From Nihon Keizai blog post: Time to build a museum?!

This is a translation of a part of a Nihon Keizai blog post posted on 1/4/2012 describing there are already requests to build a museum for the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident, even though the worst ecological disaster in the history is still ongoing. Kind of like burying the patient while they are still on the operating table, I suppose  . . .

東京電力福島第１原子力発電所の事故から９カ月あまり。福島県内で事故に関する資料を集めた博物館の設立を求める声が出ている。原発事故の経緯や写真、住民避難の資料などを集めた博物館で、事故の教訓を風化させないようするのが狙いだ。

It has been 9 months since the Fukushima daiichi nuclear power plant accident. In Fukushima, there are requests to build a museum which will collect all of the documents and data relating to the accident. This museum will also contain an account of the accident, pictures, and evacuee documents with the aim of not letting the lessons learned from the accident be forgotten.

博物館の設立に向けて動いているのは、福島大学を中心に構成するベラルーシ・ウクライナ福島調査団。調査団は2011年11月に旧ソ連のチェルノブイリ原子力発電所周辺に足を運び、地域住民による放射能対策や事故を起こした原発本体を視察した。その中でウクライナにあるチェルノブイリ博物館を訪れた。調査団のメンバーである桜の聖母短期大学（福島市）の二瓶由美子准教授は「原発事故の実態を詳しく知ることができる」と話す。

The people who are trying to build the museum are from the Belarus-Ukraine Fukushima research group which is mainly organized by Fukushima University. This research group visited the Chernobyl nuclear power plant area and observed the actual power plant and countermeasures for radiation done by people living in that area in November, 2011. At that time, they also visited the Chernobyl museum in the Ukraine. One of the members of the research group, Yumiko Hutakame who is an associate professor of Sakura no Seibo junior college said, "We can understand the true state of the nuclear power plant accident."

日本の学校授業では原子力発電所の問題について十分教えられていなかった。ところが原発事故で最も被害を受けたのは、放射線の影響が出やすいとされる子どもたち。特に低レベル放射線量の発がんリスクは未解明な点が多い。福島県の子どもたちは自ら知識を身につけてリスクを理解し居住する「覚悟」が求められる。 

The issues with nuclear power were not taught enough in Japanese schools. However, the most impacted by the nuclear power plant accident were children who are the most vulnerable to radiation. Especially, the risk of cancer cased by low level radiation is yet to be fully understood. They are requesting that the children in Fukushima attain the knowledge and understand the risk in order to be able to deal with living there.

How about instead of trying to build a museum, let's make sure all the children in Fukushima are evacuated from the areas which are measuring high levels of radiation? These children have nothing to do with this accident so why do THEY have to DEAL with living there!? They don't need to be educated, they need to be evacuated! 


Children are a precious treasure of any society and more "the future" than nuclear power will ever be, irregardless what nuclear proponents say. This is why we need to protect them. A society that cannot protect their own children will have no future. 


Plus, isn't it too early to talk about building a museum when this disaster is more threatening than ever? Dr. Koide (a nuclear engineering professor at Kyoto University, and one of the few REAL specialists left that has not sold out to politics) has recently stated that if the fuel pool in reactor building were to collapse, Tokyo would need to be evacuated (implying permanently. . .). It will take years to remove the fuel (if that . . . we can assume the technology to do so does not yet exist if they have not done so in a year . . .). The building has already been extremely damaged and is leaning over. There are many, many earthquakes happening in the area since 3/11. Museum building seems premature at this point, and who would visit it if building 4 collapses? 


If you would like to read the original Japanese blog post, here is the URL:
http://www.nikkei.com/news/topic/article/g=96958A9C93819490E3EBE2E3818DE3EBE3E0E0E2E3E3E2E2E2E2E2E2;q=9694E2E1E2E4E0E2E3E3E4E6EAE2;p=9694E2E1E2E4E0E2E3E3E4E6E5E5;n=9694E2E1E2E4E0E2E3E3E4E6E5E6;o=9694E2E1E2E4E0E2E3E3E4E6E5E7