AW: One day story - compare Bhopal, Seveso.....

[Franz Schönhofer <franz.schoenhofer@chello.at>]

Mike,



I agree with a lot of what has been written in reply to your posting.



But let us go a step further:



First question: Does anybody on RADSAFE know the name "Bhopal"? On

Friday, Dec. 3rd was the twentieth anniversary of an unbelievable

catastrophe, when in a chemical factory of Union Carbide in Bhopal,

India, chemicals were spread by an explosion over the vicinity of the

factory, causing within the same night 8,000 deaths and altogether until

now about 20 000 deaths. The average time of the firstly affected

persons to die was 3 minutes. More than 100 000 people are still

affected by the poisoning. Union Carbide was bought by Dow Chemical in

2001. Neither of those companies paid any compensations to victims or

their relatives. The place of the factory has not been cleaned up yet

after 20 years.



Second question: Does anybody know the name "Seveso"? This should be an

easier question, because it is not as far away as India and does not

involve those "underdogs" of India, but it is in Italy!



I know of the stories (I recently read one again about millions affected

by Chernobyl), but I know no answer for the question, why nuclear is so

much in focus of the mass media and the average population, though we

have so much more severe catastrophes - not only in nature, but also in

chemical industry.



Best regards,



Franz















Franz Schoenhofer

PhD, MR iR

Habicherg. 31/7

A-1160 Vienna

AUSTRIA

phone -43-0699-1168-1319





> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----

> Von: owner-radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu [mailto:owner-

> radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu] Im Auftrag von Stabin, Michael

> Gesendet: Sonntag, 05. Dezember 2004 04:44

> An: radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu

> Betreff: One day story

>

>

> Saturday, December 04, 2004, Associated Press - HOUSTON - An explosion

> at a chemical plant Friday that could be heard 20 miles away caused a

> large fire and sent up massive clouds of smoke...

> http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,140490,00.html

>

>

> I ask you, in all seriousness, viewing the spectacular images of this

> scene, would this have been a one day story if it had instead involved

> any kind of nuclear facility? Tomorrow this will be forgotten, but

will

> be followed by a number of similar stories throughout 2005: tanker

> trucks, rail cars, facilities full of toxic chemicals will be involved

> in accidents. Entire communities will be evacuated, emergency

responders

> will be adversely affected, there may be loss of life. Will any

efforts

> comparable to those employed in nuclear-related industries to reduce

and

> optimize radiation dose be made to increase the safety of these

> industries? No.

>

> This is why, in my comments on the ICRP 2005 initiatives, I called an

> "ethical consideration" the extreme lengths that we go to in

protecting

> humans, and now elements of the environment (as I call it, the "Dose

to

> Bunnies and Bushes Initiative") from doses of radiation comparable to

> natural background levels. As much as we would all like more funding

for

> health physics studies, we have been chasing picoSv of dose to humans

> for too long, and now are going to chase picoSv of dose to bunnies and

> bushes, while society's resources could be spent instead on reducing

> REAL morbidity and mortality elsewhere? This is simply wrong, and I

will

> not keep silent about it.

>

>

> Mike