3/30/11

GoodMan

Atomic Energy Agency calls for evacuation of a village

Critics demand extension of protection zone / Tepco announced demolition of the nuclear ruins in Fukushima
Berlin - The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has advised the Japanese government to expand the evacuation zone around the broken down nuclear power plants in Fukushima Daiichi by at least the there Iitate with about 7,000 inhabitants. There were the IAEA experts were the highest radiation levels, announced by the organization in Vienna. Also on Wednesday atom critical organizations in Japan have called in an open letter to Prime Minister Naoto Kan and the Health Minister Hosokawa Ritsuo to increase the evacuation zone to 30 kilometers. The petition states: "The call for a voluntary evacuation to residents who live 20 to 30 kilometers around the nuclear power plants is irresponsible.

"The environmental group Greenpeace, who presented on Wednesday in Tokyo own measurements, called for an increase in the evacuation zone to 40 kilometers.
In contrast, keeps Professor Michael Atkinson, director of the Institute for Radiation Biology at the Helmholtz-Zentrum in Munich, for previously arranged evacuation in a 20-kilometer zone is sufficient. "One must always assess whether the risk of higher radiation exposure than the problems of evacuation," he told the news agency dpa. During the evacuation from the 20-mile radius in which 70 000 people were affected, there had been six deaths, argues Atkinson.

Would a 30-kilometer zone evacuated another 130 000 people would be housed outside the danger zone. They have been asked by the government not to leave their homes and keep windows closed and doors. Greenpeace criticized the focus. Jan van de Putte said: "The government fails to protect the people, to bring them out of danger or even to inform appropriate."

It also criticized the Citizens' Nuclear Information Center (CNIC). Together with other nuclear organizations critical calls the CNIC that publish the government not only values, but to estimate the dose for the residents, resulting from the cumulative radiation doses. In contrast, local residents could not assess the danger zone t, how high their risk is. Greenpeace pointed to measurements in Tsushima, some 35 kilometers away from nuclear power plants. There, the organization has measured up to 100 micro Sievert per hour. The maximum annual dose to people living near nuclear facilities, whether there reached within eight hours, argues Greenpeace. should leave especially pregnant women and children that zone, should the environmental organization. In contrast, keeps the nuclear regulatory authority Nisa, the values ​​for pregnant women and children for not more serious.

However, the authorities are not able to enforce even the 20-kilometer zone. More and more people return to the restricted area. On Wednesday, the first 1,500 of a meeting hall in which they had endured since the accident, was taken to a school outside the exclusion zone. There, they will probably set up on a longer stay. The news agency Kyodo quoted government spokesman Yukio Edano as saying: "Regrettably, there will be some time before the situation can be brought under control, so that we can be sure that people are safe from radioactivity." Information for those affected existed for nearly two and half weeks of nothing but such allusions. Clear information on which they have set themselves, it is not present. The newspaper Asahi reported on Wednesday on the suicide of farmers from the region of Fukushima. Already on 24 March he had committed suicide because he saw no way to sell his vegetables.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Kan public thinks about it, extract the nuclear regulatory from the Ministry of Economy. Apparently he now doubts about the independence of the authority has made during the nuclear crisis, not a very good figure. But this is true even more for the operating company, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO). On Wednesday, the head of the company, Masataka Shimizu, admitted with high blood pressure and dizziness in a clinic. There had been rumors that he might have settled out. He was only once, two days after the beginning of the crisis, appeared before the press.

His deputy, Tsunehisa Katsumata, announced on Wednesday - not surprisingly - in that at least four broken down nuclear power plants in Fukushima Daiichi will be demolished if they will be in the distant future, once stabilized. Whether the reactors are demolished 5 and 6, saying he would not. But government spokesman Edano thinks this is possible. Also plans two more reactors at the site to build, will have to be discussed with the local population, it said. In the plant, the workers continued to fight with highly contaminated water that is in the turbine hall and can not be pumped out because of lack of tanks. On Thursday, a remote-controlled vehicle spray debris in the system with synthetic resin. This is to "stick" radioactive particles to the debris and so prevent them distributed by the wind.