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more Chernobyl/Tokaimura fiction (LA Times)




FYI

http://www.latimes.com/HOME/NEWS/COMMENT/t000090032.html
Dangers of Chernobyl Echo in Japan 
Nuclear safety: The industry practices and the arrogant attitudes of its
officials are similar, regardless of country. 
By PAUL JOSEPHSON
<snip>
The result was a lethal combination of steel, concrete and radioactive fuel
too close for safety. In the cases of Tokaimura in Japan and Chernobyl,
these sites were within 70 miles of Tokyo and Kiev, respectively, and
millions of people. 
To this day, Japanese nuclear specialists, like their counterparts in the
Soviet establishment, insist that their facilities are safe and that
accidents are always the result of worker error. When accidents occur, they
claim that workers were exposed to minimal levels. Yet Chernobyl and
Tokaimura reveal that officials are poorly equipped to handle even minor
accidents and cannot evacuate workers or their families quickly. 
Fifty thousand Chernobyl residents and 30,000 Tokaimura residents paid the
immediate consequences. How many will pay over the long term? 
The attitude of nuclear specialists and policy-makers to public worries is
also similar. They discount nuclear fears, blindly asserting the
infallibility of their facilities, and they force the construction of dozens
of massive reactors on unwitting citizens. Even after repeated accidents
that involved the loss of life, they insist that nuclear power is the key to
future economic prosperity. Neither government has any idea of the cost or
path for decommissioning reactors safely. Nor, as in other countries, do
they know what to do with growing thousands of tons and millions of gallons
of low- and high-level radioactive waste. 
Accidents and cost overruns have plagued all nuclear industries. Leaks of
radioactive cooling water and shoddy workmanship were widely known at
Chernobyl long before the explosion. At other Soviet stations, men were
boiled alive, irradiated and burned in a constant series of accidents in the
years leading up to Chernobyl. The Tokaimura plant has been the site of
previous devastating accidents too. Two years ago, two fires and an
explosion shook the plant, exposing 37 workers to radiation. Months later,
officials admitted that 2,000 steel barrels had been leaking low-level
radioactive waste for years. Other accidents have been covered up. 
<snip>
Paul Josephson, a Visiting Associate Professor at Wellesley Specializing in
the History of Big Science and Technology in the 20th Century, Is Author of
"Red Atom" (W.h. Freeman, 1999)
<><><><><><>

OK, the bidding is up to 50,000 at Chernobyl & 30,000 at Tokaimura -- anyone
willing to go higher ? ...surely there must be a direct correlation between
inflated casualty figures and newspaper circulation numbers !
jaro
frantaj@aecl.ca
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