This week, Japan has the tragic obligation to be remembered of 2 catastrophes that will have changed the country forever. There is first of all, the unprecedented Tōhoku earthquake, that rocked the empire of the sun with a 9.0 magnitude quake and the resulting tsunami cost the lives of over 15.000 people. As if this wasn't enough, the Daiichi nuclear power plant suffered 3 fatal meltdowns after being hit by the tsunami. The failure in all cooling systems led to the 2nd biggest release of radioactive material, the biggest since Chernobyl.
The Japanese reactors had been declared virtually prone to failure and accidents by the nuclear lobby. The argument that Nuclear accidents happen only in ramshackled old Soviet plants was finally broken: Not only did the triple meltdown at Daiichi Nuclear Powerplant in Fukushima cause environmental damage by radiation, but the health of the entire Japanese population is put at risk, with huge cost of a meltdown, which TEPCO, the exploiting firm will not be made accountable for. The heavy financial cost of a meltdown is inevitably borne by the public, not by the companies that created and operated the plants. None of the world's 450 nuclear reactors are invulnerable to human error, catastrophes, terrorism or ageing.
As a reaction to Fukushima and slow evacuation, 160,000 people fled their homes because of radioactive contamination, and continue to live without compensation in inhumane conditions. On this day, FYEG says NO to NUCLEAR POWER, and strongly calls upon the Japanese government to take on the fight of the people from Date-City, Tomioka, Minamisoma, Fukushima and many other cities ravaged by radiation. In a country that suffered the only dropping of a Nuclear bomb on a civil target... twice, we find it highly unusual that the brave people from Fukushima Prefecture are kept alone. On this date we reach out our hearts and thoughts to the victims of the Tōhoku earthquake, the Daiichi nuclear disaster, and all other victims that the civil and military use of nuclear energy have cost mankind.
This Article was written by Phillippe Schockweiler and published on www.fyeg.org
