Reactor #1 Explodes in Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant

[backdated post written in April 2012 out of my digital logs]


On Twitter, I was retweeting whatever looked worthwhile even if I didn't understand the situation well enough.  One of such RT's had a link to BBC with a comment "Good, it's a video.  Now I see what happened.  NHK showed only two pictures before and after the explosion."


I was still more worried about Tsunami, and what this tweet meant to myself, let alone those who lived near the power plant in Fukushima.

BBC NEWS Asia-Pacific
Japan earthquake: Footage of blast at nuclear plant

(Even at the time of Reactor #3's explosion, all our media kept using this image and video repeatedly, except Nippon TV just for twice - live and recorded - till forced to switch to this #1 images later that day, i.e., 14th.  Very few Japanese knew about the true picture of the MOX #3 explosion.)


And in the afternoon, about 26 hours after Tsunami hit Tohoku, things like this was going on in Tomioka Town very near Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.

Children and Radiation from "Children of Tsunami" by BBC
with Japanese/English subtitles, posted by tokyobrowntabby

Note that this is about the hydrogen explosion of Reactor #1, even before the worse one (Reactor #3 on 3/14).  Also, this part of the stories has not been reported by any major Japanese media due to full of coverups, and the most Japanese are left unaware of the seriousness of the Fukushima disaster - even today, as of April 2012.)


I know it is not only in Japan.  Most people around the world focus so much on the Tsunami, and cannot realize the magnitude of eternal effects of radiation still emitted from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi.  The air around the Globe - not just the northern hemisphere - is contaminated, the Pacific Ocean is contaminated to Hawaii or the West Coast of the US, and the emission of radioactive gas and water has never stopped yet.


That said, on this day, I had no knowledge about the world nuclear history in the past some 70 years.  Everybody will have to learn sooner or later that we are only lucky to be still alive today.


This was only the beginning of the beginning of everything that changed the lives of almost all of us living in Japan (either being aware or not), and caused extra 14,000 deaths (statistically speaking) in North America.