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David Guttenfelder / AP
Workers in protective suits gather near their lockers inside the emergency operation center at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima prefecture, Nov. 12. Members of the media were allowed into the plant on Saturday for the first time since the March 11 tsunami and earthquake triggered the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.
Photographer David Guttenfelder writes:
Today was a very rare chance to see inside the grounds of Fukushima's Dai-ichi nuclear power plant. It was the first time that the media was allowed access to the site since March, when the earthquake and tsunami triggered explosions and the reactors began to melt down.
A group of about 50 or more journalists was allowed to go in Saturday. I was the only non-Japanese photographer. We had to put on white haz-mat protective suits, two pairs of gloves, double layers of thick white plastic booties over our shoes, a head cover and a full respirator mask. Officials covered my cameras with plastic bags. I wasn't going to be able to change the settings on my cameras, change the batteries and memory cards, or switch lenses once the bags were sealed shut.
We boarded two buses and drove past a police checkpoint and into the "exclusion zone"— a 20-kilometer-radius contaminated no-man's land surrounding the destroyed power plant. Everything looks like a ghost town inside the zone. Earthquake rubble still lies in piles. Vending machines sit idle. We saw a pachinko pinball parlor with its front wall caved in. Overgrown weeds and creeping grasses have begun to reclaim abandoned parking lots and sidewalks. Stray cows, dogs and cats still wandered around and crows picked through garbage. The radiation meters showed between 1 and 7 microsieverts here.
Guards in protective suits checked our buses and waved us through the gate of Dai-ichi. Almost immediately I could see the stacks and ravaged exterior of one of the units. From a distance we stopped the bus and photographed the plant. Japanese TV correspondents did their "stand-ups" wearing the full spacesuits from inside the bus. Then we drove remarkably close to the reactors.
The buses moved along a narrow street tightly squeezed between the outer wall of the building units and the sea. We were only about 20 yards from the plant wall. The place is devastated. Walls are sheared away. Overturned vehicles and twisted steel beams lie upside down in huge earthquake craters. Abandoned pump trucks, used in early efforts to cool the site, sit idle. Dozens of hoses snake across the ground and through open doors or ruptures in the walls. Everywhere, there are pools of water. Elsewhere on the grounds there were dozens of busy workers. But next to the reactors, there are no signs of life. The radiation meters showed 300 microsieverts even inside the bus.
It wasn't that easy to photogaph. We were not allowed to get out of the bus which kept moving. We probably had about 3 minutes in total to shoot while the bus rolled past, close to the plant. In fact, we were so close to the plant that my widest lens could only make a full frame of nothing but twisted debris.
We also visited an emergency operation center near the reactors. I think this place was actually more interesting than seeing the damaged reactor itself because it was here that I found the people. Inside was a giant planning room. On the walls were monitors showing live video feeds on flat screen TVs. Men in white suits and masks typed on computers and added figures on desk calculators. Workers rested on the floor against their lockers. Everyone looked a bit weary to me.
I think everyone is wondering, "Who are these people who go to the plant each day to make a living and, on behalf of the country, to battle the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl?"
Read more here.
David Guttenfelder / AP
The crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station is seen through a bus window in Okuma on Nov. 12. Japan took a group of journalists inside the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant for the first time, stepping up its efforts to prove to the world it is on top of the disaster.
David Guttenfelder / AP
Officials from the Tokyo Electric Power Co. and Japanese journalists pass by a newly built sea barricade next to the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station in Okuma, Japan, Nov. 12. Media allowed into Japan's tsunami-damaged nuclear power plant for the first time Saturday saw a striking scene of devastation: twisted and overturned vehicles, crumbling reactor buildings and piles of rubble virtually untouched since the wave struck more than eight months ago.
David Guttenfelder / AP
The crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station is seen through a bus window in Okuma, Japan, Nov. 12.
David Guttenfelder / AP
A deserted street inside the contaminated exclusion zone around the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is seen from bus windows in Fukushima prefecture, Nov. 12. Conditions at Japan's wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant, devastated by a tsunami in March, were slowly improving to the point where a "cold shutdown" would be possible as planned, officials said on Saturday during a tour of the facility.
David Guttenfelder / AP
A worker carries his belongings as he walks among the temporary housing structures erected for workers at J-Village, a soccer training complex now serving as an operation base for those battling Japan's nuclear disaster, near Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO)'s tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Fukushima prefecture Nov. 11, eight months after the disaster.
David Guttenfelder / AP
A man dresses in a room where workers leave their clothing before putting on protective suits at J-Village, Nov. 11. Japan's lower house approved a 156 billion USD draft budget to finance post quake reconstruction and boost an economy hit by slow global growth and a strong yen.
David Guttenfelder / AP
A worker, left, steps from a radiation screening machine after removing and discarding his protective suit as he arrives at J-Village, Nov. 11.
David Guttenfelder / AP
Men sort and clean protective masks at J-Village, Nov. 11.
David Guttenfelder / AP
An employee of Tokyo Electric Power Co. looks at piles of used protective clothing that was worn by workers inside the contaminated "exclusion zone," and later will be placed inside containers at J-Village.
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wow.
I think thats all there is to say.
For decades, nuke experts claimed nuke power was safe. With the help of the media masquerading info-commercial as real journalism, the people blindly believed all the propaganda.
Then came the highly publicized nuke disasters at Chernolbyl(sic), Three Mile Island, and Fukushima. But there were other nuke accidents not placed on the front pages. Not made public were lesser disaster at Detroit's Fermi reactor, still encased in concrete for more than 60 years; TVA spills, release and leak of radioactive materials; Oregon's Hansford defunct nuke facility, so massively contaminated that it qualifies as a superfund site; etc.
In the early days of nuke propaganda, paid scientists stated electricity generated by nuke would be too cheap to require measuring. Another claimed that plutonium is so innocuous that swallowing a teaspoon of it wouldn't cause any harm. Still another is the safe storage of several thousands of tons of nuke waste for several thousands of years.
Those are just some of the many blatant lies from the nuke industry.
There are actually more radioactive contamination incidents at coal fired plants from the coal ash (details on that here: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste) than there have been from actual nuclear plants. Whether or not the coal ash is more harmful than nuclear waste.... well it all depends really; how much gets leaked, how many people come into contact with it, etc etc.
Brokinarrow:
The quantity and quality of the radioactive elements from a nuke plant are substantially different than those found in coal fired plants. Radioactivity is a generic term that measures alpha, beta, and gamma rays but does not differentiate them or the duration or longevity of the radiation, the half-life of the isotope.
Nuclear fission produces an abundance of stray neutrons that create radioactive isotopes. Some, like heavy water, is short lived. But others have half-life that is measured in thousands of years. When a stray neutron creates a radioactive isotope outside the confines of the core reactor, a radioactive 'flea' may be deposited on a worker. Too many outbreak of these 'fleas' poses a danger to workers and the Federal Nuclear Regulatory Agency has set a limit as to the quantity of 'fleas' exposed per person per day. Furthermore, no 'flea' may ever leave the nuke plant on a worker. There is no risk of radioactive 'fleas' in coal plants.
The radioactive danger from coal ash is negligible when compared with the various kind of radioactive danger created within a nuke plant. I suspect the nuke power industry has sponored a research paper to exaggerate the safety of nuke plants over coal plants. As most American students scored dead last in science and math, it is not surprising so many Americans are so gullible and vulnerable to propaganda.
Negligible until the stuff (that sits in piles outside) blows in the wind and people inhale it... I'm not saying the nuclear plants don't have their own issues, just that there are other power plants that cause just as many issues.
Brokinarrow:
Nuclear Regulatory Agency prohibit any radioactive 'stuff' from nuke plants to be place outside in piles "until the stuff blows in the wind and people inhale it...." All dangerous radioactive waste from nuke plants must be evaluated. They are then contained and sealed in approved containment vessels and stored at locations that protect them from corrosion and rupture. As of this writing no states want to store radioactive nuke waste for thousands of years. Not even in the mine shafts of the Yucca Mountains of Nevada.
While all power plants creates environmental problems, the nuke plants are unique in that the deadly nuke waste have longevity of several thousands of years as half-life and there is no known technology that will neutralize the lethal radioactivity.
I suspect Fukushima is far worse than Chernobyl was.
I suspect you're totally wrong.
Completely wrong.
False, expat. Educate yourself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl
Fukushima isn't worse than Chernobyl because of some of the lessons we learned from Chernobyl. The safety measures in place kept it from being the kind of disaster Chernobyl was and is.
OH .., MY ... GOSH ...
It's utterly disgraceful that, if not our best ally in the Far East, the U. S., hasn't been more involved in aiding them. After all Jimmy Carter made an on site visit to the Three Mile Island after their problem. There has been no dignitary, to boost the Japanese morale , of the sort from the U.S. that I'm aware. Maybe President Obama will take time, after his Indonesia trip , make his presence there in Japan.
I don't think the Japanese need a visit from some foreign ally to "boost their morale". And we HAVE been sending them aid: http://www.usaid.gov/japanquake/
We (the population of the US) "aid" everyone. Of course we're aiding them. At some point, though, we're going to have to cut way, way back on all aid outside our own country.
I may be wrong, but I don't remember hearing of Japan sending any Japanese troops to the Middle East to "aid" in the so-called "coalition".
Japan's constitution forbids them sending such forces. They did contribute a number of medical teams, got hospitals back on their feet, and contributed a lot of cold cash - more so than a lot of the U.S.'s friends.
Thanks for that, Michael. A lot of us (like me) shouldn't talk out of our butts so often. That's why I come here: to learn and to argue with Republicans. :)
Why coitenly!
I wish I had included the fact that it is the U.S., during the occupation after World War 2, who "insisted" on the demilitarization language in their constitution. If the U.S. is unhappy with Japan's military contribution, it is merely reaping what has been sown. I wonder how different the world may have been in the 66 years since the end of WW2 if Japan had not changed course?
(And you are welcome to argue with THIS Republican anytime!)
awww, my friends are friends. ;-)
Beach, Michael is one of those reasonable awesome republicans who actually knows things! He's pretty great to talk to.
(But I'm hesitant to admit to such in public....)
Hi Mandy!
I fully support you Michael, I got your back!
Intelligent discourse is what I care about, and you definitely bring that. We may argue about philosophical issues (I still contend we need to start manned now), but you always bring rational arguments to the table that I actually need to spend time thinking about and/or research.
Mitchell
Yes, Mitchell - you and your damnable "logic" and "facts" - you fight dirty! ;-p
The Japanese have both the intelligence and capacity to build a nuclear weapon. But they won't.
And to Brokinarrow: Yeah, after WWII I guess, yeah, we did help "rebuild" Japan (like we did in Europe.) Your point???
(Japan is our ally/friend -- keep reading and don't be such a dimwit.)
After WWII Japan was in such disgrace they bowed to every demand the Allied Forces put on them... e.g., no standing Army, no Navy, no weapons( esp. Nuclear), etc. And thus, they are now not only our ally, but our true FRIEND! Japan is basically a volcano surrounded by a bit of shoreline; it has little "natural resources." (People -- look at a map!)
In the mid 80s, Japan kept the (sinking) USA afloat. Many folk had the (misguided) attitude Japan was "buying" America. Wrong -- their yen (into dollars) kept us going -- as was deemed necessary by the IMF and the World Bank.
JAPAN: our TRUE friend.
EXAMPLE: France, who is our ally (but not necessarily "friend") has a lot more nuclear power plants than anyone. Unlike France (in the center of Western Europe), Japan is an isolated democracy in Asia. Then again, the French hate us for having to rescue their butts twice (WWI and WWII -- they're still kinda sensitive about that.)
To the point: for some nations, nuclear power is the least-bad alternative... friend or not.
Push comes to shove, I'll put my money on Japan to come to our aid if/when (again) we need it!
Boris - hey thanks for insulting me instead of politely arguing your point buddy. As I pointed out, we HAVE been sending them money and even volunteers to help with the clean up, or did you not even bother to check the link before you dismissed my claims?
Forgot to mention...
In 1988 I lost my job because "those Japanese" bought us out an modernized the facility.
In 1995, I got "my" job back. Well, not "my job," but a better one at the same factory. (I'm an engineer - only a BS, but an Engineer.)
After the whole Bush Jr thing... my job went away. At least I'm employed again now.