Cover Up Of Fukushima Chain Reaction Underway

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  Paul Joseph Watson & Steve Watson

Infowars.com
March 14, 2011

All the nuclear reactors at the earthquake stricken Fukushima nuclear plant are under threat of  melting down and exploding in a chain reaction that will signify the world’s worst ever nuclear disaster and send clouds of radioactive particles hurtling towards the United States – that’s the scale of the crisis facing Japan as officials admit for the first time that three nuclear reactors are already in a meltdown.

While the mainstream media continues to argue over the definition of a “meltdown” while unquestionably regurgitating the dubious claim of Japanese officials that the two massive explosions witnessed at the plant were caused by pressurized hydrogen, radioactive isotopes cesium-137 and iodine-121 have been detected by helicopters flying 160km (100 miles) away from the nuclear plant, which can only mean one thing, according to the Seattle Times: “One or more of the reactor cores is badly damaged and at least partially melted down.”

After claiming for three days that the explosions did not damage reactor cores and downplaying the severity of the situation, Japanese officials have now been forced to admit the obvious, that nuclear fuel rods in three reactors are melting. Given the sequence of events, it is entirely probable that all six reactor sites will now go into total meltdown and start spewing radioactive particles into the atmosphere that threaten not only Japanese citizens but also those living on the west coast of the United States.

The two explosions have already compromised the surrounding facilities. Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated from a 20-km exclusion zone around the plant which keeps growing. Latest reports suggest that the exclusion zone is already at 50km and expanding. Casualties in the immediate vicinity of the nuclear facilities are likely to be far higher than reported.

Japanese authorities, presumably in an effort to prevent hysteria, have engaged in a cover-up of the true scale of the Fukushima crisis from start to finish, and they have been largely aided by a mass media that has slavishly repeated their lies without question, despite the fact that there is a long history of covering up nuclear catastrophes in Japan. This process has only put the Japanese people in more danger.

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Amidst the disgusting spectacle of a castrated and inept corporate mass media failing to ask hard questions about the true scale of the Fukushima crisis, a handful of nuclear experts are attempting to blow the whistle.

As reported by the BBC:

Japanese engineer Masashi Goto, who helped design the containment vessel for Fukushima’s reactor core, says the design was not enough to withstand earthquakes or tsunamis and the plant’s builders, Toshiba, knew this.

Mr Goto says his greatest fear is that blasts at number 3 and number 1 reactors may have damaged the steel casing of the containment vessel designed to stop radioactive material escaping into the atmosphere.

He says that as the reactor uses mox (mixed oxide) fuel, the melting point is lower than that of conventional fuel. Should a meltdown and an explosion occur, he says, p lutonium could be spread over an area up to twice as far as estimated for a conventional nuclear fuel explosion. The next 24 hours are critical, he says.

Goto warns that Japanese authorities have suppressed the true severity of the crisis and that there is “a severe risk of an explosion, with radioactive material being strewn over a very wide area – beyond the 20km evacuation zone set up by the authorities,” adding that the worst case scenario would manifest itself as “many Chernobyls,” and that the effect would be, “Like a volcano spreading radioactive material.”

Nuclear expert Joe Cirincione warns that radiation from Japan’s multiple potential nuclear meltdowns could spread to the US west coast and that the threat represents an “unprecedented crisis.”

Yoichi Shimatsu, former editor of the Japan Times,  states that after a high-level government meeting, “Japanese agencies are no longer releasing independent reports without prior approval from the top,” and that censorship of what is really occurring at the plant is being overseen under the Article 15 Emergency Law.

Professor Richard Wakeford, a nuclear expert at Manchester University, said yesterday: ‘If the fuel is not covered by cooling water it could become so hot it begins to melt – if all the fuel is uncovered you could get a large-scale meltdown.’

Today it looks as if that scenario is playing out.

Shaun Burnie, an independent atomic energy consultant, also warns that Japan’s nuclear crisis is much worse than it seems:

The US has moved one of its aircraft carriers from the area after detecting low-level radiation 160km (100 miles) offshore.

The Japanese government is playing down the scale of the disaster, however, experts have pointed out that it has a long history of nuclear cover ups, and that this is merely  the latest.

Documentary filmmaker Tony Barrell says in 2003 reactors across the country had to be shut down after it emerged the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) had hid accidents.

“They had to shut down 17 plants in 2003 because they’d been falsifying the records about what had been happening at them,” he said.

“Lives were threatened, systems broke down, there were failures to report and there were cover-ups. People pretended things hadn’t happened.”

Barrell says several other major incidents have occurred and gone relatively unreported:

“A place called Monju, which in 1995 sprang a leak in its liquid sodium cooling system which made the whole thing absolutely red hot and had to be shut down immediately and stayed shut down until the beginning of last year – 15 years,” he told ABC News in Australia.

Barrell also pointed out that the Fukushima Daiichi plant should have been shut down long ago because it is now 40 years old.

Should other plants in Japan experience complete meltdowns, the entire country could become a nuclear wasteground, and the radiation could engulf large areas of the planet, leading to huge numbers of cancers and future birth deformities.