An apocalyptic specter
ANXIOUS WORLD attention is focused on technicians frantically battling to avert a meltdown of the damaged nuclear power plant in Fukushima in northeast Japan. There are fears that an explosion in any of its reactors would blanket wide areas in the Pacific, including the Philippines, with a cloud of radioactive fallout as lethal as the 1986 blast in Chernobyl in the Ukraine, which contaminated large parts of Europe in the world’s worst nuclear disaster.
Haunted by the apocalyptic Chernobyl specter, nuclear experts are divided over the gravity of the threat of a meltdown of the Dai-ichi power plant that was crippled by the multiple disasters last Friday: the magnitude 9 earthquake and the terrifying tsunami, which ruptured four of the plant’s six reactors, causing them to leak radioactive material.
A team of 180 technicians has stayed in the plant to battle a meltdown and cool the reactors despite the fact that they are working in premises contaminated by radioactive discharges that could result in serious illness. “The workers at the site are involved in a heroic endeavor,” said former US Department of Energy official Robert Alvarez. “There is at least fragmentary evidence that in some places on this site there are life- threatening doses of radiation. I think they are doing enormously heroic work.”
Prof. Richard Wakeford of the Dalton Nuclear Institute at the University of Manchester said that for many of these technicians—despite the highly unusual and potentially dangerous job—it is just another day at the office. “They see it as doing their job,” he said. “The Japanese in particular are dedicated to duty, and they will see it as their duty to do what they are doing.”
According to news reports, monitoring at the Fukushima Dai-ichi site has recorded radiation as high as 400 millisieverts an hour, a level believed to pose a risk to human health. Exposure to 1,000 millisieverts of radiation can cause radiation illness.
Reuters reported that despite assurances by Japanese authorities, the crisis at the Fukushima plant has worsened since Friday, with desperate, unsuccessful attempts on Wednesday to water-bomb the facility.
“We are at the beginning of the catastrophic phase,” Sebastian Pflugbeil, president of the private, German-based Society for Radiation, said of Japan’s efforts to pull the Fukushima plant back from the brink. “Maybe we have to pray,” he said, adding that a wind blowing any nuclear fallout east into the Pacific would limit damage for Japan’s 127 million population.
Japan’s nuclear crisis may have taken its most dangerous turn yet, after the head of the US nuclear regulatory body said one of the pools containing highly radioactive spent fuel rods at the stricken plant had run dry.
A more optimistic outlook came from Laurence G. Williams, professor of Nuclear Safety at the John Tyndall Institute for Nuclear Research in Britain, who said he did not see a Chernobyl-type blast as likely.
But this assessment was contradicted by Commissioner Guenther Oettigner of the Europen Union, who told a committee of the European parliament that “in the coming hours there could be further catastrophic events, which could pose a threat to the lives of people on the island.”
“There is no panic yet, but Tokyo with 35 million people, is the largest metropolis in the world,” he said.
When asked, his spokeswoman said his prediction of a catastrophe within hours was not based on any specific privileged information, but his experts were relying largely on a mixture of reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency and the international media monitoring the nuclear crisis.
He said the nuclear site was “effectively out of control,” with the cooling systems not working. “As result we are somewhere between a disaster and a major disaster,” he said.
Philippine authorities were dismissive of worst-case scenarios. Dr. Eric Tayag, head of the Department of Health’s National Epidemiology Center, said that if radioactive materials reached the country, its components would have “decayed depending on its half-life,” because of the long distance traveled. He pointed out that Manila is more than 3,000 kilometers from Tokyo.
Dr. Soe Nyunt-U, country director of the World Health Organization, said there was no need for “undue alarm” as prevailing wind conditions showed that the Philippines was out of the path of the plume emanating from the nuclear explosion. “Even if this happens, radioactive materials won’t come to the Philippines,” he said. “There are minimal safety issues even in Japan and what is happening right now doesn’t have any implications for the rest of the members of the Western Pacific region.”
This complacent assessment was echoed by Alumanda de la Rosa, Philippine Nuclear Research Institute chief, who said “there is no nuclear cloud from Japan,” even after the second explosion at the nuclear plant on Monday morning. She noted that information from the nuclear plant showed that the Philippines was not in danger. “From what we’ve been monitoring, no radiation will reach here. There will be no exposure to the public.”
De la Rosa said the International Atomic Energy Agency placed the Fukushima explosion at Level 4, on a 7-level scale. The Chernobyl meltdown was placed at Level 7, which indicates a major release of radioactive materials and widespread and extended health and environmental effects.
Suppose the effort of Japanese technicians to avert a meltdown fails, is there any contingency plan to protect the public from massive radiation fallout? Our authorities are lulling us into a state of complacency based on the direction on the Pacific trade winds. Bahala na.
