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It has been one year since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster struck Japan. The accident began with a massive earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan’s Northeastern coast, destroying the Fukushima power plant’s electrical system, causing coolants to stop functioning and resulting in a reactor meltdown. More than 300 workers received significant radiation doses while attempting to contain the meltdown, six of them with radiation levels exceeding lifetime legal limits. Future cancer deaths due to radiation accumulation in the area are estimated to range from 100 to 100,000. In response to the meltdown, the Japanese government ordered a 20 kilometer evacuation radius around the plant and a ban on consumption of food grown in the area. Decontamination efforts are expected to be long and laborious, with eight percent of Japan being affected from radiation released from the Fukushima Daiichi incident according to the government.

Events were held in various cities in the US as well as around the world to mark the one year anniversary of the Fukushima incident. Many of the events were organized by anti-nuclear activists eager to remind the world of the dangers of nuclear power.

Today the Fukushima-Daiichi power plant remains in a state of “cold shutdown,” meaning that the plant operates in a stable manner and emits radioactive levels low enough to pose no public danger. But the most damaged sections of the plant are too polluted with radioactivity to allow any people inside them. The government has hired workers to continue the painstaking task of decontaminating the area so that the thousands of evacuated people may some day return.

GUEST: Kevin Kamps, radioactive waste watchdog at Beyond Nuclear

Visit www.greenaction-japan.org and www.beyondnunclear.org for more information.