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Today what I heard the most was.... Please decontaminate the area as soon as possible so we can get back into our homes!
That was our most urgent request and we will do our utmost to achieve this. I thank you all!
Do you care about the people?
The reactors force everyone into exile every day! Do they really believe they can return to their homes?
Why haven’t they done anything much earlier?
The event takes over 2 hours and despite the desperation of the people, the authorities still owe an answer.
Letters from children lay on the table. What touched me the most deeply was the writing of a 9-year-old girl who asks:
Will I one day be able to give birth to a normal child?
The children are entitled to their concerns,
as the Japanese government has disregarded international standards and allowed a 20-fold increase of the maximum annual dose per person.
20 millisivert for all - women, children and other groups.
The stated aim is to have no other evacuation areas. Especially not Fukushima City.
In view of this incredible decision Sachiko Sato has teamed with others and is now organising the resistance.
She is above all dedicates to the rescue of the children.
The government should return back to the safe radiation levels it defined.
The state must evacuate all residents far and wide without any exceptionand,
even it does not do this it should at least financially assist everyone who wants to leave.
Primarily the children, pregnant women and young girls.
For this reason I have officially asked the government to make a statement, but to this day have received no reply.
Our country doesn’t even protect its own people, especially not its children.
I ask then, what do they exist for at all?
3 Months after our first visit we are back in Fukushima City. Nothing has really changed.
The authorities only sparingly decontaminate areas using water and brooms to scrub the soil.
As a consequence, the whole city holds piles of radioactive, contaminated soil.
People including many children still live here.
After 3 months of preparation, Wataru Iwata’s laboratory is finally ready to fight the invisible enemy.
This is where we have installed our laboratory.
This is our detector with lead shielding. This is a very primitive protection that we have here.
Its heavy!...this is copper.
We see here the same unit that Criirad owns.
The samples must be only have to be placed here, for example a little earth or breast milk or water.
This is a test sample that was extracted at the elementary school Moriai.
When the Criirad took samples with us in their last visit 490,000 becquerels per square meter were measured.
Let us remember that 500,000 becquerels per square meter was the criterion for the evacuation in Belarus.
5 Years after the catastrophe of Chernobyl people were still forced to leave with radiation levels beyond this limit.
-Here they change the radiation limits instead of evacuating people.
Yeah right! That makes no sense! Its a crime!
Another independent French organisation, also helps to confirm Wataru's measurements.
We are near Cean.
Hundreds of Japanese soil samples and food samples were sent to this high-tech laboratory.
Greenpeace, for example, sends its fish samples taken from the environment around the the reactor of Fukushima to be analysed here.
Today, however, physicist David *** confronts far more sensitive research.
The urine samples of children from Fukushima. They were sent to us by concerned parents who wanted to know if their children had been contaminated.
In the lab, we will test them for possible radioactivity and establish if the urine has any remarkable indicators.
We check whether the urine shows radioactive elements. In the first measurement campaign in June, we demonstrated the existence of both caesium isotopes caesium 134 and caesium 137.
Now we want to know whether the children are still contaminated.
The agronom laboratory has the most precise detector on the market. It measures even the smallest traces of caesium, a highly carcinogenic element.
Both elements caesium 134 and 137 are present. -Ok! So they are still contaminated.
These are the urine samples of a child from Fukushima whose urine we previously tested 2 months ago.
The analysis also shows that four and a half months after the disaster, small amounts of Caesium 134 and 137 in the urine still exist.
-Have you also tested children from other parts of Japan as a comparison?
Yes! In the current test series, we have examined urine samples from a total of 15 children from Fukushima.
All 10 samples from the last time and 5 new samples contained high values of caesium. So a ratio of around 100%....
In addition, we tested three children from Tokyo and the surrounding areas and found no caesium.
So there is without a doubt a correlation between the location of the Fukushima and caesium contained in the urine samples.
Thus we have proven that a persistent contamination is present, because the children have inhaled radioactive dust, or ingested contaminated water or food or both.
-Does that mean staying in Fukushima is dangerous for the children?
That's a tough question because are at such low values there is no international consensus.
However it is known that even small amounts of caesium accumulated over the years can cause cancer or other diseases.
Given the test results, I would plead for the children to be evacuated.
Meanwhile, we continue our ride through the surrounding Fukushima area with an appalling record.
6 Months after the accident 1 million people still live in contaminated areas indicated by our dosimeter.
Here we are measuring two mikrosivert. Thats 20 times the international limit.
Only a 20 km zone around the plant remains closed off.
We are in Minamisoma in front of a checkpoint on the road to the forbidden zone.
Ironically, it is here that the government has established a settlement for the refugees of the tsunami who lost everything.
After the trauma of the earthquake they have to live with the constant atomic threat.
Among them, the family Nishoutchi.
If I could I would move away from here, away from the radioactivity. For 2 years, we may stay in this house. Where we go after that I don’t know.
As long as they do not have the plant under control, I'm greatly concerned.
-Are the children playing outdoors?
No! They remain home.
I only go out with my grandma, otherwise never. Not even to the store even though it is very nearby.
-And it is nice inside as well?
Yes, of course. -But the house is too small to play inside.
Previously, for New Years we drove to Haramatchi where we used to fly kites, ride bicycles.
Now we can no longer ride a bicycle, because of the radioactivity.
-The tsunami washed away your bike?
Yes! Now I only have an old bike.
The region of Fukushima is now facing an uncertain future ...
How long will radioactive particles be emitted from the power plant? What impact will the disaster have on the health of the population? Will the Government expand the exclusion zone?
Highly unlikely. Our citizens will, in any case, continue to fight.
Sachiko has opened a health food store has which provides the children of Fukushima with safe food.
Wataru continues with his journey through the area, armed with his dosimeters.
Soon, he plans to install stations in the larger cities, because the rice crop has already begun.
Fukushima is one of the major growing areas of the country. Thousands of acres of agriculture are likely contaminated.
Japan will continue to suffer for a long time under the consequences of the catastrophe.....