Tag Archives: Chernobyl disaster
110412top

Army Stockpiles Anti-Radiation Pills To Protect Against Fukushima Fallout

Defense Logistics Agency cites ongoing crisis in Japan as reason behind bulk purchase

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Wednesday, April 11, 2012

The Troop Support branch of the Defense Logistics Agency has decided to replenish its stockpiles of anti-radiation pills, citing the ongoing crisis at Fukushima and the potential for nuclear fallout as a primary reason behind the bulk purchase.

According to a solicitation on the FedBizOpps.gov website, the DLA is looking to finalize the purchase of almost $400,000 dollars worth of potassium iodide pills, which work by helping the the body’s thyroid gland block cancer-causing radioiodines.

The posting states that the DLA requires 75,000 blister packs of pills, each of which contain 14 potassium iodide tablets, enough to last 2 weeks for one adult. The solicitation specifies the need to “ensure that critical operational forces are protected in the event of nuclear fallout,” as the reason behind the purchase, adding that, “The recent earthquake in Japan in March of 2011 and the resultant nuclear crisis has renewed interest in this item.”

Despite the mainstream media’s disinterest in the ongoing Fukushima crisis, now into its 14th month, experts have warned that the situation at the Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant is at its most critical phase.

As we reported last week, according to insiders the Japanese government has drawn up contingency plans for the potential evacuation of Greater Tokyo’s 39 million residents due to the threat posed by the potential meltdown of Fukushima’s reactor number 4, which holds 75% as much nuclear fuel as the entire Chernobyl complex did prior to its meltdown.

“The worse-case scenario drawn up by the government includes not only the collapse of the No. 4 reactor pool, but the disintegration of spent fuel rods from all the plant’s other reactors. If this were to happen, residents in the Tokyo metropolitan area would be forced to evacuate,” according to a Mainichi Daily News editorial by senior writer Takao Yamada which cited defense insiders.

Diplomat Akio Matsumura went further, warning that the collapse of reactor number 4 would “certainly cause a global catastrophe like we have never before experienced,” adding that the 11,138 spent fuel assemblies stored at the Fukushima plant contain “134 million curies is Cesium-137 — roughly 85 times the amount of Cs-137 released at the Chernobyl accident.”

Matsumura chillingly cautioned that should the worst case scenario unfold, the resulting radioactive fallout “would destroy the world environment and our civilization.”

Radiation from the Fukushima plant was recently detected on the west coast of the United States by marine biologists who found giant kelp collected along the coast from Laguna Beach to as far north as Santa Cruz to be contaminated with radiation as high as samples found in British Columbia, Canada, and northern Washington State in the aftermath of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

In the immediate aftermath of the beginning of the Fukushima nuclear crisis, there was a run on potassium iodide pills as panic buying exhausted stocks, prompting some retailers to demand up to $300 dollars for packs of the medication which would normally sell for just $15 dollars.

The U.S. Army is seemingly treating the threat of radioactive fallout from the Fukushima nuclear plant with much more seriousness than health authorities in Fukushima itself. As we highlighted recently, almost a quarter of residents who attempt to receive treatment for radiation poisoning are instead being treated for “psychiatric disorders,” with fear of contamination being characterized by as a mental illness.

As the Business Insider website points out, the DLA purchase could also be related to an upcoming attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities which threatens to disperse radiation over a wide area.

“Destroying one of the most likely Iranian targets, the 1000-megawatt Bushehr nuclear plant, would create just such a concern,” write Eloise Lee and Robert Johnson. “When Israel destroyed Iraq’s Osiris 70-megawatt nuclear reactor in a bold 1981 attack, the plant hadn’t yet been stocked with nuclear fuel so there was no risk of radiation.
But an attack on Iran’s Bushehr plant, which has been stocked with radioactive fuel rods since 2010, would be an incalculable mess.”

About these ads
evacuate-tokyo-300x200

It’s Not Over: Government Plans for the Worst: Forced Evacuation of Tokyo

Mac Slavo
April 3rd, 2012
SHTFplan.com

While it has for the most part disappeared from mainstream view, the Fukushima nuclear disaster is anything but over. In fact, the situation in Japan has gone from bad to worse.

Bottom line: There is no way to contain the radiation.

Even more alarming is that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and other agencies have warned that the nuclear storage pools (the containment units that are being used to cool the nuclear fuel) have been damaged and may collapse under their own weight.

Such an event would cause widespread nuclear fallout throughout the region and force the government to evacuate the nearly 10 million residents of Tokyo and surrounding areas, a scenario which government emergency planners are now taking into serious consideration.

Leading Japanese newspaper The Mainichi Daily News reports:

One of the biggest issues that we face is the possibility that the spent nuclear fuel pool of the No. 4 reactor at the stricken Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant will collapse. This is something that experts from both within and outside Japan have pointed out since the massive quake struck. TEPCO, meanwhile, says that the situation is under control. However, not only independent experts, but also sources within the government say that it’s a grave concern.

The storage pool in the No. 4 reactor building has a total of 1,535 fuel rods, or 460 tons of nuclear fuel, in it. The 7-story building itself has suffered great damage, with the storage pool barely intact on the building’s third and fourth floors. The roof has been blown away. If the storage pool breaks and runs dry, the nuclear fuel inside will overheat and explode, causing a massive amount of radioactive substances to spread over a wide area. Both the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and French nuclear energy company Areva have warned about this risk.

A report released in February by the Independent Investigation Commission on the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident stated that the storage pool of the plant’s No. 4 reactor has clearly been shown to be “the weakest link” in the parallel, chain-reaction crises of the nuclear disaster. The worse-case scenario drawn up by the government includes not only the collapse of the No. 4 reactor pool, but the disintegration of spent fuel rods from all the plant’s other reactors. If this were to happen, residents in the Tokyo metropolitan area would be forced to evacuate.

Former Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Sumio Mabuchi, who was appointed to the post of then Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s advisor on the nuclear disaster immediately after its outbreak, proposed the injection of concrete from below the No. 4 reactor to the bottom of the storage pool, Chernobyl-style. An inspection of the pool floor, however, led TEPCO to conclude that the pool was strong enough without additional concrete. The plans were scrapped, and antiseismic reinforcements were made to the reactor building instead.

There was a chance early on that a storage pool collapse could be prevented, but according to the report Tokyo Electric Power Co. refused to take the necessary steps as a cost-cutting measure.

Now, as radiation fallout envelops the entire northern hemisphere, there is a distinct possibility that the crisis will move into an even more critical and dangerous phase.

When news of the disaster first emerged we warned, contrary to mainstream experts, that it could be much worse than the Chernobyl accident of the 1980′s, that no containment would be possible for at least a few years, and radiation levels across North America would sky rocket. A year on, we are seeing adverse impacts on ocean water throughout the Pacific, and ground levels of radioactive contaminants are well beyond safety thresholds for potable water, food, and soil.

With the Japanese economy already on the brink of meltdown and the rest of the world drowning in debt, an escalation in the severity of the disaster in Japan could be the last nail in the coffin for world financial markets and economic growth.

Even worse, if storage pools in the No. 4 reactor collapse and disintegrate as the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has warned could happen, we will see a humanitarian crisis of unprecedented scale as millions of refugees will have no choice but to flee Tokyo. They’ll have no possessions, no money, no food, no water, no shelter, and a very fragile safety net.

This is what SHTF looks like. The government lies. The corporate cover ups. Downplaying of the severity of the crisis. And then… panic.

 

Fukushima: Government Insiders Warn Of Tokyo Evacuation Threat

Read More @ WRC559.com

 

 


Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 277 other followers

%d bloggers like this: