Tokyo Gubernatorial Candidate and Former Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa: "Polar Bears, Seals Dying Because of #Fukushima..."

He also says there was an explosion at the end of December in Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant that proves there was a meltdown, citing Russian news.

I wonder whether anyone is advising Mr. Hosokawa on the Fukushima I NPP nuclear accident at all (or Mr. Hosokawa's news source is just 2ch when it comes to the nuclear accident).

Mr. Hosokawa on a net-based TV on January 22, 2014 (about 18 minutes into the video):

「数日前に私は見たんですけども、ロシアの国防軍が出した極秘資料というものが出てきてね。 それを見たんですが、福島でこないだ暮れに、１２月３１日だったかな、爆発があったという小さな記事が出ましたね。 その数日前から実は水蒸気が上がっていて『何かおかしい』という話があったのを私も確かに覚えているんですけども。 あれは完全にメルトダウンを起こしているということを、いろいろ分析をしていて。 （ロシアが。）それでアメリカはヨウ素を１５０００袋だっかな、既に２月の始めに配るという手筈を始めたということとかですね、それから、いま北極海とかいろんなところでシロクマ、アザラシ、その他の生物の大量死が続出していると、これはまさにその福島の影響であるということとか。いろんなものが出てきているわけです。これはまあ凄い話だと思いましたね。」

"I saw it a couple of days ago, but there was this confidential document issued by Russian National Defense Force. I saw it in there that in Fukushima [I NPP], on December 31 I believe, there was an explosion. I certainly remember, too, that "something was wrong" as the steam had been rising for several days prior. So the （Russian) analysis was that it suffered a complete meltdown. And so the United States arranged for 15,000 bags of potassium iodide to be distributed in early February. Also, polar bears, seals and other animals are dying in large numbers in the Arctic Ocean and other places and it is precisely due to the Fukushima accident. Many pieces of information like these. I thought they were terrible stories.

"Terrible stories" (凄い話) could also be translated as "terrific/fantastic stories". It was fantastic to watch the interviewers simply take what Hosokawa said as if they were incontrovertible "facts".

But in the reality-based world, steam has been seen rising on and off from Reactor 3 at least since July last year; it had probably been there ever since the March 14, 2011 hydrogen explosion that destroyed the operating floor and severely damaged the floors below but became visible only after enough debris had been removed. (See my post on 12/29/2013.)

As to the "explosion" on December 31, 2013, even the ex-ambassador to Switzerland who has been raising numerous alarms about the Fukushima accident, real or imagined, confirms it was just an earthquake (actually two earthquakes, he says) in Ibaraki Prefecture that day.

The "confidential Russian document" that the Ambassador links also has a mention of "radioactive snow" in several states in the US. That is so 2011/2012 winter in Japan, when people freaked out measuring naturally occurring short-life radionuclides in the snow (and rain, for that matter) - bithmus-214 and lead-214 - by using personal survey meters to get only the radiation levels or misreading the peaks of bithmus-214 for cesium-134/137 and lead-214 for iodine-131.

And "meltdown"? Mr. Hosokawa must know that meltdown (core melt) already happened in March 2011 in Reactor 1, Reactor 2 and Reactor 3.

I have no idea where Mr. Hosokawa came up with "15,000 bags" of potassium iodide pills, but it must be the "news" that the US Department of Health and Human Services solicited a bid for 1.4 million potassium iodide pills in December 2013. But the order is most likely part of the on-going program of stocking potassium iodide in preparation for nuclear emergencies. (This is an archive page of HSS announcing 1.7 million doses of liquid potassium iodide in 2005.)

As to the polar bears and seals and a host of other living things (including fish, starfish, etc.), they had been dying of mysterious diseases way before the Fukushima I NPP accident. In 2012, CNN reported that the cause of death of seal pups on the east coast of the US was "a new strain of avian flu" that jumped species. The most recent "scare" story was this one quoting the abstract of a paper presented by University of Alaska researchers, in which the researchers say they tested to see if cesium-134 and cesium-137 were present in the tissue samples. For some unknown reason, in Japan this morphed into "cesium-134 was detected, and therefore the seals were dying of Fukushima radiation!"

If Mr. Hosokawa's anti-nuclear stance is based on the fantastic stories (凄い話) like these, no wonder LDP and the Abe administration are comfortable letting the anti-nuclear ("beyond nuclear") issue be emphasized by the Hosokawa camp in the Tokyo gubernatorial race.

Quote a contrast to Mr. Junichiro Koizumi, who talks numbers and detailed facts about nuclear power and why he is against it now. Alas, he's not running for the governorship.

No matter. The Japanese media, from the NHK (increasingly government mouthpiece) on down, completely ignores the Hosokawa-Koizumi team anyway. The election is on Sunday, February 9, 2014.

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