After a gold medal performance by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the International Olympic Committee awarded the 2020 Olympic Summer Games to Tokyo Saturday. Fresh off of the G20 Summit in Russia, Abe gave a glowing assessment of the deteriorating situation at Fukushima Dai-ichi.
“Let me assure you the situation is under control,” Abe said during his country’s final presentation to the IOC. “It has never done and will never do any damage to Tokyo.”
Apparently forgetting that his government was forced to take control of the deepening disaster just days ago, Abe embarked a series of misleading statements that may set the record for the official and scientific hooey heard worldwide trying to explain away Fukushima’s triple meltdowns which began March 11, 2011.
“I really feel like using expletives regarding these outright outrageous lies, but I shall refrain,” commented Charles Haws of Three Rivers California soon after the announcement was made. “The story was also on the NBC Nightly News tonight. So, once again, the sleeping masses in the USA are going to believe that the Nuclear Plant in Japan is AOK. IMO – There is a distinct possibility that Tokyo will be a ghost town by 2020.”
The disconnect presented by Abe is part of a massively successful effort to cover up the astronomical amounts of radiation spewed into the air and water for the last two and a half years. The food chain has been impacted, no more so than in Japan as Radiation Food Lab shows.
Japan and Tokyo are not only massively contaminated, the Tokyo Electric and Power Company (TEPCO) which owns Fukushima Dai-ichi can’t even tell where the tons of melted corium blobs are located and have no clear plan to control the calamity. Add to that continuing and accelerating amount of fissile material spreading throughout Japan is the country’s government initiative to burn over a million tons of radioactive debris from Fukushima in incinerators running the length and breadth of the country.
To stage these Olympics in a land teetering on the brink of final catastrophe is not only outrageous and ignorant, it exposes athletes from all over the world to a rainbow of fissile radionuclides. Athletes with any sense, or the parents of them, need only read about Fukushima to know that the goal in 2020 is not to be in the fugazi Olympics but to be as far away from the place as possible. That the IOC would pull a stunt like this is, however, par for the course with an organization riven for decades with allegations of corruption.
For the first time in Olympic history, the games should be boycotted by both participants and spectators not because of any political issue, but because the place is just too damn hot radioactively. The levels of radioactive contamination are beyond belief. In Tokyo, there have been instances of a mysterious, and highly radioactive black substance growing around the city. Numerous YouTube videos show shocking detections of Tokyo radioactivity including hot trains to the airport.
You wouldn’t know any of this, though, listening to the impassioned hogwash of the Japanese leader.
“You should read past the headlines and look at the facts,” Abe said chiding a veteran Norwegian IOC associate when pressed on Fukushima which is on the verge of sinking into a sea of its own contaminated groundwater. “It poses no problem whatsoever,” Abe said in Japanese, adding that “[T]he contaminated water has been contained in an area of the harbor only 0.3 square kilometers big. There have been no health problems and nor will there be. I will be taking responsibility for all the programs with regard to the plant and the leaks.”
Now the world can join in Japan’s national duty to deny that Fukushima is very close to its second worst phase of the disaster: the ‘lost’ corium of three reactors wreaking havoc with the groundwater which is rising threatening to topple Unit 4’s spent fuel pool. That would surely destroy Tokyo as EnviroReporter.com reported in The Unforgettable Fire in June 2012.
Abe’s factual inconsistencies didn’t prevent the IOC from immunizing themselves with the prime minister’s nonsense and vote Tokyo as the winner instead of Istanbul or Madrid. Cheers erupted at the announcement, a sentiment echoed in the New York Times‘ ironically-titled piece on the decision called “For 2020 Olympics, I.O.C. Picks Tokyo, Considered Safe Choice.”
“Japan offers a $4.5 billion guaranteed reserve fund, plenty of hotel rooms for visitors and a dependable transportation system,” the sports section article noted. “The selection of Tokyo, conducted in a secret ballot by about 100 I.O.C. members gathered here, was also seen as a chance to help a willing and sturdy Olympic partner recover from the devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami.”
The award was to make the Japanese feel better? Forget the fact that Fukushima is the worst nuclear disaster in history and just 170 miles from Tokyo the capital city and largest metropolitan in the world. There is ample evidence of radiation contamination. Or that nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Energy Education found that all five Tokyo soil samples he collected were so hot as to be considered nuclear waste in the United States.
“[W]hen I was in Tokyo, I took some samples,” Gundersen testified before the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in March 2012. “Now, I did not look for the highest radiation spot. I just went around with five plastic bags and when I found an area, I just scooped up some dirt and put it in a bag. One of those samples was from a crack in the sidewalk. Another one of those samples was from a children’s playground that had been previously decontaminated. Another sample had come from some moss on the side of the road. Another sample came from the roof of an office building that I was at. And the last sample was right across the street from the main judicial center in downtown Tokyo. I brought those samples back, declared them through Customs, and sent them to the lab. And the lab determined that ALL of them would be qualified as radioactive waste here in the United States and would have to be shipped to Texas to be disposed of.”
If the purpose of awarding such games to Tokyo is to be based on emotion and not science, then perhaps the 2020 Tokyo Olympics ought to include ways to make Fukushima’s escaped fission more fun. Atomic Anime could be used to sell sports events. One EnviroReporter.com colleague came up with an impressive list of competitions that confirm that “goo” is indeed three quarters of the word “good”:
The Hundred Millisievert Dash
The 400 Tumor Relay
The Malignant Marathon
Plutonium Power Lifting
TEPCO Groundwater Swimming Events
The Fuel Rod Javelin Throw
The Becquerel Boxing Competition
MOX Boxing
Spent Fuel Pool Volleyball
The above attempts at gallows humor are not meant to be hurtful in any way to the Japanese people. Their government has betrayed them. When athletes, and their fans, from around the world have their 2020 Olympic dreams crushed by the ongoing and oncoming radioactive apocalypse that is Fukushima, the Land of the Rising Radiation will have only itself to blame.
Japan should concentrate on saving itself, and the rest of the countries downwind and down current of it, instead of promoting this dangerous puffery. If Japan had any of the honor that it claims to, it would bow out as gracefully as it can and get back to the business of trying to stave off the horrors of a triple meltdown with spent fuel pools threatened with destruction and huge radiation releases that would annihilate Tokyo. Saving Japan is more important than false pride and the Olympics.
If it won’t, the Olympic community should take a pass on these games because the only metals that will be really given out will be plutonium, uranium and cesium. Athletes can console themselves by knowing they at least escaped with their lives.
“Today, under the blue sky of Fukushima,” waxed Abe Saturday at the IOC, “there are young boys playing football and looking into the future and not the past.”
Abe is not alone in his denial. Other countries including the United States refuse to acknowledge the extent of the Fukushima disaster. In fact, by awarding Tokyo the 2020 Olympic games, the IOC has instead rewarded the Japanese government even as its nuclear nightmare continues to threaten us all.
Thank you for this information. Japan must really be desperate for money, and the Olympic Committee couldn’t give a [damn], obviously. I will spread this information far and wide.
7th August 2017 – Olympic games in Fukushima: Is it safe?
Extract:
Even when decontamination work has been carried out in the stadium, the mountains and woods behind the park have not been decontaminated, and wind and rain bring the radioactive substances towards the park. Besides, as we can see above, other places in the park are highly contaminated when we look at the surface contamination. They represent high risks of internal irradiation. Moreover, according to recent research, radioactive particles disseminated by the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident are mostly insoluble in water. This characteristic makes the health hazard much worse than in the case of the usual water soluble Cesium (see English transcription of NHK documentary on Insoluble Radioactive Particles in this blog). We believe that this Park should not be open to the public, especially to children.
https://fukushima311voices.wordpress.com/2017/08/07/olympic-games-in-fukushima-is-it-safe/
Here are just a few of the detailed reports from EnviroReporter’s “Radiation Food Lab”, showing serious radioactive fallout being detected in Tokyo!
26.06.2016 – Radioactive cesium fallout on Tokyo from Fukushima concentrated in glass microparticles
Extracts:
Japanese geochemists, headed by Dr Satoshi Utsunomiya (Kyushu University, Japan), analysed samples collected from within an area up to 230 km from the FDNPP. As caesium is water-soluble, it had been anticipated that most of the radioactive fallout would have been flushed from the environment by rainwater. However, analysis with state-of-the-art electron microscopy in conjunction with autoradiography techniques showed that most of the radioactive caesium in fact fell to the ground enclosed in glassy microparticles, formed at the time of the reactor meltdown.
The analysis shows that these particles mainly consist of Fe-Zn-oxides nanoparticles, which, along with the caesium were embedded in Si oxide glass that formed during the molten core-concrete interaction inside the primary containment vessel in the Fukushima reactor units 1 and/or 3. Because of the high Cs content in the microparticles, the radioactivity per unit mass was as high as ~4.4 x 1011 Bq/g, which is between 107 and 108 times higher than the background Cs radioactivity per unit mass of the typical soils in Fukushima.
Analysis from several air filters collected in Tokyo on 15 March 2011 showed that 89% of the total radioactivity was present as a result of these caesium-rich microparticles, rather than the soluble Cs, as had originally been supposed.
Comment:
Note that the micro particles measurement was ~4.4 x 1011 Bq/g. This is in Becquerel per gram, so you need to multiply this amount by another 1,000 times to get the Bq/kg amount. The test shows these micro particles are extremely radioactive! They would have spread much further outside of 230 km collection area by now, through wind and rain action, plus human activity.
Article:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-06/gc-rcf062316.php
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16.02.2016 – 559 Bq/Kg of Cs-137 detected from vacuum dust in Tokyo
Extract:
By 2/16/2016, a citizen’s radiation measurement station “Iwaki citizen’s radiation measurement station” announced 559 Bq/Kg of Cs-137 was detected from vacuum cleaner dust in Tokyo.
The sampling location was Edogawa ward in Tokyo.
http://fukushima-diary.com/2016/02/559-bqkg-of-cs-137-detected-from-vacuum-dust-in-tokyo/
————————————————–
Japan’s Fukushima ‘worst in history’ (17.09.2011)
Extracts:
At least one billion becquerels a day of radiation continue to leak from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant after the March earthquake and tsunami.
Experts say that the total amount of radiation leaked will exceed amounts released from Chernobyl, making Fukushima the worst nuclear disaster in history.
Al Jazeera’s Steve Chao reports from the Japanese capital of Tokyo.
Comment:
Twenty seconds into this video they show a map of dangerous radioactive hot spots in Tokyo. The tests were done by professional labs. The contaminated Tokyo hot spots are at levels where mandatory evacuation was enforced around Chernobyl. There is also evidence presented in the report of children already getting sick.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBkrIgJUWLk
Exactly three years ago today, we wrote Tokyo’s Radiation Olympics. According to Reuters’ Abe’s Fukushima ‘under control’ pledge to secure Olympics was a lie: former PM, we were dead on the money.
“Mr. Abe’s ‘under control’ remark, that was a lie,” quotes Reuters of former Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi saying yesterday. “It is not under control.”
Japan’s control of the Tokyo’s 2020 Goolympics is unlikely to be shaken by this. Indeed, according to The Japan Times‘ Fukushima could host 2020 events, a game each of new Olympic sports baseball and softball are being targeted to play in the hot zone.
Perhaps players in those games ought not to slide into bases because of the dust or dive for balls in the outfield in case the grass is radiating. During the 7th Inning Stretch, folks could sing “Take Me Out At The Ball Game” and whip out their nuclear radiation monitors to see how hot their hot dogs and peanuts actually are or if they’ve inadvertently sat on Japan’s famous radioactive black mold.
According to the Fairewinds Energy Education’s Cleanup From Fukushima Daiichi: Technological Disaster Or Crisis In Governance?, June 13, 2013:
“The radiation levels we were seeing were 1,000 times background, higher in spots,” Engelhard said. “If we had been working on a site this contaminated in the US, we would have been fully suited up in radiation protection suits, gloves, and respirators. Yet people were walking around and going about their business, with no idea of how contaminated everything around them was.”
One of the first demonstrations conducted by Wang’s team was at a Japanese school still in routine use. The contamination was widespread and included troubling accumulations of radiation in biological materials. While the asphalt driveway was contaminated, the grass next to it was four times as radioactive as the asphalt. The worst were the patches of fungus on the bleachers at the school’s baseball field, which had sucked-up radionuclides to such a degree that they were emitting radiation at 70-times the contaminated asphalt.
Engelhard described the chilling phenomena of the fungus-turned-radiation-sponge as, “a remarkable example of biological amplification.”
Wang said it more bluntly, “A boy sitting on that patch to watch a baseball game could do real damage to his gonads.”
More disturbingly, during the June 2011 trip, the American decon crew was stunned at how little the government disaster-response “experts” they encountered understood about radiation. After observing the radiation officials’ attempts to use their radiation meters, industrial hygienist Engelhard said, “They didn’t seem to understand what their radiation sensor equipment did, or how to work it.”
After pointing out to three Japanese disaster-response officials from various governmental entities that a nearby concrete bench was “hot,” Wang’s team was amazed to see the officials perched on the bench.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Wang said, “After being warned, they sat on the bench, three so-called ‘experts’, needlessly getting a dose of radiation. I had to take a picture.” [Our emphasis]
EnviroReporter.com hopes that when American baseball and softball players fail to make the cut on the 2020 U.S. Olympic Team, they know they will have ducked a radioactive bullet. It will be an outrage to watch Japan pull this poisonous stunt on the entire world, the same one they’ve been pulling on its own people since March 11, 2011. Here, however, we’ve been warning prospective Olympians of this since 2013, now substantiated even further by Koizumi.
4th November 2015 – Time has come for an ‘honorable retreat’ from Tokyo 2020 over Fukushima
Extract:
One needs only to look at recent stories describing the torrential downpours in the Fukushima area to know that this claim, if it were ever true, is clearly no longer valid. Even Tepco stated: “On Sept. 9 and 11, due to typhoon No. 18 (Etau), heavy rain caused Fukushima No. 1 drainage rainwater to overflow to the sea.” This is not to mention the high probability that relatively decontaminated areas have been contaminated once again by the heavy rains carrying radioactive particles lodged in the nearby mountains down onto the plains. Nor does it take into account that no one knows the location or condition of the melted fuel in reactors 1, 2 and 3.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2015/11/04/voices/time-com
If there were an Olympic competition for brazen imbecility, surely Fukushima Gov. Masao Uchibori is in the running for the gold according to the December 16, 2014 edition of Kyodo News. In it, Uchibori says that the Fukushima prefecture should be able to host preliminary events for the 2020 Tokyo summer Olympics. “”We need to set a goal so that we can show how much Fukushima has recovered,” Uchibori said failing to note that the out-of-control triple meltdowns continue to worsen.
However, EnviroReporter.com has already shown herein that having the Olympics in radiation-impacted Japan is beyond the pale. That said, if Fukushima prefecture is to host anything for the Gamma Games, it should be the Olympic’s last penultimate event, the Marathon. Start the race in Fukushima and end it anywhere and it could very well set the stage for record-setting running what with the competitors sprinting madly just to get out of the hot zone.
@John Smith
Your comment lacks in insight.
Most here are not exaggerating anything.
We are aware and knowledgeable of radiation, internal and external, and it’s affects on humans and all ‘life’.
The 3 out of control meltdowns at Fukushima on the coast of the Pacific ocean has little to no comparison to Chernobyl or TMI after 3 years of nonstop contamination into our air and water.
Your comparison to the Moon exploding is ludicrous.
Although there were studies done by the US government about using a Nuke to blow up on the moon.
“…the flash of explosive light would have been faintly visible to people on earth with their naked eye, a show of force resulting in a possible boosting of domestic morale in the capabilities of the United States, a boost that was needed after the Soviet Union took an early lead in the Space Race and who were also working on a similar project.”
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_A119
Some parts of the article and some of you commenters are extremely exaggerating the radiation threat. Most computers, electronic technology, and even the human body have microscopic amounts of radiation in it. Futhermore, if you commenters are so afraid of radiation disasters then why are none of you panicking about Three Mile Island or Chernobyl? If people follow your logic about radiation disasters, then you might as well say that if the moon somehow exploded, then all of the planets in the solar system would be destroyed by the debris…
ironic Japan will spend billions building for the olympics instead of funneling that money to the clean up at FUKU….oh well it is too late now anyway – the pacific and all of the creatures that call it home is dead….anyone seen the liquid coriums lately? we are a pathetic race indeed
We didn’t even have to wait until 2020 to see that Enviroreporter called it right with this really good article:
http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1329729/elevated-radiation-claimed-tokyo-2020-olympic-venues
If it’s okay, and it is according to Fair Use, here are a couple of trenchant clips which, I might add considering the dearth of American lamestream media coverage of this travesty, comes from an excellent Chinese news source.
Headline: “Elevated radiation claimed at Tokyo 2020 Olympic venues – Citizens’ group carries out tests at sites for key Tokyo Games facilities, but expert cautious about findings and organisers see no problem”
Clips: “Measurements were taken at 39 sporting venues that have been earmarked to stage events in seven years’ time, including the Kasumigaseki Country Club, which will host the golf tournament, the Asaka shooting range and the site of the planned National Stadium, which will stage the opening and closing ceremonies and a number of other events.
“The tests were also carried out at the planned site of the Olympic Village and the media centre, with the highest radiation reading – 0.484 microsieverts per hour – detected in undergrowth close to Yumenoshima Stadium, where the equestrian events will be held.
“Soil samples collected at the site had 3,040 becquerels of caesium per kilogram.”
&
“”We found caesium-137 at almost every place we carried out tests, and there was no caesium here before the accident at Fukushima,” Mitsuo Tanaka, a member of the group, told the South China Morning Post.
“In July, the group wrote to Jacques Rogge, the then president of the International Olympic Committee, and members of its evaluation committee and urged them not to select Tokyo as the host of the 2020 Games.
“Tanaka’s group received a brief e-mail message to confirm that their letter had been received by the IOC.”
Thank you, Enviroreporter!
@pamela brennan & All: Thank you so much for the kind words. We try to mix in a little gallows humor to lighten the load a bit since the subject is so grim and tough to fathom. But it looks like EnviroReporter wasn’t alone in finding fission folly in the awarding of the 2020 Summer Olympics to Tokyo. This Japanese blog has collected some of the best art generated reacting to the dicey decision including ours.
http://matome.naver.jp/odai/2137890782942348601
Congratulations Michael, on such an in depth and intelligent article on the 2020 Japan
Olympics. Very interesting and FUNNY!… I also enjoy reading all the comments. Thank you for being among the few who are so dedicated to exposing the truth.
Thank you for speaking out, Michael and showing the world the insanity of having the Olympics in Tokyo. Tokyo is already contaminated from the Fukushima fallout. We have no idea how much worse it will be by 2020.
The Fukushima catastrophe is the biggest present threat to humanity. At the very least Fukushima threatens the whole of the Northern Hemisphere. Indications are that the contamination will eventually get to the Southern Hemisphere as well.
The spirit of the Olympics is a good one, It shows that nations can play together. But there is no time to play right now.
The Japanese people need to put ALL their attention, energy and money into getting the Fukushima disaster under control.
And we just can’t sit by and say that “they” (the Japanese) need to do something – it is also “we” – each of us – you (who are reading this comment) – your neighbour – me,….. everyone can be part of the solution.
I encourage you to sign up for the free – online Webnar that Julian Gresser will be giving in September. It will help us become empowered to know that we can help.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/3/Fukushima-Consensus-Tranc-by-Julian-Gresser-Es-130807-253.html
Japan needs to invite the world – but not to play – they need ito nvite the world to WORK together to get this never-seen-before-in-the-history-of-mankind problem solved. All the nations of the world need to forgo the games and focus on working together to come up with a way to save the planet from this scourge that is the ongoing fissioning at Fukushima.
The phrase “honest Abe” has lost it’s meaning or will come to mean the reverse.
PM Abe is not the only leader who spews deadly lies.
A President Obama retrospective regarding Fukushima radiation.
Associated Press
– Uploaded on Mar 17, 2011
“I want to be very clear.” – Pres. Obama
“In the wake of Japanese nuclear crisis, …U.S. officials do not expect harmful levels of radiation to reach the West Coast of the continental U.S., Hawaii or Alaska.”
– Pres. Obama
A casual observer can tell by his body language he’s not telling the truth or he doesn’t really believe what he’s reading. It’s like when somebody says ‘trust me’ … don’t do it.
Here’s the proof!
TV Special Report:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zp7aDJLUf-U
I’ll bet he will say the same thing the next time he speaks about Fukushima. If he says anything at all. 😉
Diagnosis: Fukushima Denial Syndrome the gift that keeps on giving…brought to you by the Military Industrial Complex who fund both sides and their sponsored association of unethical sidekicks the IAEA…thankyou MC …dh
I’m really really worried about it. But especially , now i’m in British for studying, I have never heard about this kind of news since i came here. Guys. It’s catastrophe!! We have to make ready about this problem! It’s present continue!!!!!
Japan winning the Olympics is good. The world in general will start looking at this situation with renewed interest as travelers start wondering about their personal safety if they attend as athletes or fans. Many foreign travelers will not be going. Some countries will eventually decline the invitation. Japan will be forced to turn to other countries for more help to bring this situation under control–if that is even possible.
Will The 2020 Olympics In Tokyo Japan Endanger Health Of Athletes With Low Level Fukushima Radiation? via @AGreenRoad
http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2013/09/will-2020-olympics-in-tokyo-japan.html
Abe = Emperor Nero
Fiddling while Rome burns
Thanks Michael for speaking out–what is also very scary is the lack of information about the effects to the entire Pacific and west coast of North America-the internet used to be about the free flow of scientific information to better the planet–I guess those who don’t want us to know have diverted up that fountain of knowledge from coming to the surface–that hideous babble of confusion released by Bloomberg and being echoed throughout the media is almost nauseating to read–first it tries to confuse and overwhelm the illiterate masses with babble about radiation in bananas and brazil nuts and then ends up on Mercury–if I wasn’t afraid before I read that I was absolutely horrified after.
Michael,
I want you to know that I actually love, love, love this article, which I am profoundly grateful that you have written! I have literally been beside myself over the fact that our TV stations and major newspapers have hardly had a word to say about the nuclear crisis in Fukushima until just last week, when a daily commentator on channel 4 actually gave us one sentence about it. One! Why have our news outlets been silent? How can they possibly have an acceptable and credible reason for keeping silent about what should be a headline story? Just how often do they all stumble over an event that could transform the whole world as we know it? UNBELIEVABLE !!!!!
For that matter, our media may not be any worse than the Japanese government who have also, successfully, continued to lie and deny any nuclear harm to their country…and, who have gotten away with it well enough to be chosen to host the Olympics in 2020, in Tokyo. INCREDIBLE!
Tokyo…..lets hope there still is a Tokyo by 2015! At the moment, it is still there, but much too radioactively contaminated to live in now, and, if Fukushima reactor #4
topples over in another large earthquake, Tokyo will probably need to be evacuated of its 30.5 million residents.
And, where, oh where are those coriums from reactors # 1, 2 and 3? And, how many more tons of irradiated water are still remaining to pour out from the reactors and those cheaply made storage tanks?
Without going into any more horrifying detail, suffice to say that choosing Tokyo for the Olympics is like planning to eat a sugary frosting on a rotten cake. It is absolutely impossible and poisonous, no matter how you try to slice it!
The Olympics? We should ALL be praying that the people in the world just get a chance to LIVE!