Urgent Statement Concerning Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Accident<\/b>
\n23 March 2011<\/p>\nHigh Levels of Radiation Detected in Vegetables, Unprocessed Milk, Water, and Soil<\/p>\n
Unnecessary Radiation Exposure Imposed Due to Japanese Government\u2019s Lack of
\nEvacuation plan and \u201cDeclaration of Safety\u201d<\/h1>\n
<\/center><\/p>\n
Due to the catastrophic accident at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, high levels of radioactive contamination have been detected in a variety of vegetables, unprocessed milk, water and soil. The contamination has spread outside of Fukushima to neighboring prefectures and has been detected on several leafy vegetables such as spinach, cabbage, komatsuna\/Japanese mustard spinach, broccoli, as well as in unprocessed milk. <\/p>\n
Radioactive iodine 131 was detected in tap water in Tokyo (approx. 200Bq\/l), and the Tokyo government officially announced that people should \u201crefrain from giving tap water to infants under 1 year of age\u201d. Tap water in Iidate village, approx. 40km away from the nuclear plant, measured 965Bq\/kg, three times higher than the limit considered safe (300Bq\/kg). <\/p>\n
In the same Iidate village, the soil has also been contaminated, showing high levels of radioactive cesium137 (163,000Bq\/kg). The half-life of cesium is approximately 30 years, resulting in contaminated soil for an extended period of time. A measurement of 1,170,000Bq\/kg of radioactive iodine 131 was also detected. This cesium level is equivalent to levels detected some 10 to 150km from the Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident. <\/p>\n
Due to the high levels of radioactive contamination, the government has issued a \u201cshipping restriction\u201d and \u201cconsumption restriction\u201d. However, Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano has repeatedly stated that consumption \u201cin the short term, will not do any harm to human health.\u201d And that the restriction is \u201cjust precautionary.\u201d The government is trying to do one thing: downplay radioactive contamination and its influence on people\u2019s health as much as possible. Those infants and pregnant women told to stay indoors within the 20-30km area have been left abandoned. Under these conditions, residents are forced to receive unnecessary radiation exposure due to the government\u2019s \u201cdeclaration of safety\u201d and lack of an evacuation plan.<\/p>\n
Newscasters have finally begun asking experts what the phrase \u201cno immediate harm to health\u201d means, but the experts have only replied that, \u201cThere is no immediate harm. However, people should avoid drinking contaminated water in the long term\u201d, and have failed to explain the effects of late-onset radiation damage, such as cancer and leukemia.<\/p>\n
23 March 2011 [Issued at 21:30 Japan time]<\/p>\n
Aileen Mioko Smith,
\nExecutive Director
\nGreen Action
\nSuite 103, 22-75 Tanaka Sekiden-cho, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8203 Japan
\nTel: +81-75-701-7223 Fax: +81-75-702-1952 email: amsmith@gol.com<\/p>\n
Hideyuki Koyama,
\nDirector
\nOsaka Citizens Against the Mihama, Oi, and Takahama Nuclear Power Plants (Mihama-no-Kai)
\n3F., Seiko Building, 4-3-3 Nishi-Temma, Kita-ku, Osaka, Japan
\nTel: +81-6-6367-6580 Fax: +81-6-6367-6581<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Green Action (Japan) and Mihama-no-Kai Urgent Statement Concerning Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Accident 23 March 2011 High Levels of Radiation Detected in Vegetables, Unprocessed Milk, Water, and Soil Unnecessary Radiation Exposure Imposed Due to Japanese Government\u2019s Lack of Evacuation plan and \u201cDeclaration of Safety\u201d Immediately evacuate infants and pre-school age children and pregnant women who are within the 20-30km radius (\u201cstay indoors\u201d zone) to locations farther from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Extend the evacuation zone radically to avoid further exposure Discontinue the \u201cdeclaration of safety\u201d that states, \u201cthere is no immediate harm to human health\u201d. This message is not properly transmitting the dangers of internal exposure and late–onset…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-impact"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9b8FX-O","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/greenaction-japan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/greenaction-japan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/greenaction-japan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/greenaction-japan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/greenaction-japan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/greenaction-japan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":167,"href":"http:\/\/greenaction-japan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50\/revisions\/167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/greenaction-japan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/greenaction-japan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/greenaction-japan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}