Fukushima raised to level 7 Chernobyl event, Japan admits more radiation escaped than we were told

Tuesday, April 12, 2011 by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...) Tags: Fukushima, Chernobyl, health news

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(NaturalNews) The title of this article probably should have been "TOLD YA SO." After all the downplaying, all the denials, all the disinfo and deceptions by both the nuclear industry and the mainstream media, it finally emerges that the amount of radiation released by Fukushima was far, far higher than what we were told. How high? So high that the Fukushima catastrophe has now been raised from a level 5 event to a level 7 event on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (http://www-ns.iaea.org/tech-areas/emergency/...). They just skipped right over level 6 because they know even a 6 would be laughable at this point.

A level 5 event is an "accident with wider consequences." A level 6 event is a "serious accident," and a level 7 event is a "major accident." If you really do the math, however, Fukushima should be a level 28 event because there are four reactors each at level seven (4x7 = 28). Chernobyl only had one reactor, and it stored far less fuel than any one of the Fukushima reactors.

The amount of released radiation required to quality for a level 7 event is "several tens of thousands of terabecquerels." For example, 50,000 terabecquerels.

How much radiation has already been released from Fukushima? 500,000 terabecquerels -- and that's just from iodine-131 and doesn't even count the other isotopes that are also being released (http://apnews.myway.com/article/20110412/D9M...). In other words -- and here's the real shocker -- the amount of radiation released from Fukushima is over TEN TIMES the amount needed to qualify for a level 7 event!

With the arrival of this new designation, Fukushima is now OFFICIALLY a Chernobyl-class event, and nuclear officials are now openly and publicly admitting that the total radiation release from Fukushima could soon exceed Chernobyl -- although they're desperately trying to claim it somehow won't, if only due to the power of their own imaginations.

Meanwhile, we're being treated to an ever-expanding lesson in the table of elements as yet more radioactive materials are being detected in the Fukushima releases. Today, strontium was found in the soils near Fukushima, adding to the impressive list of other elements that were blown into the environment by the explosions there: Plutonium, Iodine and Cesium. (http://ca.news.yahoo.com/slight-amounts-stro...)

If only Fukushima had blown gold out of its core, Japan might actually have a way to pay for all this, by the way. But sadly, the byproducts of nuclear fission are not the precious metals we would all wish for. Rather, they are the radioactive elements determined by the laws of physics -- the very same laws of physics that the nuclear industry once thought it had smugly conquered.

Murphy, that clever little bastard, seems to crop up everywhere these days.

Far worse than we were originally told

With this new designation of a level 7 event, the massive cover-up has melted down. Although Japan has tried desperately to withhold radiation data, shut off the gauges, explain away the extremely high sensor readings and assure everybody that it was only a "miniscule" amount of radiation being released into the environment, the sad but undeniable truth of the matter is that Fukushima is a global-scale nuclear disaster that's now unleashing radiation across the world that's showing up in our milk and food.

The excuse behind raising the event to level 7 right now instead of earlier is laughable but predictable: Authorities claim they just didn't know how to measure the radiation!

"Our preparations for how to measure (the radiation leakage) when such a tsunami and earthquake occurred were insufficient and, as a result, we were late in disseminating information internationally," said a senior official working for Prime Minister Naoto Kan. (http://www.cnbc.com/id/42542704)

In other words, the nuclear industry didn't know how to measure radiation, they claim, and even when they did figure out how to take measurements, they withheld the resulting data.

The clever disinfo campaign marches on. NISA is now saying that the radiation released into the atmosphere is only 10 percent of Chernobyl's release. But what they don't readily admit is that they're releasing massive quantities of radioactive water into the ocean, and that doesn't count as "atmosphere," you see.

They also don't want you to remember that Fukushima is engage in an ongoing release of radiation with absolutely no end in sight. It is only a matter of weeks, in other words, before Fukushima does exceed the total Chernobyl release levels.

How do we know that? For one, that same senior official quoted above also says the Japanese government is now telling TEPCO to "set target dates for when it would halt the radiation leakage as well as restore the cooling systems" (http://www.cnbc.com/id/42542704).

Set target dates? It's like being stuck in a bureaucratic nightmare. Let's all have a committee conference, and we'll put together an "actionable game plan" so that we can "accentuate our positive accomplishments" while we all "facilitate going forward with team players" and other such nonsense corporate speak that often flows from the mouths of business suit morons who have no idea what to do but somehow want to take credit for it.

If there's a target date to set for halting the radiation, it should be TODAY. If there's a target date to restore cooling to the spent fuel rods, it should be YESTERDAY. Does anyone really believe these are things to be slapped onto a calendar like your best friend's birthday?

Oh, and by the way, we're now supposed to believe the Japanese government is telling us the truth from here forward, I suppose. Sure, they lied about the radiation releases in the past. They downplayed the seriousness of the event; they withheld data and explained away the broken gauges as flukes. But now they're suddenly going to be up front with all of us and tell us the truth, you see. Now we're going to get honest and accurate information out of Japan, if you can believe that.

Still, nuclear industry shills can't help themselves from continuing to downplay the situation. "Judging from all the measurement data, it is quite under control," says Hironobu Unesaki, a nuclear physicist at Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute (http://apnews.myway.com/article/20110412/D9M...). He also said that raising Fukushima to a level 7 event was no cause for worry, and that "...it doesn't mean that a significant amount of release is now continuing."

It seems that Unesaki didn't receive the memo that says, "Stop lying to the public." He's still operating from the previous official memo which instructed everyone to, "Deny and Downplay."

Remember when Fukushima was only a level 4 event and all the nuclear industry experts and government experts were saying "this is nothing like Chernobyl?" Then it was raised to a level 5 event and they repeated, "It's still nothing like Chernobyl." And now with the official designation at level 7, they're screaming, "We swear! It's nothing like Chernobyl!"

Except that it is. It's a lot like Chernobyl. All the elements are the same, after all: The toxic iodine-131 and cesium-137 being released into the environment. The strange but persistent government cover-ups. The lying to the public. The downplaying of the human fatalities caused by the event. The outrageous ineptitude of the nuclear industry "experts" who told us these power plants were safe.

It sound almost exactly like Chernobyl, come to think of it. And if you read the news archives from 1986, you'll find extremely harsh words from the USA condemning the Ukranian officials for withholding data and downplaying the situation there. And yet, just 25 years later, the tables are turned. Now Japan and the USA are in full-on cover-up mode, playing the part of the Soviet officials who lied to their own people about the severity of the disaster.

If there's one thing we've all learned from history, it's that you can always count on your government to lie to you in times of trouble. At precisely the moment the People need honest, accurate information about the severity of a disaster or crisis, government leaders will take to the podium and calmly announce that everything is fine and people should take no precautions whatsoever. And then immediately after these speeches are given, they scurry off to their underground command bunkers.

Here's a video of Obama telling Americans there's no problem with the radioactive fallout from Fukushima. It's hilarious (in a sad sort of way): http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=61EFAB11121C6A...