Nearly three weeks into the crisis in Japan and you’d think we’d be talking about resolution and recovery, but we’re not.
“The earthquake, tsunami and the ensuing nuclear accident may be Japan’s largest-ever crisis,” Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan has now said, according to the New York Times. “We find ourselves in a situation where we can’t let down our guard. We will continue to handle it in a state of maximum alert.”
These comments come after the discovery of contaminated water and harmful levels of radioactive elements in the area around the plant—both suggesting the situation is getting worse rather than better.
Already, at least 11,000 people have died and Japan’s economy has taken a serious blow. But it’s still shocking to hear the prime minister say this may be Japan’s worst crisis.
The island nation’s 2,300-year-old history is peppered with earthquakes and tsunamis and fires. The Japanese traditionally built their homes and cities of wood and lightweight walls (shoji screens) for flexibility during earthquakes and easy repair afterwards. Tsunami is a Japanese word meaning “harbor wave,” after all.
And, of course, there were Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
A week ago, the Japanese government felt the Fukushima plant crisis was coming under control. This week, everything is different.
Workers have been injured from exposure to radiation including stepping into contaminated water. There’s radioactive iodine at over 3,000 times normal levels within 1,000 feet of the discharge (making its way into the Pacific). And plutonium found in the soil around the reactor suggests at least a partial meltdown.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, iodine-131 (the radioactive iodine found downstream of the plant) causes thyroid problems, including cancer. Iodine-131 was the cause of thyroid cancer after the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986. It has a half-life of about 8 days, which means it’ll be in the water for that long.
Meanwhile, CNN is reporting that Greenpeace wants to expand the evacuation zone of 12 miles around the plant. The environmental advocacy group did tests in Iatate 25 miles away and detected radiation levels high enough to give someone outside of a building the “maximum annual dose in about 100 hours.”
So no, things aren’t getting better. They’re getting worse.
