Fukushima Risks Chernobyl 'Dead Zone' as Radiation Soars

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/05/30/bloomberg1376-LLZK0I1A74E901-0PV3MV8LDJ1DOTDCLS9HQ5EHL3.DTL

Monday, May 30, 2011

(Updates with government comment in ninth paragraph.)

May 30 (Bloomberg) -- Radioactive soil in pockets of areas near Japan's crippled nuclear plant have reached the same level as Chernobyl, where a "dead zone" remains 25 years after the reactor in the former Soviet Union exploded.

Soil samples in areas outside the 20-kilometer (12 miles) exclusion zone around the Fukushima plant measured more than 1.48 million becquerels a square meter, the standard used for evacuating residents after the Chernobyl accident, Tomio Kawata, a fellow at the Nuclear Waste Management Organization of Japan, said in a research report published May 24 and given to the government. snip


"Basically, the way in which the current zones have been drawn up aren't a concern in terms of the impact on health," said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano. "Using Mr. Kawata's report as a guide, we want to do what we can to improve the soil, so people can return as soon as possible."

[Tesha]

1. Nuclear power: Too cheap to meter and safe as mother's milk!

BTW, this thread appears to duplicate:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1197083

Tesha

[nonperson]

2. I love the way they spin this even from the headline:

Fukushima Risks Chernobyl 'Dead Zone' as Radiation Soars

RISKS A CHERNOBYL 'DEAD ZONE'? REALLY?

I think we can all safely say the risk of the risk has been achieved. Risk phase is now officially over. Risk phase was when the fucking nuclear death plant was operating "normally". Every nuclear death plant on earth is in risk phase just by being in operation.
Yet they continue to spin even from the headlines.

[Warpy]

3. That was sort of a foregone conclusion to those of us

who have been watching this thing unfold. Bullshit from TEPCO officials notwithstanding, the reality has always been what we grumpy anti nukers have said it was (meltdown, large scale contamination) and that the area will be uninhabitable by people for a very long time, although shorter lived animals will thrive in the area.

Chernobyl is starting to attract people who are scavenging for scrap metal and quite possibly a few squatters whose lives are so lousy that shortening them doesn't make much difference to them. Likely Fukushima will follow the same pattern after 30 years or so.

[intaglio]

4. Where are the clowns? We ought to have clowns.

Or at least hobbitses to tell us how sweet life will be when all the world is within a dead zone of a nuclear power plant.