Japan: Radioactive Zone Bigger Than That Left by Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
September 27th, 2011Via: Bloomberg:
Beyond the police roadblocks that mark the no-go zone around Japan’s wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant, six-foot tall weeds invade rice paddies and vines gone wild strangle road signs along empty streets.
Takako Harada, 80, returned to an evacuated area of Iitate village to retrieve her car. Beside her house is an empty cattle pen, the 100 cows slaughtered on government order after radiation from the March 11 atomic disaster saturated the area, forcing 160,000 people to move away and leaving some places uninhabitable for two decades or more.
“Older folks want to return, but the young worry about radiation,” said Harada, whose family ran the farm for 40 years. “I want to farm, but will we be able to sell anything?”
What’s emerging in Japan six months since the nuclear meltdown at the Tokyo Electric Power Co. plant is a radioactive zone bigger than that left by the 1945 atomic bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. While nature reclaims the 20 kilometer (12 mile) no-go zone, Fukushima’s $3.2 billion-a-year farm industry is being devastated and tourists that hiked the prefecture’s mountains and surfed off its beaches have all but vanished.
The March earthquake and tsunami that caused the nuclear crisis and left almost 20,000 people dead or missing may cost 17 trillion ($223 billion), hindering the recovery of the world’s third-largest economy from two decades of stagnation.
I wish I hadn’t read this article. My god. I can’t even imagine what these farmer’s are going through. I’ve worked on the land I live on now on and off for about 30 years. That’s just a guess. And I learn something new every day.
I guess I can comprehend the heartbreak here. Its almost too much to bear. And TEPCO and the Japanese government are still letting that radiation spew into the universe. These are crimes against humanity. Crimes. Handcuffs and jail sentences needed for these douche bags. Get someone who can take charge and shut this nuclear bs down, down, down. Never to be resurrected.