By Kim Hjelmgaard18 April 2016 KIEV, Ukraine (USA TODAY) – Yury Bandazhevsky, 59, was the first scientist in Belarus to establish an institute to study Chernobyl’s impact on people’s health, particularly children, near the city of Gomel, about 120 miles over the border from Ukraine. He was arrested in Belarus in 1999 and sentenced […]
By Kim Willsher8 March 2016 SLAVUTYCH (The Guardian) – In a biting winter wind, Alexander Petrovich Zabirchenko walks slowly along a memorial to firefighters and workers who died in the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, touching each of the portraits engraved in granite. He does not shiver or complain of the cold. He is a big man […]
21-23 February 2014 (IAEA) – The objective of this workshop was to develop a state-of-the-art scientific understanding of radiation-induced thyroid cancer, and to share knowledge and experience in this area in order to support the efforts of the Japanese government and the Fukushima Prefecture to enhance public health. Experience in holding effective social dialogues, in […]
By Michael Forster Rothbart (Mother Jones) – Photojournalists often distort the aftermath of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant explosion. They parachute in, expecting danger and despair, then leave after a few brief days with photos of deformed children and abandoned buildings. This sensationalist approach obscures the more complex stories about how a displaced community […]
By Rachel Nuwer 14 March 2014 (Smithsonian Magazine) – Nearly 30 years have passed since the Chernobyl plant exploded and caused an unprecedented nuclear disaster. The effects of that catastrophe, however, are still felt today. Although no people live in the extensive exclusion zones around the epicenter, animals and plants still show signs of radiation […]
By Ken Buesseler28 August 2013 (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) – On 11 March 2011, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake—one of the largest ever recorded—occurred 80 miles off the coast of Japan. The earthquake created a series of tsunamis, the largest estimated to be over 30 feet, that swept ashore. In addition to the tragic human toll […]
By SHINICHI SEKINE25 May 2013 (Asahi Shimbun) – The government avoided setting stringent radiation reference levels for the return of Fukushima evacuees for fear of triggering a population drain and being hit by ballooning costs for compensation, an Asahi Shimbun investigation shows. The revelation could rekindle debate over the government’s safety standards as many evacuees […]
27 April 2013 (JIJI) – Samples of groundwater taken from monitoring holes around the sunken reservoirs at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant are proving radioactive, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Saturday. Strontium and other radioactive elements were detected in samples taken from 13 of the 22 observation holes dug around the reservoirs, which were […]
By David McNeill27 March 2013 TOKYO (Independent) – Google’s Streetview cars have been in to the area around the Fukushima nuclear plant for the first time. Their maps reveal the destruction wrought by Japan’s huge earthquake – and give the 21,000 residents forced to flee the chance to see what they left behind. It is […]
By Michael Fitzpatrick20 March 2013 (FORTUNE) – Two years since a shudder in the Earth’s crust devastated Japan, the country’s scientists and engineers are still attempting to develop technologies to make Fukushima safe from radiation. But progress has been slow and—because of institutional failings—more advanced technologies have not been available to workers at the sire. […]
