Chanting “Sayonara nuclear power” and waving banners, tens of thousands of people marched in central Tokyo on Monday to call on Japan's government to abandon atomic energy in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear accident.
The demonstration underscores how deeply a Japanese public long accustomed to nuclear power has been affected by the March 11 crisis, when a tsunami caused core meltdowns at three reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex.
The disaster the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl saw radiation spewed across a wide part of northeastern Japan, forcing the evacuation of some 100,000 people who lived near the plant and raising fears of contamination in everything from fruit and vegetables to fish and water.
Police estimated the crowd at 20,000 people, while organisers said there were three times that many people.
In addition to fears of radiation, the Japanese public and corporate world have had to put up with electricity shortages amid the sweltering summer heat after more than 30 of Japan's 54 nuclear reactors were idled over the summer to undergo inspections.
Keywords: atomic energy, Fukushima nuclear accident, nuclear safety
We Indians should be cautious of the push by westerners to plant their untested nuclear technology in India especially when they have put the brakes on nuclear in their own lands. According to a Japanese scientist,the massive pools of melted fuel have moved down ten metres into the ground, now out of the steel containments and also out of the protective 8 metre thick concrete protective layer underneath What will happen next is anyone's guess but this Massive nuclear industry with Massive costs probably needs money just to pay its running costs/losses and so has to sign up as many contracts with unsuspecting third world countries, just to survive. As uranium runs out and alternatives kick in and they've collected half our cash (contracts in billions of dollars) they will either file for bankruptcy, then decomission our plants at $5 billion a piece as there is no more uranium! Neo-colonialism will follow with us as slaves to this expensive nuclear industry with neverending costs!
If even those who knows very well the benefits of Nuclear Power, do not want it now, why are we still neglecting the security risks of it. We all know that the security measures taken by our, severely corrupted, nation and rulers are well back compared to that of Developed nations. We do have to think twice to say NO to Nuclear Power, if we are ready to consider nature as the most precious thing.
There is power shortage as the neuclear plants were shut down,though temporarily. It Appears without nuclear power the human race may go dark. This shows there is an urgent need to accelerate the research on safety measures to be adopted in neuclear power plants and become fool proof. Till then it is better to put a break for atomic power generation. But, the Governments are interested in the strategic and military prospects while promoting neuclear plants than in mitigating the energy crisis. The attitude should change. Scientific community should work only for the sake of development of S&T than for personal pecunary interests. Just think what will happen if the nuclear sector is opened for private lure.
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