3 nuclear reactors melted down after quake, Japan confirms: CNN

By the CNN Wire Staff

June 7, 2011 5:56 a.m. EDT

 

An aerial view of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Japan's nuclear emergency agency goes further in describing the extent of damage
• The Fukushima Daiichi plant was badly affected by an earthquake and tsunami in March
• Tokyo Electric Power Co. has avoided calling the event a meltdown

Tokyo (CNN) -- Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant experienced full meltdowns at three reactors in the wake of an earthquake and tsunami in March, the country's Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters said Monday.

The nuclear group's new evaluation, released Monday, goes further than previous statements in describing the extent of the damage caused by an earthquake and tsunami on March 11.

The announcement will not change plans for how to stabilize the Fukushima Daiichi plant, the agency said.

Reactors 1, 2 and 3 experienced a full meltdown, it said.

The plant's owner, Tokyo Electric Power Co., admitted last month that nuclear fuel rods in reactors 2 and 3 probably melted during the first week of the nuclear crisis. 

It had already said fuel rods at the heart of reactor No. 1 melted almost completely in the first 16 hours after the disaster struck. The remnants of that core are now sitting in the bottom of the reactor pressure vessel at the heart of the unit and that vessel is now believed to be leaking.

We 'came close' to losing northern Japan

TEPCO admits to more possible meltdowns

Orphaned by the tsunami

RELATED TOPICS

• 2011 Japan Disaster

A "major part" of the fuel rods in reactor No. 2 may have melted and fallen to the bottom of the pressure vessel 101 hours after the earthquake and tsunami that crippled the plant, Tokyo Electric said May 24.

The same thing happened within the first 60 hours at reactor No. 3, the company said, in what it called its worst-case scenario analysis, saying the fuel would be sitting at the bottom of the pressure vessel in each reactor building.

But Tokyo Electric at the same time released a second possible scenario for reactors 2 and 3, one that estimated a full meltdown did not occur. In that scenario, the company estimated the fuel rods may have broken but may not have completely melted.

Temperature data showed the two reactors had cooled substantially in the more than two months since the incident, Tokyo Electric said in May.

The earthquake and tsunami knocked out cooling systems at Fukushima Daiichi, causing the three operating reactors to overheat. That compounded a natural disaster by spewing radioactive material into the atmosphere.

Tokyo Electric avoided using the term "meltdown," and says it was keeping the remnants of the core cool. But U.S. experts interviewed by CNN after the company's announcement in May said that while it may have been containing the situation, the damage had already been done.

"On the basis of what they showed, if there's not fuel left in the core, I don't know what it is other than a complete meltdown," said Gary Was, a University of Michigan nuclear engineering professor and CNN consultant. And given the damage reported at the other units, "It's hard to imagine the scenarios can differ that much for those reactors."

A massive hydrogen explosion -- a symptom of the reactor's overheating -- blew the roof off the No. 1 unit the day after the earthquake, and another hydrogen blast ripped apart the No. 3 reactor building two days later. A suspected hydrogen detonation within the No. 2 reactor is believed to have damaged that unit on March 15.

CNN's Yoko Wakatsuki and Kyung Lah contributed to this report.

Tepco Failed to Disclose Scale of Fukushima Radiation Leaks, Academics Say

Stuart Biggs and Yuriy Humber, New York Times, May 27, 2011 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-27/tepco-faces-massive-problem-containing-radioactive-water-at-fukushima.html 

As a team from the International Atomic Energy Agency visits Tokyo Electric

Power Co.'s crippled nuclear plant today, academics warn the company has

failed to disclose the scale of radiation leaks and faces a "massive

problem" with contaminated water. 

The utility known as Tepco has been pumping cooling water into the three

reactors that melted down after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. By 

May 18, almost 100,000 tons of radioactive water had leaked into basements 

and other areas of the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant. The volume of radiated 

water may double by the end of December and will cost 42 billion yen ($518

million) to decontaminate, according to Tepco's estimates. 

"Contaminated water is increasing and this is a massive problem," Tetsuo

Iguchi, a specialist in isotope analysis and radiation detection at Nagoya

University, said by phone. "They need to find a place to store the

contaminated water and they need to guarantee it won't go into the soil." 

The 18-member IAEA team, led by the U.K.'s head nuclear safety inspector,

Mike Weightman, is visiting the Fukushima reactors to investigate the

accident and the response. Tepco and Japan's nuclear regulators haven't

updated the total radiation leakage from the plant since April 12. 

Tepco has been withholding data on radiation from Dai-Ichi, Goshi Hosono, 

an adviser to Japan's prime minister, said at a press briefing today. Hosono

said he ordered the utility to check for any data it hasn't disclosed and

release the material as soon as possible. 

'Public Distrust' 

"This kind of repetition will invite public distrust," Chief Cabinet Secretary 

Yukio Edano told reporters today when asked whether the perception

that the government has withheld data since the accident is eroding public

trust. "This is a grave situation for the entire nuclear energy administration 

as much as the accident itself is." 

Japan's nuclear safety agency estimated in April the radiation released 

fromDai-Ichi to be around 10 percent of that from the accident at 

Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union in 1986, while a Tepco official said 

at the time the amount may eventually exceed it. 

"Tepco knows more than they've said about the amount of radiation 

leaking from the plant," Jan van de Putte, a specialist in radiation safety 

trained at the Technical University of Delft in the Netherlands, said 

yesterday in Tokyo. "What we need is a full disclosure, a full inventory of 

radiation released including the exact isotopes." 

Leakage 

Radiation leakage from Fukushima was raised at a hearing of the U.S. 

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee this week. U.S. 

regulations may need to be changed after the Fukushima meltdown, 

William Ostendorff, a member of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 

Commission said. 

The Japanese utility is trying to put the reactors into a cold shutdown,

where core temperatures fall below 100 degrees Celsius (212 degrees

Fahrenheit), within six to nine months. Ostendorff rated the chance of 

Tepco achieving that goal at six or seven out of 10. 

Tepco took more than two months to confirm the meltdowns in three 

reactors and [only] this week reported the breaches in the containment 

chambers. The delay in releasing information has led to criticism of 

Prime Minister Naoto Kan for not doing more to ensure Tepco is 

keeping the public informed. 

'Fundamentally Incorrect' 

"What I told the public was fundamentally incorrect," Kan said in 

parliament on May 20, referring to assessments from the government 

and Tokyo that reactors were stable and the situation was contained 

not long after March 11. "The government failed to respond to Tepco's 

mistaken assumptions and I am deeply sorry." 

Public disagreements emerged this week between Tepco and the 

government over whether orders were given to halt seawater injection 

into reactors to cool them the day after the tsunami. 

Tepco is considering whether to discipline the manager of the 

Fukushima plant, Masao Yoshida, after he ignored an order to stop 

pumping seawater, Junichi Matsumoto, a general manager at the 

company, said yesterday. 

He was commenting after Kyodo News cited Tepco Vice-President 

Sakae Muto saying Yoshida will be removed for disobeying the order. 

Hosono said Yoshida is needed at the plant to contain the crisis. 

Blackout 

The earthquake and tsunami knocked out power in the Fukushima plant,

depriving reactor cooling systems of electricity. Fuel rods overheated,

causing fires, explosions and radiation leaks in the worst nuclear accident

since Chernobyl. 

Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency on April 12 raised the 

severity rating of the Fukushima accident to 7, the highest on the global 

scale and the same as Chernobyl. The partial reactor meltdown at Three 

Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979 is rated 5. 

The government needs to investigate the total amount of radiation leaked

from the plant to ascertain damage to the ocean from contaminated water,

said van de Putte, also a nuclear specialist at environmental group

Greenpeace International. 

The group found seaweed and fish contaminated to more than 50 times 

the 2,000 becquerel per kilogram legal limit for radioactive iodine-131 off 

the coast of Fukushima during a survey between May 3 and 9. 

Mol, [the] Belgium-based Nuclear Research Centre, and 

Hérouville-Saint-Clair, [the] France-based Association pour le Contrôle 

de la Radioactivité dans l'Ouest, confirmed they conducted analyses of 

the samples supplied by Greenpeace. 

Radiation Readings 

Ascertaining the cumulative volume of radiation emitted by the plant is

possible, van de Putte said. 

"Perhaps the government will speak about this matter after the detailed

accident analysis," the University of Nagoya's Iguchi said. "It's possible

to calculate this with the time-series plant data recorded in the control

room. The most important thing we need to know is the amount of fuel 

left in the reactor core." 

Tepco is planning to treat the contaminated water at Dai-Ichi with a unit

supplied by Areva SA (CEI) from mid-June. The decontamination 

equipment can process 1,200 tons of water a day, Tepco said. 

The company had little choice in pouring water on the reactors because 

the risk of contamination was outweighed by the [much greater] risk of 

leaving fuel rods exposed, Peter Burns, a nuclear physicist with 40 years 

of radiation safety experience, said in an interview. 

Burns, the former representative for Australia on the United Nations'

scientific committee on atomic radiation, added pumping in the water 

"was a desperate measure for desperate times." 

Fukishima - One of the Great Disasters in Modern Time: Allen L. Rowland blog

FUKUSHIMA / ONE OF THE GREATEST DISASTERS IN MODERN TIME

The silent monstrous killer of deadly radiation has been released at Fukushima and despite the denial of the Japanese government ~ its repercussions will be rapidly rising death rates. The lessons of Chernobyl 25 years ago offers Japan a deadly hint of what’s to come for clearly we are witnessing one of the greatest disasters in modern times: Allen L Roland

The mainstream media has all but buried the BP Deepwater Horizon drilling rig disaster off the coast of Louisiana on April 20, 2010 and the subsequent 210 million gallon oil gusher while Gulf coast residents continue to say “The oil is not gone. Dead wildlife are washing up on our shores by the hundreds, Entire livelihoods are in peril” in one of the world’s greatest ecological disasters.

Now the mainstream media is attempting to bury one of the greatest disasters in modern time in Fukushima where residents will soon be crying out that ” the radiation is not gone, people are dying and our livelihoods are in peril ” but this time other voices are being heard.

One of the most reliable voices speaking out on the Fukushima nuclear disaster is Arnie Gundersen who was an engineer and senior vice president with Danbury, Connecticut-based Nuclear Energy Services. He was as insider in commercial nuclear power generation, and understands reactor operation as well as any in his field.

Last week, when the Japanese government finally announced that the disaster rating at Fukushima went from 5 to 7 ~ the worst possible nuclear accident was finally acknowledged publicly. What went unacknowledged, according to Gundersen, was that in an instant the catastrophe became 100 times worse than had been previously reported. Each increase in numeric value officially acknowledges a ten-fold increase in level of nuclear disaster. In other words, from 5 to 7 was 10 x 10: or 100 times greater.

Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now!, interviewed Michio Kaku on her show last week and asked him the very same question about the raising of the category 5 to a 7 in par with Chernobyl. Dr. Michio Kaku ,professor of theoretical physics at the City University of New York and the City College of New York, confirmed that Tokyo Electric has been in denial trying to downplay the full impact of this nuclear accident ~ “However, there's a mathematical formula by which you can determine what level this accident is. This accident has already released something in the order of 50,000 trillion becquerels of radiation. You do the math. That puts it right in the middle of a level 7 nuclear accident. Still less than Chernobyl; however, radiation is continuing to leak out of the reactors. The situation is not stable at all … So, you're looking at a ticking time bomb. It appears stable but the slightest disturbance from a secondary earthquake, a pipe break, an evacuation of the crew at Fukushima can set off a full scale nuclear meltdown at three nuclear power plants far beyond what we saw at Chernobyl.”

Kaku is not a guy to be sneezed at. He's a Japanese American physicist, a best-selling author, a professor of theoretical physics at the University of New York, and the author of A Physics of the Future. This is a well-known expert in this field. He's telling the truth, and the truth is this: the Japanese government is in denial and Fukushima is a ticking time bomb.

What remains unacknowledged is that Fukushima is continuing to release terabecquerels of radioactive poison and will continue to do so for months, if not years but the public is not fully getting this message.

Gunderson's video presentation is an absolute must-watch. In the 7 and 3/4 minute video here, he exposes a great deal, including previously confidential NRC and nuclear industry inside information. It's clear, according to Gundersen, that March 21st, ten days after the earthquake and tsunami, the Fukushima disaster was already rated a 7 and that the NRC, the Nuclear Industry, and TEPCO were already limiting the flow of Information and still are for that matter.

Today, we have reported evidence that the level of radioactivity in the seawater dramatically rose again. Iodine-131 spiked to 6,500 times the legal limit and levels of cesium-134 and cesium-137 rose nearly four fold.

It is here that we should address the lessons of Chernobyl ~ after 25 years, some of Chernobyl’s radioactive substances have either decayed or migrated deeper into the ground. Although levels of cesium-137 are slowly falling, concentrations of this damaging bioactive element remain high in many areas. Half of the cesium-137 deposited in 1986 will have decayed into relatively stable barium-137 by 2016 but a quarter of it will still remain in 2046 (60 years after the Chernobyl disaster)

Plants and animals continue to recycle cesium-137 through their tissue and consequently suffer from chronic radiation syndrome, increased mortality, reproductive losses and genetic defects.

The legacy of iodine-131 is although it decays relatively soon after the accident ~ enough of it inhaled or consumed in milk will cause a significant increase in thyroid cancer. A recent U.N. Report, drawing on studies by Western researchers, said 6,000 cases of thyroid cancer could be linked to Chernobyl but evidence regarding other diseases is inconclusive. Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusan researchers, however, say their studies show increased incidence of high blood pressure, stroke, vascular disease and non-malignant thyroid diseases among the after effects of Chernobyl.

I agree with Jim Kirwin who writes ~ “ Much has been made, by comparisons to Chernobyl; but that event involved just one reactor and the dimensions of its meltdown were only delayed one day before the Russian government ordered evacuations just 24 hours after the world heard about it. Japan chose the opposite course and has still not owned up to just how deadly the meltdown of their six reactors really is. The amount of radiation being released is staggering; but the massive attempt by business, by governments and by the entire nuclear industry to cover-this-up is a crime against humanity! The tonnage of the fuel rods that have melted and burned, so far, makes Chernobyl look like backyard fireworks, compared to what has already been released into the global environment which is already enough to kill the planet many times over. This is the unimaginable disaster that makes contrived-fiction look like children’s fairy-tales; because the lives of all of us depend directly on what the world does now to end this continuing nightmare.”

"Fish in nearby waters are now being measured at 4,000% above the Codex Alimentation limits for Iodine-131 and 447% of Cesium-137. Radioactive cesium has a half-life of 30 years. Radiation levels for the isotope are not considered “safe” for 10 to 20 times longer. The cesium released today will remain dangerous six centuries from now.... “Fukushima has become the dirty bomb of the Pacific"....("Radiation Spreads Worldwide", Freedom Against Censorship Thailand, Global Research, April 14, 2011)

Will Englund, Washington Post, offers on the LESSONS OF CHERNOBYL a hint of the fate that may well face Japan ~ “Near Pripyat, the abandoned and now overgrown dormitory city for Chernobyl, where moss grows on the central square and the wind thrums through the rusting Ferris wheel ~ lies a more haunting place. It was once the village of Kopachi, which happens to mean "Gravedigger" in Ukrainian. Every house there was buried in 1991 because of contamination. When Gravedigger was interred, only a nursery school was left standing, with a memorial to the Soviet soldiers and the fierce battles they fought here in World War II. "No one forgets. Nothing is forgotten," reads the plaque on the memorial. But because of Chernobyl there is now no one here to remember.” http://www.courierpress.com/news/2011/apr/10/chernobyl-may-teach-grim-lesson-to-japan/

Let us hope that the same fate will not befall Fukashima, Japan ~ which is already deserted and decaying.

Allen L Roland

http://allenlrolandsweblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/fukushima-one-of-greatest-disasters-in.html

About the author: Freelance Alternative Press Online columnist and psychotherapist Allen L Roland is available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and private consultations ( allen@allenroland.com )

Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his web log and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net

Fukushima Reactors Catastrophe: Radiation Exposure, Lies and Cover-up

by Dr. Ilya Sandra Perlingieri
Global Research, March 26, 2011
Fukushima Reactor # 4 “Should the public discover the true health cost[s] of nuclear pollution, a cry would rise from all parts of the world and people would refuse to cooperate passively with their own death.” Dr. Rosalie Bertell. “No Immediate Danger,” xiii. I write this article not just as a long-time environmental writer and author, but also as a survivor of the horrific 2003 1-million-acre Southern California FIRESTORM that took many lives (both human and millions of animals) during the three-and-a-half-weeks of out-of-control blazes and 400-foot-high walls of flames throughout San Diego and Orange counties. This nightmare blanketed a vast area from over the border into Tijuana up to just south of Los Angeles. Many “back county” areas and national and state parks were also destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of us could not evacuate because planes were grounded and the flames crossed over many freeways. Death and destruction continued for many years after. Many of my friends have died since then, due to fire-related illnesses, as the entire area was blanketed with a spew of toxins. As with the tragedy of September 11th, when Christy Todd Whitman said New York’s air was okay, our local “public” officials refused to monitor the air. Finally, unable to breathe, even with a high-tech respirator, I called the county with warnings. San Diego air “quality” samples were posted for only three days and then conveniently disappeared. Toxins were off the scale. We had just 15 minutes to evacuate, when the helicopter flew overhead at 7 a.m. My entire neighborhood of 2,000 was destroyed, as well as 90 percent of all the wildlife! It was deliberately torched, and people and animals died. When we were finally allowed “home,” all that was left was burn, ash, skeletons of trees, and hot soil. I know what it means, day-to-day, to just barely survive a countywide catastrophe. I know what deep trauma is all about. I know how everyone in charge lies and deceives those of us in extremis. I know that when a place in the US is declared a “Federal Disaster” area, this quite literally means: “tough, you are on your own. There will be no help.” My heart aches for the people in Japan who are directly in harm’s way, while their government continues to make nuclear corporate profits the priority over the safety of millions of Japanese. It is criminal; and it happens all over. During and for years after the FIRESTORM, public officials lied and deceived us. Insurance companies refused to honor thousands of policies, and many of us had to take them to court…but even the “justice” system is rigged. From the mayor and fire officials to the governor and a so-called “Blue Ribbon Commission,” the 14 arson fires and their causes were all covered-up. No one was held accountable. No one told us the truth. Further, we barely had any real help in clean-up or recovery –even if we had insurance. Knee-deep in warm ash, I shoveled it myself over seven-and-a-half months, with only 5 days of help. Thousands of us had to do it ourselves…even to getting our own Relief Center set up –again, because officials gave us the run-around. A week-and-a-half into the Fukushima nuclear disaster, this is what is happening: 1. There are 4 reactors in various stages of collapse, releasing untold amount of dangerous radiation. Two more reactors may also be at risk. 2. The public generally has not been told that, in addition, there are 40 years of spent fuel rods on this already contaminated site. See: www.infowars.com/alert-fukushima-coverup-40-years-of-spent-nuclear-rods-blown-sky-high 3. Other fuel rods are fully exposed (meaning, unknown amounts of release of radiation) because they are no longer covered with the necessary 45-feet of water. 4. Last week the US refused to post online whatever radiation levels they were monitoring as radiation hits the West Coast and comes East. Then there were several reports that their monitors [all of them?] went off line, or crashed. It is doubtful that any official will report the truth. See: www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/03/you-can-view-official-epa-radiation.html The lies, criminality, and cover-up continue. This is how a totally broken system “works.” See: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23676 and http://www.infowars.com/pentagon-cover-up-of-data-on-fukushima-disaster Here is some additional excellent information about reactors and the extreme dangers of nuclear power: 1. Keith Harmon Snow’s “Nuclear Apocalypse in Japan. Lifting the Veil of Nuclear Catastrophe and cover-up”: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23764 2. A report from the New York Academy of Science has been published on “Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment”: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23745 3. List of US nuclear plants: www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/no_nukes/nukelist1.htm#MidWest Realistically, the Japanese catastrophe could last months or years, given the half-life of many radioactive particles. We don’t know, because no official or agency is reporting the truth, while we all are in danger of radiation exposure. How much? For how long? What kind (cesium, iodine, plutonium, strontium, uranium, all radioactive and each with different half life)? I think this catastrophe will turn out to be far worse than Chernobyl because again profits taken precedence over safety. See: www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtriAolCyow&feature=player_embedded and www.nytimes.com/2011/03/14/world/asia/japan-fukushima-nuclear-reactor.html?ref=asia I URGE EVERYONE who has access to a good Geiger counter or other monitoring technology to monitor radiation levels –most especially on the West Coast; and all other US states, as it comes East on the Jet Stream. Some radiation has already been reported in Washington state. One website is already monitoring the situation in real time in Santa Monica (near Los Angeles), CA: www.enviroreporter.com/2011/03/enviroreporter-coms-radiation-station But we need much more collecting and reporting of radiation data. This is extremely urgent! Remember, for the past 12-15 years, our weather and air have been altered and deliberately manipulated. All along the Pacific Coast, from San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver, we need real-time radiation figures. This goes for Canada, too. We can post these results on this website and others, so we can have an accurate collective picture of the on-going radiation dangers we may be facing throughout North America. This is a highly dangerous, yet invisible and real threat to our safety and wellbeing –most especially for children who are most vulnerable! [I also remind readers that the ENTIRE Gulf of Mexico, and its nearby southern states, continues to be poisoned daily in an unmitigated crisis!] From the very beginning, nuclear energy has been totally unsafe. Even early on in the 1950s, when there were nuclear tests in Nevada, citizens were never warned about the extreme toxicity and dangers to which they were exposed. For our entire lives, the nuclear industry has done decades-long media campaigns to give us misinformation and lies. It’s all about greed, but never about our safety or well-being. The US government has indemnified these companies, just as they have done with the pharmaceutical companies and their dangerous drugs. We are all expendable, except as uninformed consumers to buy their toxic products, and then for the next generation to repeat this insanity. With each new generation that is less well educated (dumbed-down, and often on prescription drugs from an early age), there is less information, no accountability, but millions more people who now are far more ill from an environment rife with thousands of poisons that surround our every move. Some of the Nuclear Dangers include: 1. The reactors have design flaws, as does Fukushima’s Mark 1, built by GE. There are many of these same-designed reactors here in the US. On March 16, the NY Times reported some of these flaws. But, it is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg: www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/world/asia/16contain.html?_r=2&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2 2. For radioactive nuclear waste, there is no safe or secure storage anywhere on this planet. There are 1,623 hazardous Superfund sites all over the US (such as Hanford Nuclear Reservation, built in 1942, near Richland, WA, and the now highly polluted Columbia River) leaking radioactive poisons on a daily basis for decades. There is another working nuclear facility, San Onofre, located between San Diego and Los Angeles along the beach right on the Pacific Ocean. This facility was built on the San Andreas fault, an active earthquake zone. The nuclear contamination is enormous and, every day, this puts us all at risk. Dr. Rosalie Bertell, one of the world’s leading authorities who has written extensively about the spectacular flaws and true costs of nuclear energy, notes: “The problem of secure storage of nuclear waste…remains dangerous for millennia.” [See also her quote at the beginning of this article.] 3. The half-life of many radioactive elements is thousands of years. There is no safe level of exposure! It’s all Orwellian media hype and corporate lies. The plutonium fuel used at Fukushima Unit 3 reactor uses MOX [mixed oxide], a plutonium-uranium fuel mixture. A single milligram of MOX is 2-million times more deadly that enriched uranium. NOTE: Plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24,000 years; and Uranium-235 has a half-life of 700-million years. 4. Hiroshima and Nagasaki Atomic bomb survivors are still being monitored. Birth defects, cancers, and miscarriages are high, just as these continue to be so at Chernobyl. This April 25, it will be 25 years since Chernobyl’s nuclear catastrophe. Sterility figures (for human and all other life) continue to increase. Nothing is healed. Nothing is fixed for millions of people. The children are most vulnerable, and suffer enormously. 5. The horrific on-going crisis in Iraq [an ancient culture was illegally invaded and destroyed!] is also greatly exacerbated due to US bombings of Depleted (Radioactive) Uranium, poisoning the entire population. Now, illness and birth defects are common throughout the entire Iraqi population. It is all for control of their oil. Afghanis were also illegally bombed with DU. Is Libya next with yet another illegal invasion and DU bombings? None of the real and tragic stories are ever reported by the mainstream corporate-controlled media. This is in violation of international law and the Geneva Conventions. This is heinous! However, it all is irrelevant how much harm is perpetrated on innocent civilian populations when criminals are in charge. War is big business, while the rest of our economy is in a state of deliberately orchestrated collapse. Connecting the Dots of Harm The new report (#53) from GEAB [Global Europe Assessment Bulletin] published on March 17 from Brussels also is important news not generally reported. GEAB has been quite accurate in their evaluations, as the US economy (everything but military expenditures) continues to be intentionally destroyed: www.leap2020.eu/Global-systemic-crisis-Second-half-of-2011-Get-ready-for-the-meltdown-of-the-US-Treasury-Bond-market_a6091.html Last week world-renowned author Dr. Helen Caldicott, co-founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility, gave a lecture in Montreal on the dangers of the nuclear age. Dr. Caldicott has spent almost 40 years educating the public about the serious medical dangers surrounding this topic and the now very urgently needed changes in human behavior to stop the extensive environmental devastation. Although the lecture has not been posted online, here is a recent interview (March 12): www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23663 Finally, there are other enormous concerns regarding our safety and well-being, because there is absolutely NO PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE in place. That is the elite insider’s plan: grave harm! We MUST address these vital issues on a grassroots level, because those in charge are the ones causing us such extreme injury. We will need the help of independent scientists and health-care providers.  It is a given that we no longer have any real air “quality.” What we are breathing with every single breath is a hazardous, now plasma-state, spew.(1) This impacts our immune system at the celluar DNA level. How will the thousands of tons of aerosolized poisons in Chemtrails, sprayed around the world, interact with radioactive materials (especially those with a long half life)? What might be the detrimental synergistic interaction(s) among the nano-Morgellons-fibers (that Clifford Carnicom has been researching microscopically for a decade(2), found in human, animals, and environmental samples), the nano-particles of fiber-coated aluminum, and now-unknown quantities of various radioactive particles? How might all of this also interact with possibly thousands of tons of deadly Corexit 9500 dispersant sprayed (on land and over water for many months) and the unconscionable release of “Synthia,” a genetically modified synthetic genome bacteria now replicating exponentially throughout the Gulf of Mexico.(3) Tragically, the Gulf is now a biological and chemical war zone. However, it is all happening on an invisible level. This hazardous Gulf spew is in addition to what is heading our way from Japan to North America and thence to Europe and Asia.  We must wake up. There is much we can do! Will YOU help? NOTES: 1. Clifford Carnicom discusses the plasma state and other vital environmental issues in a recent web interview: www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTVpsmBNvL8 2. “The Biggest Crime of All Time.” March 1, 2011: www.carnicom.com/bio2011-2.htm 3. “Synthia”: www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NejKdYA05M; “Permanent Biological Contamination of the Gulf”: http://worldvisionportal.org/wvpforum/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=1354 and Michael Edwards. “It’s not wise to fool other Nature.” This is part 1 of 4:http://worldvisionportal.org/wvpforum/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=1031 Essential reading: Dr. Rosalie Bertell. “No Immediate Danger” and “ Planet Earth: The Latest Weapon of War.” Theo Colburn et al. “Our Stolen Future.” Pierpaolo Mittica et al. “Chernobyl. The Hidden Legacy.” London: Trolley, Ltd., 2007. There is a section in this book written by Dr. Bertell. Educator and environmental writer Dr. Ilya Sandra Perlingieri is the author of the highly acclaimed book, “The Uterine Crisis.” London’s “The Ecologist” calls this book “an inspiration.” She is an Associate of the Carnicom Institute.
Ilya Sandra Perlingieri is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Ilya Sandra Perlingieri

overview of depleted uranium by Sherwood Ross, November 2007

Radioactive Ammunition Fired in Middle East May Claim More Lives Than Hiroshima and Nagasaki by Sherwood Ross By firing radioactive ammunition, the U.S., U.K., and Israel may have triggered a nuclear holocaust in the Middle East that, over time, will prove deadlier than the U.S. atomic bombing of Japan. So much ammunition containing depleted uranium(DU) has been fired, asserts nuclear authority Leuren Moret, "The genetic future of the Iraqi people for the most part, is destroyed." "More than ten times the amount of radiation released during atmospheric testing (of nuclear bombs) has been released from depleted uranium weaponry since 1991," Moret writes, including radioactive ammunition fired by Israeli troops in Palestine. Moret is an independent U.S. scientist formerly employed for five years at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and also at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, both of California. Adds Arthur Bernklau, of Veterans For Constitutional Law, " The long- term effect of DU is a virtual death sentence. Iraq is a toxic wasteland. Anyone who is there stands a good chance of coming down with cancer and leukemia. In Iraq, the birth rate of mutations is totally out of control." Moret, a Berkeley, Calif., Environmental Commissioner and past president of the Association for Women Geoscientists, says, "For every genetic defect that we can see now, in future generations there are thousands more that will be expressed." She adds, "the (Iraq) environment now is completely radioactive." Dr. Helen Caldicott, the prominent anti-nuclear crusader, has written: "Much of the DU is in cities such as Baghdad, where half the population of 5 million people are children who played in the burned- out tanks and on the sandy, dusty ground." "Children are 10 to 20 times more susceptible to the carcinogenic effects of radiation than adults," Caldicott wrote. "My pediatric colleagues in Basra, where this ordnance was used in 1991, report a sevenfold increase in childhood cancer and a sevenfold increase in gross congenital abnormalities," she wrote in her book, "Nuclear Power is not the Answer"(The New Press). Caldicott goes on to say the two Gulf wars " have been nuclear wars because they have scattered nuclear material across the land, and people---particularly children--- are condemned to die of malignancy and congenital disease essentially for eternity." Because of the extremely long half-life of uranium 238, one of the radioactive elements in the shells fired, " the food, the air, and the water in the cradle of civilization have been forever contaminated," Caldicott explained. Uranium is a heavy metal that enters the body via inhalation into the lung or via ingestion into the GI tract. It is excreted by the kidney, where, if the dose is high enough, it can induce renal failure or kidney cancer. It also lodges in the bones where it causes bone cancer and leukemia, and it is excreted in the semen, where it mutates genes in the sperm, leading to birth deformities. Nuclear contamination is spreading around the world, Caldicott adds, with heaviest concentrations in regions within a 1,000-mile radius of Baghdad and Afghanistan. These are, notably, northern India, southern Russia, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Tibet, Pakistan, Kuwait, the Gulf emirates, and Jordan. " Downwind from the radioactive devastation in Iraq, Israel is also suffering from large increases in breast cancer, leukemia and childhood diabetes," Moret asserts. Doug Rokke, formerly the top U.S. Army DU clean-up officer and now anti-DU crusader, says Israeli tankers fired radioactive shells during the invasion of Lebanon last year. U.S. and NATO forces also used DU ammunition in Kosovo. Rokke says he is quite ill from the effects of DU and that members of his clean-up crew have died from it. As a result of DU bombardments, Caldicott writes, "Severe birth defects have been reported in babies born to contaminated civilians in Iraq, Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan and the incidence and severity of defects is increasing over time." Like symptoms have been reported among infants born to U.S. service personnel that fought in the Gulf Wars. One survey of 251 returned Gulf War veterans from Mississippi made by the Veterans Administration found 67% of children born to them suffered from "severe illnesses and deformities." Some were born without brains or vital organs or with no arms, hands, or arms, or with hands attached to their shoulders. While U.S. officials deny DU ammunition is dangerous, it is a fact Gulf War veterans were the first Americans ever to fight on a radioactive battlefield, and their children apparently are the first known to display these ghastly deformities. Soldiers who survived being hit by radioactive ammunition, as well as those who fired it, are falling ill, often showing signs of radiation sickness. Of the 700,000 U.S. veterans of the first Gulf War, more than 240,000 are on permanent medical disability and 11,000 are dead, published reports indicate. This is an astonishing toll from such a short conflict in which fewer than 400 U.S. soldiers were killed on the battlefield. Of course, "depleted uranium munitions were and remain another causative factor behind Gulf War Syndrome(GWS)," writes Francis Boyle, a leading American authority on international law in his book "Biowarfare and Terrorism," from Clarity Press Inc. "The Pentagon continues to deny that there is such a medical phenomenon categorized as GWS---even beyond the point where everyone knows that denial is pure propaganda and disinformation," Boyle writes. Boyle contends, "The Pentagon will never own up to the legal, economic, tortious, political, and criminal consequences of admitting the existence of GWS. So U.S. and U.K. veterans of Gulf War I as well as their afterborn children will continue to suffer and die. The same will prove true for U.S. and U.S. veterans of Bush Jr.'s Gulf War II as well as their afterborn children." Boyle said the use of DU is outlawed under the 1925 Geneva Convention prohibiting poison gas. Chalmers Johnson, president of the Japan Policy Research Institute, writes in his "The Sorrows of Empire"(Henry Holt and Co.) that, given the abnormal clusters of childhood cancers and deformities in Iraq as well as Kosovo, the evidence points "toward a significant role for DU." By insisting on its use, Johnson adds, "the military is deliberately flouting a 1996 United Nations resolution that classifies DU ammunition as an illegal weapon of mass destruction." Moret calls DU "the Trojan Horse of nuclear war." She describes it as "the weapon that keeps killing." Indeed, the half-life of Uranium-238 is 4.5-billion years, and as it decays it spawns other deadly radioactive by-products. Radioactive fallout from DU apparently blew far and wide. Following the initial U.S. bombardment of Iraq in 2003, DU particles traveled 2,400 miles to Great Britain in about a week, where atmospheric radiation quadrupled. But it is in the Middle East, predominantly Iraq, where the bulk of the radioactive waste has been dumped. In the early Nineties, the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority warned that 50 tons of dust from DU explosions could claim a half million lives from cancer by year 2000. Not 50 tons, but an estimated two thousand radioactive tons have been fired off in the Middle East, suggesting the possibility over time of an even higher death toll. Dr. Keith Baverstock, a World Health Organization radiation advisor, informed the media, Iraq's arid climate would increase exposure from its tiny particles as they are blown about and inhaled by the civilian population for years to come. The civilian death toll from the August, 1945, U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has been put at 140,000 and 80,000, respectively. Over time, however, deaths from radiation sickness are thought to have claimed the lives of another 100,000 Japanese civilians. Sherwood Ross is a Miami, Florida-based free-lance writer who covers military and political topics. Reach him at sherwoodr1@yahoo.com. Ross has worked as a reporter for the Chicago Daily News and several wire services and is a contributor to national magazines.

Sherwood Ross is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Sherwood Ross