Japan radiation fears grip town on edge of destruction

[jpak]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/12/japan-radiation-minamisoma

The debris strewn along the coastal neighbourhoods of Minamisoma should be proof enough of the devastation wrought by the tsunami that hit Japan's north-east coast on 11 March. But for the past month this sprawling town in Fukushima prefecture has been confronted by a second, more insidious threat: radiation.

Minamisoma is a town living in a state of nuclear limbo. Its southern reaches lie just inside the 20km (12 mile) radius from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant that has been declared an evacuation zone. Farther north, residents have been told to remain indoors or consider leaving. Thenon Tuesday the government announced that five additional communities, possibly including more neighbourhoods inside Minamisoma, are to be included in an expanded evacuation zone amid fears over the long-term effects of radiation seeping from the Fukushima plant.

Even before that advice was issued, the majority of Minamisoma's 71,000 people had voted with their feet. The first hydrogen explosion at the plant prompted an exodus that saw the population plummet to just 10,000.

Petrified residents barely had time to mourn the 1,470 local people listed as dead or missing before abandoning their homes.

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[madokie]

1. How can it be with nuclear being so safe and all

I got it from good sources that nuclear power is the future for the world not just Japan or us here in the USA

[ladjf]

2. Jaques Cousteau tried to warn us many years ago.

Jacques Cousteau

"Jacques Cousteau, the greatly admired French scientist, oceanographer and reknown undersea explorer, best known for his breath-taking movies of the under-water world, wrote his memoirs which were published shortly after his death at 87. In this autobiography, Man, Octopus and Orchid, he writes, "The road to the future leads us smack into the wall. We simply ricochet off the alternatives that destiny offers; a demographic explosion that triggers social chaos and spreads death, nuclear delirium and the quasi-annihiliation of the species." Cousteau predicted that "Our survival is no more than a question of 25, 50 or perhaps 100 years."
One reviewer wrote that Cousteau's book "is a distress signal, an SOS. It's the work of a planetary sociologist deeply worried about the madness of man".

http://www.rusearching.net/titanic/titaniccousteau.htm

It's obvious that the human race is too greedy and stupid to survive much longer. What a pity. The Earth is a bountiful place to live.

[Nihil]

3. Thanks for that.

Both the Cousteau quote and your own comment

> It's obvious that the human race is too greedy and stupid to survive much longer.
> What a pity. The Earth is a bountiful place to live.

Sad but true.
:-(

[Javaman]

4. Oh how I miss Mr. Cousteau. His documentaries shaped much of my

opinion of how we look at our earth.

[ladjf]

5. I second that. I was never the same after I read the wonderful

"Silent World". He was one of the greatest environmentalist of all times. A wise and good man. He was respected everywhere he went. But, the French ignored his warnings. Too bad.