JAPAN: FUKUSHIMA RADIATION NOW A GLOBAL DISASTER........

Fukushima Radiation Now A Global Disaster: Japan Finally Asks World For Help, Two Years Too Late

By Dave Smith

on October 07 2013 4:40 PM


Fukushima barriers

Waves wash above the barriers surrounding the Fukushima nuclear facility. Since the 2011 nuclear disaster, Fukushima has leaked a cumulative 20 to 40 trillion becquerels of radioactive tritium into the Pacific Ocean. Courtesy / Reuters

The March 2011 crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power plant was the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986, but it took two and a half years after the fact for the Japanese government to ask the world for help.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Japan is finally open to receiving global aid to contain the ever-growing disaster at Fukushima, where radioactive water leaks continue to contaminate the Pacific Ocean’s ecosystem, and thus, the entire world’s food supply.

"We are wide open to receive the most advanced knowledge from overseas to contain the problem," Abe said, in English, to open a conference on energy and the environment at an international science forum in Kyoto. “My country needs your knowledge and expertise.”

Abe has many times attempted to assuage national and international concerns. After Tokyo was named host in early September for the Summer Olympic Games in 2020, Abe repeatedly told the International Olympic Committee that the Fukushima situation “is under control.”