
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reply to post by loam
 


When you are dealing with substances as toxic as these are somebody has to die. I don't think anyone working around such a facility does not know the dangers.
In all our wars the US has always placed our minorities and the economically disadvantaged on the front firing lines as expendable people...whats the dif?

In the US we have people dying making microwave popcorn. Now there's a work situation where you would not expect possible death as a side effect so it is all relative.
edit on 25-6-2011 by newcovenant because: (no reason given)



posted on Jun, 25 2011 @ 10:08 AM
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This is despicable.

All to make a few extra bucks.





posted on Jun, 25 2011 @ 10:12 AM
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Tokyo Electric said this week it cannot find 69 of the more than 3,600 workers who were brought in to Fukushima just after the disaster because their names were never recorded. Others were identified by Tepco in accident reports only by initials: "A-san" or "B-san."


Hmmm why can't they find them >?
anyone care to speculate .... are they dead already and they don't really want them found



posted on Jun, 25 2011 @ 10:21 AM
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reply to post by newcovenant
 


Notwithstanding what happens elsewhere, it is inexcusable that TEPCO and Japan could have been so unprepared and lied about it.

This isn't just a nuclear accident...its the worst nuclear 'accident' in human history, managed by CRIMINALS.

In my book, that is a BIG difference.

edit on 25-6-2011 by loam because: (no reason given)



posted on Jun, 25 2011 @ 10:22 AM
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Originally posted by loam
reply to post by newcovenant
 


Notwithstanding what happens elsewhere, it is inexcusable that TEPCO and Japan could have been so unprepared and lied about it.

This isn't just a nuclear accident...its the worst nuclear 'accident' in human history, managed by CRIMINALS.

In my book, that is a BIG difference.

edit on 25-6-2011 by loam because: (no reason given)


An "accident" that's nowhere near finished yet either.



posted on Jun, 25 2011 @ 11:11 AM
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Originally posted by loam
reply to post by newcovenant
 


Notwithstanding what happens elsewhere, it is inexcusable that TEPCO and Japan could have been so unprepared and lied about it.

This isn't just a nuclear accident...its the worst nuclear 'accident' in human history, managed by CRIMINALS.

In my book, that is a BIG difference.

edit on 25-6-2011 by loam because: (no reason given)


True and human rights violations which should not be over looked ever.
It isn't right in any event but are you certain there was "intent" here?

Why not admit also that the greenies against nuclear energy use were right. Why do we still have reactors anywhere? This could easily happen again. Think of Japan not as the worse but as the first.

EDIT: Of course, thanks for correction... after Chernobyl.

en.wikipedia.org...
edit on 25-6-2011 by newcovenant because: (no reason given)



posted on Jun, 25 2011 @ 11:14 AM
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where do I apply, 50 bucks an hour is awesome...oh I'll be dead in a month



posted on Jun, 25 2011 @ 11:28 AM
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Originally posted by newcovenant
Think of Japan not as the worse but as the first.
edit on 25-6-2011 by newcovenant because: (no reason given)


They are not the first. Chernobyl was the first. And they probably have been ;lots of smaller incidents since too. Watch the documentary I posted in this thread, it's the past echoing the future.



posted on Jun, 25 2011 @ 11:35 AM
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Originally posted by loam
How many of you knew that?

I get so tired of hearing how TEPCO and Japanese officials are honest brokers tirelessly working to resolve the crisis.

History suggests otherwise.
I didn't know it. I wish I was surprised, but unfortunately, I'm not. I didn't have much respect for TEPCO before reading your thread, and have even less now.


Originally posted by spoonbender
Hmmm why can't they find them >?
anyone care to speculate .... are they dead already and they don't really want them found
They aren't dead. They probably mis-recorded the contractors they worked for so when they tried to call the contractors on the list, they said they didn't work there. My guess is, if the contacted ALL the contractors with ALL the missing names (which is oly 30 now btw) they would find most of them. All 30 missing turned in their dosimiter badges so they aren't dead on site somewhere, if they were, they wouldn't have turned in their badge.



posted on Jun, 25 2011 @ 12:50 PM
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Originally posted by DROKKR

Originally posted by newcovenant
Think of Japan not as the worse but as the first.
edit on 25-6-2011 by newcovenant because: (no reason given)


They are not the first. Chernobyl was the first. And they probably have been ;lots of smaller incidents since too. Watch the documentary I posted in this thread, it's the past echoing the future.



OK in fairness to you I didn't watch it yet but I will. I hate more reason to get my blood pressure up though. Doctors are all advising against that. I would like to live long enough to do some good. Maybe old people should volunteer for these types of reactor missions and truthfully many people will accept a shorter better life if it means enough financial compensation. I know people who have made that choice myself. It is similar to people living in poverty selling a kidney.
I am not condoning anything at all. Like you say I'll watch the video. I did not know it was embedded and the BOLD was a link until you just mentioned it.
In fairness to me: I am slow and simple.
So thanks for your patience in advance.



posted on Jun, 25 2011 @ 12:58 PM
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If you were slow and simple you wouldn't be on this site


Enjoy the documentary and please share it. People need to see it to put what's is going on in Japan into perspective.



posted on Jun, 25 2011 @ 07:46 PM
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reply to post by DROKKR
 


500,000 men fighting against the loss of half of Europe!



Thanks for the link.

edit on 25-6-2011 by loam because: (no reason given)



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