Dr Suzuki Warns ....Fukishima Plant Poses Imminent Threat

Fukushima nuclear power plant is seen from a bus during a media tour at the plant on June 12, 2013.David Suzuki has issued an ominous warning about the state of Fukushima's nuclear power plant.

"Fukushima is the most terrifying situation I can imagine," the environmental activist and host of the Nature of Things said last week at the University of Alberta's symposium "Letting in the Light: Science to Guide Public Water Policy in the 21st Century."

"Three out of the four plants were destroyed in the earthquake and in the tsunami. The fourth one has been so badly damaged that the fear is, if there's another earthquake of a seven or above that, that building will go and then all hell breaks loose. And the probably of a seven or above earthquake in the next three years is over 95 per cent," Suzuki said.

He added that a recent study found another earthquake could require evacuation of the entire North American coast — and as for Japan — "bye bye," Suzuki said. He said the Japanese government was too proud to accept help from international experts and in "total collusion" with Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the fourth reactor. "They are lying through their teeth."

On Friday, a day after the symposium ended, the Associated Press reported that Japan had agreed to work with the U.S. Department of Energy on cleaning up the plant and removing dangerous fuel rods. Fully decommissioning the plant will likely take decades, according to AP.

After the earthquake and tsunami that caused the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, Suzuki wrote the world must reconsider its choices of energy supply to avoid disasters and future energy shortages.

 

More than 1,000 fuel rod assemblies need to be removed from a building that was badly damaged following the tsunami

A task of extraordinary delicacy and danger is about to begin at Japan's Fukushima nuclear power station. Engineers are preparing to extract the first of more than 1,000 nuclear fuel rods from one of the wrecked reactor buildings.

This is seen as an essential but risky step on the long road towards stabilizing the site. The fuel rods are currently in a precarious state in a storage pool in Unit 4.

This building was badly damaged by an explosion in March 2011 following the Great Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.