Gov't focus on nuke crisis angers tsunami victims

[CountAllVotes]

Source: Associated Press

RIKUZENTAKATA, Japan – As Japan's prime minister visited tsunami-ravaged coastal areas for the first time Saturday, frustrated evacuees complained that the government has been too focused on the nuclear crisis that followed the massive wave.

Nearly every day some new problem at the stricken Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant commands officials' attention — Saturday it was a newly discovered crack in a maintenance pit that is leaking highly radioactive water into the sea.

"The government has been too focused on the Fukushima power plant rather than the tsunami victims. Both deserve attention," said 35-year-old Megumi Shimanuki, who was visiting her family at a community center converted into a shelter in hard-hit Natori, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from Rikuzentakata, where Prime Minister Naoto Kan stopped Saturday. More than 165,000 people are still living in shelters.

Kan's government has been frantically working with Tokyo Electric Power Co. to solve the crisis at the nuclear complex, which has been spewing radioactivity since cooling systems were disabled by the 9.0-magnitude earthquake that preceded the tsunami on March 11.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/as_japan_earthquake

[AndyTiedye]

1. Fukushima is Still Spewing Radiation, and Could Get a Lot Worse

[CountAllVotes]

2. it makes me wonder what the people in Japan are being told

If I was living there and knew that the nuclear reactors were melting down, I'd be more concerned about that than I would having to live in a shelter. If the reactor isn't repaired/destroyed very soon, the radiation will spread further along with its irreversible contamination.

It is a matter of getting priorities straight even if none of the things being prioritized are necessarily good.

In the meantime, there are several thousand American soldiers over there right now searching for the dead last I heard.

:dem:

[kristopher]

3. This is part of the messaging that Sarkozy pushed.

The nuclear industry is desperate to get Fukushima out of the headlines.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x285360

[CountAllVotes]

4. you should have heard (well NOT) Dr. Bill last night

I happened to be awake and he was on KGO San Francisco. I can't stand this guy but nothing else was on the radio.

He claimed that the nuclear fall-out from this was NOTHING, nothing at all to be worried about. In fact, he claimed you could blow-up all of these reactors and dump them in the ocean and it would be like nothing being the ocean is so big.

Lots of pro-nuke people would love to get this out of the news but it is not going anywhere anytime soon!

As for Dr. Bill (some re-pugs never go away it seems), NEVER again you fool! :puke:

[uppityperson]

5. Latest news on intensive search for victims, links here...(66 bodies found so far)

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/japan_quake/

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/04/82804.html
The Japanese Self-Defense Forces, the U.S. military and other rescue workers recovered 31 bodies Saturday as their intensive search for the missing in tsunami-hit northeastern coastal areas continued into the second day of a three-day operation.

The figure brought to 66 the total number of bodies recovered over two days from areas devastated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

The bulk of Saturday's operation was held in and around Ishinomaki, one of the worst affected cities in Miyagi Prefecture. They searched around an elementary school where many pupils went missing after the tsunami, while some 50 divers from the SDF, the Japan Coast Guard and other entities were deployed to the nearby Kitakami River, the largest in northeastern Japan.

Some 18,000 SDF personnel and about 7,000 U.S. military personnel, as well as members of police, the JCG and fire departments, continued their involvement in the operation...

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/04/82800.html
Latest casualty figures for March 11 quake, tsunami
TOKYO, April 2, Kyodo

The following are the latest casualty figures related to the earthquake and tsunami that hit northeastern and eastern Japan on March 11, according to the National Police Agency as of 8 p.m. Saturday:

Number of people killed 11,938
Number of people missing 15,478

[hunter]

6. Worse than DU?

Whatever happens at the nuclear plant, the consequences of the tsunami are worse.

People may lose their homes to the nuclear accident, hundreds of thousands have actually lost their homes to the tsunami. And the tsunami killed more people immediately than the nuclear accident ever will.

Of all the toxic and carcinogenic industrial wastes released into the environment, radioactive stuff is but a small fraction. Since it announces itself by its radioactivity it is much easier to track. Since it's strange and atomic and unfamiliar to us in our daily lives (like say, gasoline...) we are more fearful of it, and it gets more news coverage.

The nuclear accident is a big deal, but getting help to the people who survived the tsunami and lost everything is the greater problem.