International recovery operations continue
in Japan. Several weeks after the enormous
quake and tsunami disasters ravaged northeastern
Japan, officials on Saturday, April 2 reported
the confirmed number of dead and missing to
be over 27,000. An intensive three-day search
mission that began Friday with 18,000 Japanese
and 7,000 US military personnel was joined
by police, Japanese Coast Guard and fire department
members. A unique survivor was spotted by
the Japanese Coast Guard when a dog was found
in the sea 1.8 kilometers off the coast of
Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture. He had apparently
survived since the disaster by drifting atop
a roof among a mass of debris, and was brought
to safety in miraculously good condition.
Meanwhile, to help ease the lack of power
supplies, the Thai government is sending a
complete power-generation facility with two
gas-turbine generators to Japan that will
provide sufficient electricity for up to 240,000
households.
On Saturday, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto
Kan personally travelled to the disaster-hit
Rikuzentakata City of Iwate Prefecture, where
he offered the nation's solidarity with victims
at a shelter, ensuring them that the government
would support all reconstructive efforts.
The prime minister then went to the “J-village”
operation base in Fukushima Prefecture to
encourage the emergency teams working to cool
the reactors at the damaged nuclear power
plant. Head of the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA),Yukiya Amano, meanwhile stated,
“The situation in Fukushima remains very
serious.” To assist in the nuclear crisis,
a 155-person US military radiation control
team arrived at Yokota Air Base in western
Tokyo on Saturday.
Meanwhile, Japanese military helicopters that
had flown above the Fukushima plant were found
to have above-normal levels of radiation even
after decontamination. The plant’s operator,
Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), reported
early on Saturday that airborne radiation
levels at the plant appeared to have stabilized
based on measurements taken from eight new
monitoring posts. However, officials also
confirmed the new discovery of a crack emerging
from a maintenance pit that is seeping highly
radioactive water directly into the ocean,
with radiation levels in the air above the
leak measuring over 1,000 millisieverts an
hour—10 times the amount known to cause
cancer risk. TEPCO officials stated that the
crack likely resulted from the 9.0-magnitude
quake and may have been leaking ever since.
After first attempts to plug the leak with
fresh concrete did not succeed, workers are
trying to seal it with polymer materials instead.
Supreme Master Television spoke with American
writer, Mr. Paul Zimmerman, independent researcher
and lecturer on radiation safety.
(Excerpts in English)
Paul Zimmerman (m): Though human beings might
be protected from radiation that’s washed
into the ocean, what about the fish? Is the
garbage that we release into the world affecting
life in ways that we don’t even think about?
And they have identified areas where the food
supply is contaminated. And it’s all being
concentrated in our bodies. And so the dose
that a human being ends up accumulating might
be very significant.
VOICE: Workers at the nuclear plant are still
racing to remove irradiated water from the
turbine buildings of reactors No. 1, 2, and
3, with TEPCO officials saying that a large
artificial floating island is being considered
as a way to store the water. As preparations
resume for the pumping of fresh water from
a US Navy barge into the reactors to cool
them, in the hope of preventing further radiation
leaks, all plant workers are known to be risking
exposure to potentially fatal amounts of radiation.
Mr Zimmerman (m): And those people might suffer
acute radiation syndrome and feel it very
quickly. In terms of longer term pathology,
we're not going to know for a long time in
terms of how many people are going to develop
thyroid difficulties because of the absorption
of iodine-131into their bodies, or more long-term
in terms of cancer rates. It takes years or
decades to get a picture of the health problem.
VOICE: Our appreciation, Japanese, US, and
all other international personnel for your
tireless efforts to assist the disaster-stricken
as we also thank Mr. Zimmerman for sharing
these valuable insights on nuclear dangers.
May Heaven protect all those affected by the
recent calamitous events as we pray for the
greater benevolence of humanity to restore
the balance and welfare of our ecosphere.�
