'Japan careless about radiation dangers'
Thu Mar 24, 2011 9:4AM
Japanese authorities have played down the nuclear reactor leak and the significance of informing citizens of minimal danger, but in fact the opposite is the case.
Press TV interviews Professor Chris Busby from the European committee on radiation in London who has tried to warn the Japanese that the facts point to risk at the level of Chernobyl or even greater and that Tokyo is at risk.
Press TV: How serious is the situation regarding a radiation leak from the nuclear plant that is taking place in Japan?
Professor Busby: This situation is very similar to Chernobyl in the way in which at the beginning everyone said it was not a big problem, and then they said there was no much radiation; and then along the line we see them backing away from that position as it is getting more and more serious.
At the present time my feeling is that it is probably getting very close to that of Chernobyl. I don't believe a lot of the communiques coming out and there is enough factual information from these; however, for me to be able to estimate that a huge amount of radioactivity has already come out of that plant.
For example, on the IAEA website last night a bulletin said the concentration of contamination has spread 58 kilometers from the plant. That level is about twice as high as the level of the Chernobyl exclusion zone. The Chernobyl exclusion zone was only 30 kilometers. So we're talking about levels of that in comparison are greater already.
Press TV: The communiques you say you don't believe them - Why is there disinformation then coming out of the Japanese media and why is there not more information coming from the IAEA on this?
Professor Busby: I don't think the IAEA really knows what's going on. To some extent they have to listen to what they're being told by Japanese authorities. People are not able to tell what is actually happening inside the reactors because the radiation levels are so high you just can't approach the reactors without dying. That's the problem.
And all the instrumentation - the stuff you have in the control room that measures what's going on in the reactor of course is all destroyed. So there is no way to know what is going on.
They have been making desperate attempts to cool both the fuel rods and the reactors themselves just by tipping water on them, which means they can't get water into the reactors it seems.
These are concentrations the IAEA have been publishing. So it's not a question of not believing; it's a question of deducing what's happened on the basis of what facts are available. And the two bits of facts which are available are that the radiation levels are extremely high; quite a distance from the plant, and secondly, the contamination level on the ground is extremely high within at least 50 kilometers from the plant.
Press TV: You are saying that you think the situation is as major or almost as major as Chernobyl. At this point in time what do you think they can do? Is there anything they can do to stop this from deteriorating even further?
Professor Busby: I can't think of anything. It seems to me that the fuel has actually melted inside the reactor pressure vessels and so there is a pool of molten fuel in the bottom of at least three of those pressure vessels - so that's the first problem.
And it's not possible to cool that just by pouring water on it. You can cool reactor rods, which are separate, by circulating water through them, but you can't water down a great hot lump of metal. And the other problem I believe is the spent fuel on top of reactors 1, 2 and 3 have already been blown up into the air- so that's something they can't do anything about- littering the plant all around the area; it's probably in the sea; the sea is contaminated.
No one has ever seen this happen before and it's hard to know quite what they can do. I don't have any solutions except to pray.
Press TV: What has been taking place is black smoke coming out of reactor three and white smoke coming out elsewhere. What does it mean - the different color of the smoke?
Professor Busby: I can only guess. All we know is that there is white smoke and black smoke. What I can say for sure is that both the white and black smoke are intensely radioactive; there is no question about that. And my feeling is that some of this smoke consists of very hot radioactive particles - So, very small particles that reflect the light and will float away over the sea or whichever direction the wind is blowing.
In the European Committee on Radiation for about five days now we've been modeling the air flows, which took the first and third reactor explosions out to sea and then back over Tokyo. We can see that it goes out and around in a big circle over Tokyo and then it goes north over the country.
Before it turned around it had clipped Okinawa and that's why they thought that the power plant there was melting down because they got a sudden hit of radiation there.
So these radioactive materials such as Uranium and Tritium and Iodine of course and others are now contaminating the island of Honshu, which is a large distance from the plant and this will have significant effects on the health of the population there.
Press TV: Evacuation orders were carried out within 20 kilometers of the plant. If you were in a position of decision making inside Japan, would you have ordered the evacuation to cover a greater area?
Professor Busby: Yes and right from the beginning. In fact I did advise them - we put advice on various websites including the European Committee's website to take it more than 100 kilometers. Now I believe they should consider taking people out of Tokyo. I don't know where they're going to put them, this is problem- it's a nightmare.
Tokyo itself is certainly under risk from radioactivity not just from the iodine, but from a host of other radioactive components including those that are not easy to detect. Tritium will be all over the place and that causes genetic defects, cancer and all sorts of diseases.
To try and play it down in order to establish that the nuclear industry is still viable and that they can still go on building nuclear power stations and so on and to try and talk up the uranium share prices and all that, I think that is criminal. People are going to die as a result of this and they should get people out of there as quickly as possible.
Press TV: You say people are going to die from this. Japanese officials have admitted that there are higher radiation levels in the environment, but say it is nothing more than regular x-rays that people would be exposed to and nothing of significant importance. What would you say to that?
Professor Busby: Criminally irresponsible. After the Chernobyl accident there have been huge increases in cancer and other forms of ill health. And for instance, in Sweden, a study done in 2004 showed there was an 11% increase in cancer in northern Sweden in areas contaminated by the Chernobyl accident. We could get double the amount of cancer in those areas of contamination even without considering the future.
The problem is that the risk model being used in order to make all of these statements is out of date and incorrect. The secretary of the International Commission of Radiological protection has admitted that this risk model is in error by up to 900 fold.
So we know from all sorts of studies that the model is false and doesn't work for the kinds of exposures taking place in Japan now and they should get people away because people are going to get cancer at a much higher rate than is predicted from the risk model.
Press TV: There are reports that iodine will help protect people from the effects of radiation. Does it help and should the Japanese people be taking it?
Professor Busby: Yes. The people should take stable iodine as it will block the absorption of the thyroid gland by radioactive iodine and that will mitigate a lot of the effects of the iodine on causing increases in thyroid cancer. There was a large increase in thyroid cancer in Chernobyl, which has been blamed on iodine. It does help keep the radiation out if you fill yourself up with ordinary iodine. But that's only important for thyroid cancer, which is quite rare.
The cancers that are going to come about as a result of these sorts of releases are going to be increases in breast cancer, leukemia, a whole range of cancers and other ill health as well as congenital malformation and fertility problems that we've seen in the ex-Soviet territories affected by the Chernobyl accident.
Press TV: What about the food aspect? We're getting news about different vegetables and products from the sea that has had radiation detected. The US has banned imports from the area and the EU is trying to control that also.
Professor Busby: What I have to say here will save lives and is very important. People should get stable iodine tablets and give it to the children. Secondly they should try and drink bottled water, bottled before the crisis, or to bring water up from the south, which is pure. Milk should not be drunk. They should not eat any seafood or fresh vegetables, and the food that they do eat should be out of cans.
As long as this crisis lasts, those actions will save a lot of lives.
Press TV: What is the worst scenario?
Professor Busby: That there is an explosion - that enough of this stuff gets together that it forces an explosion and I believe it is possible for that to happen. Other scientists may not agree, but I see it as being possible. There was an explosion in the Mayak facility at KyshTym in the Soviet Union in 1957. It was a nuclear explosion in a spent fuel tank where the same situation happened- the water boiled away, the fuel melted into a lump and then it exploded. And that caused the contamination of about 1,000 square miles of land. This land has been radioactive ever since. If that happens then the material outburst will go all over the place and we have already suspected that some of this material has reached the US.
The best scenario is if it melts and dissipates into the ground, doesn't explode, but makes it very very contaminated. Then they have to pile a load of sand and slate etc on it and fence it off about 100 kilometers away somewhere.
But the problem is that they (Japanese authorities) are saying the radiation levels are low and that people can live outside the 30 kilometer zone. They want to continue making nuclear power stations, mining uranium and making lots of money. It's criminally irresponsible.
SC/AZ/HRF
