Oh no...mutant Fukushima butterflies...what next--MOTHRA?

"Fukushima caused mutant butterflies: scientists"

August 14th, 2012

Terradaily

 Genetic mutations have been found in three generations of butterflies from near Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, scientists said Tuesday, raising fears radiation could affect other species.

Around 12 percent of pale grass blue butterflies that were exposed to nuclear fallout as larvae immediately after the tsunami-sparked disaster had abnormalities, including smaller wings and damaged eyes, researchers said.

The insects were bred in a laboratory outside the fallout zone and 18 percent of their offspring displayed similar problems, said Joji Otaki, associate professor at Ryukyu University in Okinawa, southwestern Japan.

The figure rose to 34 percent in the third generation of butterflies, he said, even though one parent from each coupling was from an unaffected population.

The researchers also collected another 240 butterflies in Fukushima in September last year, six months after the disaster. Abnormalities were recorded in 52 percent, which was "a dominantly high ratio", Otaki told AFP.

The results of the study were published in Scientific Reports, an online research journal from the publishers of Nature.

Otaki later carried out a comparison test in Okinawa exposing unaffected butterflies to low levels of radiation, with the results showing similar rates of abnormality, he said.

"We have reached the firm conclusion that radiation released from the Fukushima Daiichi plant damaged the genes of the butterflies," Otaki said.

The quake-sparked tsunami of March 2011 knocked out cooling systems at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, causing three reactors to go into meltdown in the world's worst atomic disaster for 25 years.

The findings will raise fears over the long-term effects of the leaks on people who were exposed in the days and weeks after the accident, as radiation spread over a large area and forced thousands to evacuate.

There are claims that nuclear exposure effects on successive generations have been observed among people living in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where the US dropped atomic bombs in the final days of World War II.

But Otaki warned it was too soon to jump to conclusions, saying his team's results on the Fukushima butterflies could not be directly applied to other species, including humans.

He added he and his colleagues would conduct follow-up studies including similar tests on other animals.

No one is officially recorded as having died as a direct result of the Fukushima disaster, but many who fled the area and those who remain, including workers decommissioning the crippled plant, worry about the long-term effects.

Scientists have warned it could be decades before it is safe for some people to return to their homes.

Fukushima's hermit...Naoto Matsumura

"The hermit of Fukushima 'staying put' despite risks"

December 14th, 2011

TERRADAILY

Naoto Matsumura is tired of being accused of madness for refusing to leave his farm in the shadow of Japan's still-leaking Fukushima nuclear plant.

"I'm not crazy," insists the 52-year-old, who claims he is the only person living in the no-go zone around the crippled reactors on Japan's tsunami-ravaged northeast coast.

As far as he knows, everyone else heeded the government's calls to leave the 20-kilometre (12-mile) exclusion zone around the plant, where nine months on from the disaster, technicians are still working to bring things under control.

Since everyone else left he has been alone near the town of Tomioka, save for around a hundred cats, a dozen dogs and hundreds of cows, pigs and chickens abandoned by their owners.

Matsumura is aware that the doses of radiation he probably absorbs every day are dangerous. But he says he is less afraid of the radiation than he is of being deprived of his cigarettes.

"I like smoking. If I quit smoking right now, I may become ill," he laughed.

With no electricity, he carefully rations the fuel he buys in a nearby city for his vehicle and his generators.

His only day-to-day link with the outside world is his mobile phone.

He worries that the coal left behind by his neighbours might not last out the increasingly bitter winter weather as temperatures in the region continue to fall.

Speaking to AFP in the city of Koriyama, outside the restricted area, the hermit appears to be in good health, despite the harsh conditions he has imposed on himself.

Tens of thousands of people left their homes around the plant when the earthquake-sparked tsunami of March 11 swamped its cooling systems, sending reactors into meltdown and spewing radiation into the air and sea.

Large parts of the evacuation zone are likely to remain uninhabitable for a long time to come, perhaps decades.

Matsumura says he fought against being evacuated from the area that he calls home and eventually received permission from authorities to come and go as he pleases.

In the panic that surrounded the evacuation of Tomioka on March 15, many people had neither the time nor the resources to do anything about their farm animals and pets.

He says his biggest concern is for those animals, which are facing a winter without shelter or food.

"These animals need human beings. The food that I have will not be enough to last until the end of December," he said.

"They need shelter and food, but I'm the only one taking care of them, when it should be the role of government," he said.

Matsumura says nine months after the area was evacuated, he is still shocked when he discovers the bodies of animals.

"I have seen many animals dying, from disease or hunger, some left tied up. I saw cows who were still able to eat grass where the rope around their muzzles had cut into the flesh as the animals have grown. These creatures are bleeding to death."

One of his friends begged him to go home to free the twenty canaries he had left in a cage. "When I entered the house, it was too late. They were all dead."

Matsumura says he is not lonely. He has been separated from his wife for ten years and his grown-up children live in Saitama prefecture, near Tokyo. They are worried for him, but he refuses to leave.

"I am never bored or depressed. I got used to being alone and lonely," he said.

As evening falls and the area is plunged into darkness, Matsumura finds himself at a loose end.

"I go to bed very early, around 7:00 pm, because I cannot do anything anyway."

In the morning, he rises with the sun and, followed by his dogs, spends half the day feeding the animals.

He himself eats mainly canned food and rice, because everything that grows on the ground is contaminated. "My diet is not really very good," he admits.

He regularly drives outside the restricted area to buy cigarettes and food.

"Some Japanese media have tried to make me look foolish by saying that I was eating contaminated mushrooms. But in reality, I pick them up to give to researchers. I'm not crazy," he said.

Matsumura says he would like the government or plant operator Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) to come and pick up the dead animals.

The answer he gets when he asks is always the same.

"'Sorry Mr. Matsumura,' they say,'we cannot do anything inside the exclusion zone.'"

The future of his town is not a bright one, he says. He thinks Tomioka, like other places that have been evacuated, will one day vanish from the map.

And he knows exactly what is to blame for that.

"I do not want the power plant to start working again. I want the place to disappear."

Yakuza at Fukushima

"Mob involved in Fukushima clean-up: Japan reporter"

December 15th, 2011

TERRADAILY

A Japanese journalist who worked at the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant this summer claimed Thursday that Japan's yakuza crime syndicates were involved in supplying clean-up crews.

"Roughly ten percent of plant workers there were brought in through the mediation of the yakuza," said Tomohiko Suzuki, 45, who has written a book based on his experience at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.

"The yakuza are very much involved in this industry but they are not involved as people working on site," Suzuki told reporters. "They are in charge of collecting people, finding people and dispatching workers to the site."

Suzuki says yakuza groups have long sent debtors to nuclear power plants as workers as a way of paying off loans made at sky-high rates, adding the practice "will continue to occur".

Like the Italian mafia or Chinese triads, the yakuza has engaged in activities from gambling, drugs and prostitution to loan sharking, protection rackets, white-collar crime and business conducted through front companies.

The gangs, which are not illegal, have historically been tolerated by the authorities, although there are periodic clampdowns on some of their less savoury activities.

In the wake of the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and resulting tsunami on March 11, reactors at the Fukushima plant were sent into meltdown, resulting in the release of a large amount of radioactive materials.

Workers, who have routinely been exposed to high levels of radiation, have battled since to bring the reactors under control, with periodic reports of lax safety standards and a lack of care for contracted employees from site operator Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO).

The government is expected to announce on Friday that the plant has been brought to a stable state of "cold shutdown", with low pressure and stable temperatures.

But Suzuki claimed the plant is still "in a state of crisis".

"(TEPCO) was pushing for sloppy construction as it has been in a hurry to achieve cold shutdown as quickly as possible," it said.

Suzuki, a freelance journalist who has covered the yakuza for several years, was hired through a sub-contractor to reactor-maker Toshiba and assigned a job related to reprocessing contaminated water in July and August.

A spokeswoman for TEPCO denied there had been any yakuza involvement in efforts to clean up the plant.

"We are taking action under the law against crime syndicates, and we understand that our contractors are properly hiring employees," she told AFP.