Features Politics
Faith Aquino on Jun 19 2013
Japan’s ruling party is in need of carrying out damage control as much as the government is in need to clean up after the
Fukushima nuclear plant disaster. The statement of
Sanae Takaichi, the Liberal Democratic Party’s Policy Chief, was as damaging as Fukushima’s nuclear explosion. In her speech on Monday, Takaichi claimed that the Fukushima disaster caused “no deaths” among the residents.
Tokyo Electronic Power Co. (
TEPCO) revealed on Monday that it will pursue a survey of the disaster-hit Fukushima nuclear power plant using new robotics technology. With the high risks involved in the task, Honda Motor Co., in collaboration with the Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), have developed a humanoid robot using Honda’s
ASIMO as prototype while meeting the specifications set by TEPCO.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. (
TEPCO), operator of the disaster stricken
Fukushima nuclear power facility, put on hold the ongoing test run of its water decontamination system on Sunday, June 16 because of a suspected leak in the holding tanks of the highly radioactive waste water. A number of widely publicized leaks to the facility’s underground storage tanks – erstwhile primary storage for the water being used to cool down the molten reactor cores – have forced the embattled power company to use above-ground metal storage tanks, but TEPCO can’t seem to catch a good break and leaks have been discovered on the secondary storage tanks as well.
A temporary clinic was set up by Dr. Shunji Sekine in Namie,
Fukushima Prefecture last month in order to provide medical assistance to the town’s residents following their evacuation to avoid the radiation threat from the 2011 nuclear disaster. Sekine stated that residents returning home still need medical care. The 71-year old doctor assumed the responsibility to watch over the residents and decided to stay with them instead of leaving town.
The Japanese government and utility company Tokyo Electric Power Co. (
TEPCO) revealed on Monday that they may be able to start removing the melted fuel from inside the
Fukushima nuclear reactors within the first half of 2020 provided that work efficiency is improved. This should be a pleasant surprise for embattled operator TEPCO, meaning that the decommissioning process of the disaster stricken nuclear facility is going faster than expected if the melted fuel removal can start 18 months earlier than initially planned.
For the first time since the nuclear meltdown of the Fukushima plant in 2011, operator Tokyo Electric Power (
TEPCO) has accepted it played a part in the suicide of a Fukushima farmer in the aftermath of the disaster. They have reached an undisclosed out-of-court settlement with the family of the farmer, but his son is not content with the money.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. (
TEPCO), operator of the disaster-stricken Fukushima nuclear plant revealed that it had found another leak of contaminated water on Wednesday from its storage tanks, putting more pressure on the embattled utility company to stop the numerous issues that have plagued the decommissioning process of the molten nuclear reactor cores. TEPCO officials said that a worker patrolling the storage area spotted the leak just after noon, with droplets of contaminated water leaking out between the tank's circular steel structure. The
Fukushima Nuclear Power plant was hit hard by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami more than two years ago, triggering nuclear reactor meltdowns and mass evacuation because of the radiation.
An ongoing study being led by researchers from the Fukushima Medical University on the impact of nuclear radiation from the disaster-stricken atomic power plant on
Fukushima residents has found a slight increase in thyroid cancer cases in the area’s younger population. Data shows 12 minors with confirmed thyroid cancer diagnoses, up from a total three in a report in February, with 15 others suspected to have
cancer, up from seven from that same report earlier this year. The numbers and data were taken from about 174,000 people aged 18 or younger whose initial thyroid screening results were positive.
Samples from the crippled
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex grounds were found to be contaminated with radioactive cesium, prompting utility Tokyo Electric Power Co. (
TEPCO) to take back an earlier statement about groundwater safety in the area. Prior to TEPCO’s announcement on Monday, the company said that there’s no need to raise the alarm for any contamination detection. The discrepancy of the findings resulted from a problem of accounting background radiation according to the utility.
The Nuclear Damage Claim Dispute Resolution Center, an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) entity that is in charge of cases involving the
Fukushima nuclear plant disaster of 2011, has decided to approve the compensation for mental damages due to radiation exposure for around 180 residents in the Nagadoro district. This is the first time that they approved claims for mental damages due to radiation exposure.
