- A Tokyo single mother laments her “radiation panic” over Fukushima. Yuka Shirai of Tokyo’s Tama district was mentally devastated by the quake and news of by the tsunami of 3/11/11. The next day, the nuclear accident became the lead news story across Japan. Shirai, who runs a self-owned seminar planning business, fell into a radiophobic panic. She writes, “I had a nervous breakdown; all I could think about was the situation at the nuclear power plant and radiation pollution, and I was always gathering information about it every waking hour… I couldn’t shake my anxiety. I felt dizzy, had headaches, weakness, and was constantly harried by heart palpitations. My physical condition was at its worst.” She got all of her information from internet sources, social media, and like-minded people she met on the web. Shirai says, “The information sources were all people who were becoming well-known by spreading dark and tragic information. There were a lot of different people, from anonymous sources to university professors and researchers. Looking back on it, I think I believed a lot of strange people, but at the time, I thought they were right. As for people labeled as “government scholars” who were disseminating accurate information, I was certain they were wrong, and I ignored them.” Shirai’s anxieties also affected her family, “For my food, I only used ingredients from places far from Tohoku, such as Western Japan, Hokkaido, or overseas. I stockpiled large quantities of rice that was harvested before the nuclear accident. I’m a single mother, and I not only forced my kids to wear masks to school, I also raised questions to the Board of Education regarding the safety of their pools and school lunches. My kids resisted, and I fought with them every day. But even then, I was certain that I was correct and ignored how my kids felt. Every day, I gathered inaccurate information and disseminated it myself.” She came to realize she had become very discriminatory when she saw how poorly Fukushima refugees in her community were being treated. Her road to recovery has not been easy, but she feels much better now. Her biographical piece is fairly long, but well worth reading in its entirety. It gives us first-hand insight as to the devastating psychological and social effects of radiophobia in Japan. http://www.gepr.org/en/contents/20120507-03/
- A minor water leak was discovered at Ikata nuclear station, Ehime Prefecture. Workers found traces of leakage on piping insulation in the wastewater treatment building for unit #2. The system solidifies concentrated low-level radioactive wastewater by mixing it with asphalt. It is estimated that 34 grams of dried leakage accumulated beneath the insulation, containing boric acid and Cobalt-60. The radioactivity was 1/500th of the level required for reporting to the government. http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20141118_39.html
- Tokyo has passed a bill insuring Fukushima’s rural rad-waste storage will be temporary. The bill requires the government to have a final disposal site selected and operating in 30 years. Tokyo is currently acquiring sites adjacent to F. Daiichi in the communities of Okuma and Futaba for temporary storage of material generated by Fukushima Prefecture’s decontamination projects. The government hopes to start transporting existing material to the temporary facility in January. The interim facility will be run by Japan Environmental Safety Corp. http://jen.jiji.com/jc/eng?g=eco&k=2014111900364
- Tokyo’s nuke watchdog says a seismic fault runs under the Tsuruga station, Fukui Prefecture. The geological seam in question runs under unit #2, an 1160 MWe Pressurized Water Reactor system. A Nuclear Regulation Authority seismic panel had judged the seam as potentially seismic in May of last year, but station owner Japan Atomic Power Company disputed the judgment and submitted additional data. The NRA panel says they considered the new JAPCO data, but found that it could not prove that the seam under the station would not move at some point over the next 120-130,000 years. The panel based this on the possibility that the crease under Tsuruga may connect to a known seismic fault in the region. Actually, there is no proof the seam under unit #2 is not connected to the seismic fault, but the panel assumed it is. JAPCO President Taiki Ichimura described the decision as a “unilateral assumption” and was confident that it could be proven incorrect. http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/nuclear.html — http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0001733453
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