Japan radiation leaks feared as nuclear experts point to possible cover-up
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Pastor Dale Morgan
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Mar 22, 2011, 11:48:45 PM3/22/11
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Perilous
Times
Japan radiation leaks feared as nuclear experts point to
possible cover-up
Lack of radiation readings echoes pattern of secrecy employed
after other major accidents such as Chernobyl
* John Vidal and Damian Carrington
* guardian.co.uk, Monday 21 March 2011 21.03 GMT
Nuclear experts have thrown doubt on the accuracy of official
information issued about the Fukushima nuclear accident, saying
that it followed a pattern of secrecy and cover-ups employed in
other nuclear accidents. "It's impossible to get any radiation
readings," said John Large, an independent nuclear engineer who
has worked for the UK government and been commissioned to report
on the accident for Greenpeace International.
"The actions of the Japanese government are completely contrary to
their words. They have evacuated 180,000 people but say there is
no radiation. They are certain to have readings but we are being
told nothing." He said a radiation release was suspected "but at
the moment it is impossible to know. It was the same at Chernobyl,
where they said there was a bit of a problem and only later did
the full extent emerge."
According to some reports, 17 helicopter crewmen helping in rescue
efforts were contaminated with low-level radiation, but Japanese
officials declined to comment.
The country's government has previously been accused of covering
up nuclear accidents and hampering the development of alternative
energy.
In a newly released diplomatic cable obtained by WikiLeaks,
politician Taro Kono, a high-profile member of Japan's lower
house, tells US diplomats that the Ministry of Economy, Trade and
Industry – the Japanese government department responsible for
nuclear energy – has been "covering up nuclear accidents and
obscuring the true costs and problems associated with the nuclear
industry".
In 2008, Kono told them: "The ministries were trapped in their
policies, as officials inherited policies from people more senior
to them, which they could then not challenge." He mentioned the
dangers of natural disasters in the context of nuclear waste
disposal, citing Japan's "extensive seismic activity, and abundant
groundwater, and [he] questioned if there really was a safe place
to store nuclear waste in the 'land of volcanoes'."
"What we are seeing follows a clear pattern of secrecy and
denial," said Paul Dorfman, co-secretary to the Committee
Examining Radiation Risks from Internal Emitters, a UK government
advisory committee disbanded in 2004.
"The Japanese government has always tended to underplay accidents.
At the moment the Japanese claims of safety are not to be believed
by anyone. The health effects of what has happened so far are
imponderable. The reality is we just do not know. There is
profound uncertainty about the impact of the accident."
The Japanese authorities and nuclear companies have been
implicated in a series of cover-ups. In 1995, reports of a sodium
leak and fire at Japan's Monju fast breeder reactor were
suppressed and employees were gagged. In 2002, the chairman and
four executives of Tepco, the company which owns the stricken
Fukushima plant, resigned after reports that safety records were
falsified.