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| WATCHING THE ARTRANT VIDEO: 'UP YOURS' |
And so, as they say, in two days it will be exactly two years since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant reared its monstrous heads from the debris of a giant tsunami. Only a fool, or a team of fools, would build a nuclear power plant comprising six nuclear reactors with used fuel rods stored in tanks exposed to the air on a beach in one of the most active earthquake zones in the world, and on a coastline subject to gigantic land-invading waves. Or so any intelligent person would think. The problem is not so much Fukushima, for that problem will be "cleaned up in forty years" according to TEPCO at a cost of "$600 billion" but Japan itself. With fifty-six nuclear power plants sitting on or near active fault lines the future for the whole world is in the balance. Our very existence as a species may depend on what is happening with three tectonic plates converging under the Sea of Japan. In Japan there's enough plutonium and uranium to wipe us all off the map. If not immediately, apart from those in the vicinity, this will be due to horrible cancers and mutations developing in the course of time. It is probably too late to close the nuclear door. That apocalyptic horseman has already bolted. But maybe we could close it anyway. If only that someone somewhere may one day say: Well, at least they did something.
Additional Notes:
"People from the nuclear evacuation zone are stigmatized in the rest of Japan" Hirooki Yabe (psychiatrist).
The number of affected people now living in emergency accommodation two years after the tsunami is 320,000 of which 210,000 are from the radiation evacuation zone. - official figures -
"Thousands of nuclear refugees have to pay off the credit taken out on their now worthless properties." Yasuhi Tadano (lawyer).
How to submit a claim for compensation: Send for the 156 page instruction book containing advice and instructions on filling in the 60 page application form. Don't forget supporting receipts. Send everything to the 12,200 persons employed by Tepco to work out the correct compensation.
Mr K, 57, offered the equivalent of €5,500 for his 300 sq meter home in Okuma, 3 miles from the Fukushima Daiichi.
Mr N offered €117 a month towards petrol costs to travel to his farm and attend to his crops and animals. "This has no sense," said the farmer "for no-one will buy anything from me."
Mr K, kidney problems, is receiving nothing.
Reminder:
The Medical and Ecological Consequences of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident is scheduled for 11th, 12th, March 2013 at the New York Academy of Medicine.
I so agree with you. A year ago I came across a website which had a film about Chernobyl twenty-five years later, and the terrible mutations visited on the children of those who were children at the time. Can't imagine what those from Japan will have in twenty-five years.
ReplyDeleteSharing my poem about it with you here:
Chernobyl
Toska –
Russian word which means
Dull ache in the soul.
Light of sun distilled, forced
through tunnels into funnels
glowing the teeth of the smile of the
child in Hiroshima.
Japanese Earthquake
rips up the nuclear power plants
and clouds of it
rain down and out into the air,
into the nose and mouth,
into the lungs, the genes.
In Chernobyl twenty five years later
the children of the children who breathed in the poison
have gene blasted brains,
gene ruined sclerotic muscles,
humps on the back
where their kidneys live
outside their bodies,
blood ruined arteries,
lymphless legs.
On their TVs
they're watching the Japanese earthquake
and its incense of radiance.
Anne Higgins
Addendum to my previous comment.
ReplyDeleteI was trying to remember the name and address of that website:
Chernobyl – Magnum in Motion website:
http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/essay/chernobyl
Anne, many thanks for sharing your very moving poem.
ReplyDeleteThe last 3 lines very fine and strong. I was going to write a similar poem as I've seen many photos of the damaged children of Chernobyl. But of course I've never seen them in the mainstream media. You have to search around on the internet to find the truth about it all it seems. The reason I didn't write the poem was that it made so sad and after two lines I was totally depressed by those images and the hidden facts. I managed to get some charity money from some people in the UK to some people going from Austria to the Ukraine who gave it directly into the hands of a group of nuns who were running a school in the affected area. That's the only way you can really do anything positive because of corruption nearly everywhere. But Japan is different. Many young Japanese girls are now working in the red light industry in Europe, where it used to be girls from Ukraine, rather than stay in Japan. There are many other unseen consequences but you'd go crazy thinking about them all.
There's now a youtube link to the artrant video up yours by clicking on the photo on this post
ReplyDelete