Friday, December 16, 2011

Latest Decon Technology Out of Japan: Hands

Jiji Tsushin's site has several photos of the Self Defense Force soldiers carrying out decontamination work.

I wrote a post on Monday about them doing decontamination at the Iitate-mura village office using screwdrivers. Here in Jiji's photo, they are decontaminating the town office in Namie-machi.

The tools: their hands.

There is no information whether the SDF were ever told of the radiation levels - air radiation, density of radioactive materials from the sludge and dead leaves they were made to remove, or they were fitted with personal survey meters to control radiation exposure.

Probably not. They are the soldiers stationed either in Fukushima City or Koriyama City in Fukushima Prefecture. One is 44th Infantry Regiment (Fukushima) and the other is 6th Artillery Regiment (Koriyama), according to the tweet by the Japan Ground Self Defense Force. You can be pretty sure that they are not trained in decontamination, not necessarily of radioactive materials but of more ordinary chemical spills, etc.

From Jiji Tsushin; the photo was taken on December 8 at the town hall in Namie-machi, 8 kilometers north of Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant. It was raining slightly, the photo caption says.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't get why they took their helmet with them. Is that the same one they will wear on the other days ? The one with the contaminated dust from the leaves ?

Your article is right, they are clearly not trained for that task.

Anonymous said...

That's something the hazard and risk avoidance culture of the neon-vest-serf, that has developed around the world, continues to fail to recognise. Walking on stairs in one of the terrible hazards, and the way things are going within our Orwellian safety culture we'll need to apply yellow and black ribbon appliques to all edges, and cover steps in rubberised foam, plus require helmets and level 1 body armour adornment, and signing of a waiver, before entering any stairwell. Else a gigantic fine (and threat of home confiscation if you can't pay it) or 3-years imprisonment. Plus require annual re-certification in "Stairwell Transitioning" training units to Cert III level and placement of panic buttons on every floor with a 24hr on-call medic, and helo-pad on the roof.

Don't know who will do productive work in such a world. Probably by people who face realities with courage and get the necessary shit done - like always - with a functional sense of proportion. i.e. facing reality and dealing with it. I grew up in a world where you didn't require a certificate to do basic essential things - now you do.

To the risk-taker went the rewards ... and also the losses. That was the deal, and everyone knew and accepted it. Life is a gamble, it always has been, it always will be, but you keep it in perspective. Death and illness are certain, so it's really a matter of giving yourself the best fighting-chance for success, and not giving up in the face of obstacles. If this were not so no one would ever start a business, or build anything worthwhile, or explore the extremities of our world.

If workers at Fukushima have the guts to turn-up, see what must be done, and to do it, to make a living and improve the situation, regardless of the personal risks, then I tip my hat to them.

RESPECT

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