Post-disaster nuclear safety efforts continue
in Japan. On Monday, June 20, Japan’s Finance
Ministry revealed that the nation’s exports
dropped 10.3% in May, representing the third
consecutive monthly fall since the massive
quake and tsunami on March 11. The decrease
was more than economists had forecast, raising
concerns over Japan’s struggle to recover
from the twin disasters. The nation also continues
facing difficulties in stabilizing Tokyo Electric
Power Company (TEPCO)’s damaged Fukushima
Daiichi nuclear power plant. A five-day ministerial
meeting, which had been organized in response
to the nuclear crisis, also opened on Monday
at the International Atomic Energy Association
(IAEA) headquarters in Vienna, Austria, with
a record number of more than 900 participants
in attendance. IAEA Director General Yukiya
Amano proposed agency monitoring and thorough
security risk checks in all nations with nuclear
power plants, to prevent a potential repeat
of the current crisis, which was unanimously
agreed to by all participants.
Meanwhile, at the Fukushima Daiichi facility,
the testing of a water decontamination system,
which is crucial for removing 110,000 tons
of highly radioactive water from the site
before it overflows, was halted for a second
time due to a malfunction early on Tuesday.
TEPCO also fully opened the doors to the reactor
No. 2 building in order to decrease the humidity
inside and enable workers to enter. However,
this also allowed radiation to leak out of
the site, although TEPCO says the amount would
not have an adverse impact on human health
or the environment.
According to Aljazeera news agency, a nuclear
waste advisor to the Japanese government reported
that around the nuclear facility, about 966
square kilometers – an area equivalent to
about 17 times the size of Manhattan, New
York, USA – is now likely uninhabitable
due to radiation. Moreover, in the US, a June
2011 report by physician Dr. Janette Sherman
and epidemiologist Dr. Joseph Mangano suggests
that a 35% increase in infant mortality in
northwestern US cities that occurred after
the Fukushima meltdown may have resulted from
fallout from the Japanese nuclear plant.
Our sincere thanks, international officials,
experts and media members for your work to
safeguard the public from radiation harms.
Let us do our utmost to eliminate such dangers
through our adoption of more eco-conscious
ways�
