Spotlight: Hidden truths of Fukushima nuclear disaster revealed

Five years have passed since Japan suffered from the shocking Fukushima Daiichi nuclear leak. However, the whole aftermath of the disaster has been more serious than predicted, due to the intriguing game of "hide-and-seek" played by the Japanese government and interest groups concerned.

HIDE-AND-SEEK

On May 30, the Tokyo Electric Power Company that runs the reactors admitted, for the first time ever, that its insistence on simply calling the tragedy "nuclear reactor damage" in the past five years has "hidden the truth."

Faced with questions from the international community about the possible consequences of the disaster, Japan has, on a number of occasions,explicitly denied its deliberate downplaying or concealing of the tragedy and its fatal consequences.

However, facts have proved that the "reactor melting," whose aftermath is far more grave than the vaguely-worded "damage," should be the precise term.

More curiously, since the very first day of the tragedy, Japan has met with relentless suspicion about its disturbingly torpid, incomplete and even inconsistent release of information, as proved in the contradictory data offered by two Japanese authorities about the influences of the water contaminated by radioactive iodine on pregnant women and children.

Meanwhile, the international community had been unable to get access to relevant information in the early days after the disaster occurred. Even Yukiya Amano, chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), had to visit Japan and meet with the then Japanese leader in a bid to get more nuclear-related information.

Toshihide Tsuda, professor of environmental epidemiology at Japan's Okayama University, found that the incidence of thyroid cancer among local children, who have been exposed to a mass of leaked radioactive substances, is 20 to 50 times higher than the national average.p Tsuda revealed that the Japanese authorities have denied the link between nuclear radiation and the high incidence of thyroid cancer. They have also refused to communicate with him and shunned questioning scholars like him from attending relevant official meetings.

The IAEA's data showed that due to the lack of information, it has still been hard to precisely evaluate the potential negative influence of the Fukushima disaster on the public's health and the environment, even five years later.

WILLINGNESS TO FORGET

According to Ken Buesseler, marine radiochemist with the U.S. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the consequences of the Fukushima nuclear accident were "unprecedented," since over 80 percent of the leaked radioactive substances have flown to the sea.

Other scientists in North America also found that the radioactive cesium coming from Fukushima has found its way to the West Coast of the continent, having a serious impact on the fish, the ecosystem and food safety.

Japan's Abe administration has been "eager to turn over the page of Fukushima" and has shown a "willingness to forget," French newspaper Le Monde said in an editorial on the fifth anniversary of the Fukushima horror.

Xinhua reporters based in Japan also found that a powerful, yet largely hidden, "nuclear community" does indeed exist. Electric power companies made a huge numbers of donations to government officials, research institutions and members of the committee in charge of setting up safety standards of nuclear facilities, thus forging an interest community largely unknown to the public.

SILENT BYSTANDERS, CRITICAL VOICES

Japan appears to be enjoying the silent support of its allies in its handling of the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster. Buesseler from the U.S. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution said he is "upset" about the U.S. lack of support for relevant radioactive studies along the coasts of Japan and the United States.

Its national image, the impact on tourism, the medicare burden, lawsuits -- there are a lot of things for Tokyo to worry about. But none of these should be used as an excuse by Japan to hide the truth.

Any efforts to silence the critical voices in the public and media are doomed to fail, as long as the negative influences of the Fukushima disaster still linger. Endi