Six years ago this week, a tsunami, triggered by a category 9.0 earthquake, slammed into the site of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility on the north east coast of the Japanese island of Honshu. The natural disaster resulted in the failure of systems keeping the reactor cores and spent fuel rods cool, leading to core meltdowns in three of the plant's reactors, as well as damage from consequent hydrogen explosions. [2]
Enormous quantities of radioactive particles were released into the atmosphere and the water table leading to the Pacific Ocean. Approximately 170,000 people in the vicinity of the plant were immediately evacuated.
The World Health Organization downplayed the health risks from the catastrophe, concluding in their 2013 Health Risk Assessment from the nuclear accident that the risks of contracting certain cancers in certain sex and age groups were only "somewhat elevated." The report also concluded "no discernable increase in health risks from the Fukushima event is expected outside Japan." [3]
Nevertheless, a health management survey examining 38,000 children in Fukushima found three children diagnosed with thyroid cancer. The natural incidence is one in one million. [4]
Further, a December 2011 peer-reviewed report in the International Journal of Health Sciences found that in the 14 weeks immediately following the event, there were 14,000 excess deaths in the United States connected with radio-active fall-out from the Fukushima meltdowns. [5]
Comment: Dr. Helen Caldicott: Hiroshima, Fukushima & beyond