Tokyo Electric Power Company has finally looked inside GE designed reactor 4, using an underwater camera.
All they could see was “wreckage” and strange “floating white objects”.
Those same “floating white objects” have been observed in reactor 4’s spent fuel pool. TEPCo said visibility in the spent fuel pool has decreased in the past month.
Visibility is down to one meter (about 3 & half feet), the month prior it was five meters (16 feet)!
An international telecommunication symposium was held in the quake/tsunami hit Japanese city of Sendai. The goal was to discover which form of telecommunications works best in a tsunami disaster.
Cells phones proved to be useless, as there was no way to charge the batteries. Use of pay phones was limited because of tsunami damage.
It turns out that the best way to communicate with disaster victims is still the tried and true Radio! A study found that most survivors, who knew what was going on, were listening to portable radios.
The boss of Japan’s NHK broadcaster (NHK actually won awards for their reporting on the disaster), said in the next disaster they will focus even more on getting useful information out for those survivors who might be listening on portable radios.
“The Food and Drug Administration is really only checking about 2% of the food that’s imported into the U.S., so a lot can go unchecked and problems may not be found.”-Erik Olson, Pew Health Group
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is warning that cuts to imported food inspections have resulted in increased illness, and it could get worse: “As our food supply becomes more global, people are eating foods from all over the world, potentially exposing them to germs from all corners of the world…”-Hannah Gould, CDC epidemiologist
From 2005 to 2010, 2,348 illnesses in the United States were linked to imported foods. Food poisoning caused by imported fish made up 45% of the cases! In those cases the fish came from Asian sources.
The next highest cause of food illness was imported spices, most being dried peppers.
The number one cause of food poisoning is norovirus followed by salmonella. In 2008 there were 23,152 cases with 22 deaths.
To make things worse, the Republican controlled U.S. Congress has pushed new inspection rules on the FDA, yet has cut funding for inspections over the years. Activists say that’s not going to work: “Our concern is that, with all the new requirements for imports and all the new protections that are envisioned, that unless FDA gets a bump-up in resources, it’s going to be very hard, if not impossible, for the agency to do its job.”– Erik Olson, Pew Health Group
A slow moving landslide, in Niigata Prefecture, has devoured eleven homes, so far. Locals are trying to stop the Earthly sloth by building a mound of dirt.
The landslide is 150 meters (492 feet) wide and 750 meters (2,460 feet) long, and is moving at only 17 centimeters (6.7 inches) per hour! The next victims in its path are a hamlet of 20 people.
Niiagata Prefecture was hit with heavy snow recently, and officials say the landslide is being cause by melt-water deep in the ground.
They’re building a 5 meter (16 feet) high mound of dirt, and trying to pump out melt-water from the ground. They think the landslide sloth will gain in size and speed as more snow melts. At least 80 people have been evacuated.
JAPAN MODERN DAY ATLANTIS ROUND 11: MORE THAN 10,000 EARTHQUAKES HIT JAPAN IN THE PAST YEAR! JAPAN ISLANDS SHIFT EASTWARD!
It’s been revealed that six years ago the Japanese Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) was asked to adopt the safety guidelines of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The request was made in 2006 by Japan’s Nuclear Safety Commission. Top NISA officials refused, saying things such as evacuation areas as recommended by the IAEA, would cause undue anxiety among the masses!
Hideaki Tsuzuku, of the Nuclear Safety Commission, blasted NISA, saying if they had followed the IAEA’s guidelines evacuations would have taken place sooner, and faster!
NISA official Yoshinori Moriyama, admitted they never thought such a nuclear accident, as Fukushima Daiichi, could happen!
March 15, 2012, workers at the damaged GE designed Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, tried to enter the basements of reactors 2 and 3. It was the first attempt since the March 2011 disaster!
FAIL! Radiation levels are still too high for humans, and, on top of that, they discovered the basement doors for reactor 3 are jammed shut!
Tokyo Electric says they need access to the reactor suppression chambers, in order to assess the damage. They have not been able to do so for a year!
Radiation levels emitted from the suppression chamber of reactor 2 hit 160 millisieverts per hour! Radiation levels outside the basement door of reactor 3 are 75 millisieverts per hour. The radiation levels are too high for workers to continue with anymore work around those reactors!
Radiation levels must be lower in order for TEPCo’s plan to remove melted fuel can work.
A ghostly reminder of the March 11, 2011, Mega Quake and tsunami that hit north eastern Honshu, Japan, made its way back home.
The boat belonged to a fisherman from Otsuchi in Iwate Prefecture. Otsuchi is one of the coastal towns devastated by the tsunami. The fisherman did not survive the monster tidal surge, but his boat amazingly did.
Nearly one year after the disaster the ravaged boat was found drifting, more than 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) away, on the other side of Japan, in the Sea of Japan (aka East Sea). It was returned to the fisherman’s son, who lives in Kamaishi City.
The son said he intends to repair the boat and go fishing.
Sales of Japanese beer, and beer based drinks, hit all time lows in February, 2012.
Japanese brewers shipped less than 360,000 kiloliters (95,101,938 U.S. liquid gallons), that’s the lowest amount in February since such record keeping was started in 1992.
Nippon beer makers blame the cold weather! They say demand dropped in the areas of Japan that were hit hard by unusual cold temps and heavy snowfall. They also blame being forced to make more non-alcoholic drinks.
South Korea officials reporting that bird flu has hit their country. 45 chickens died from bird flu, however, they are conducting more thorough tests to determine which strain of bird flu it was.
In Vietnam, officials thought they got things under control after more than 400 poultry died in February, but now, a new outbreak has been reported to the UN’s World Health Organization.
Bangladesh is reporting a fourth case of human H5N1 infection. The man was found to be infected, on February 26, after government mandated testing for live poultry market workers. So far no deaths.
Indonesia has seen another human death from H5N1. A 12 year old boy died on 21 February 2012. He was in contact with poultry, but investigators say none of the birds are showing any sign of H5N1.
As of the beginning of March, farmers in Bhutan have killed off more than 1,300 poultry to stop the spread of H5N1 there.
Officials in Hong Kong are reporting an increase in the number of wild birds dying from H5N1. Normally H5N1 attacks domestic birds. It’s believed that wild birds can get it from eating contaminated chicken feed. However, most of the dead wild birds in Hong Kong were not near any poultry farms.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says H5N1 can be spread by rubbing your eyes after handling sick birds. The CDC said several types of flu viruses can travel through your eye and cause upper respiratory infection.
I looked and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.
PALE GREEN HORSE & H1N1: MEXICO HAS 166 DEATHS SO FAR FOR 2012, COSTA RICA SAYS FLU “UNUSUAL” THIS YEAR
No thanks to the ongoing nuclear disaster at Fukushima Daiichi, Japanese rice prices have skyrocketed. This is because the amount of Japanese rice that is not contaminated with radiation is getting smaller every month.
That fact has caused wholesale prices for Japanese rice to rise 20% since March 2011. Traditionally Japanese grocery stores will sell only Japanese rice, but now they are turning to rice from China.
Some stores are offering free samples to get their customers to buy it. Major supermarket operator, Seiyu, says they will try a test sale this coming weekend. If it’s successful then Chinese rice could become the main food staple of Japan!