Risk Communication - Japan

The Guardian - September 12, 2011

Rescue workers and medics land by helicopter at the Marcoule nuclear site, in France. Photograph: Claude Paris/AP

An explosion at a French nuclear waste processing plant that killed one person and injured four others sparked fears of a radioactive leak on Monday.

An emergency safety cordon was thrown around the Marcoule nuclear site near Nimes in the south of France immediately after a furnace used to melt nuclear waste exploded and caused a fire. It was lifted later in the day after France's nuclear safety agency, the Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire (ASN), said there was no danger to the public.

Reports said the body of one male worker at the plant had been "found carbonised", but there was no evidence that the explosion had caused any radioactive leak, though the ASN admitted there was the "possibility of a leak of low-level radioactivity, but no shooting of radioactivity in the air". There was no information as to the cause of the explosion.

The accident came just a week after the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, bucked the anti-nuclear trend following Japan's Fukushima disaster and pledged €1bn (£860m) of new investment in atomic power.

submitted by Samuel Bendett

asahi.com - August 17, 2011

The tsunami that followed the Great East Japan Earthquake left 22 million tons of debris and rubble scattered across three prefectures in the Tohoku region. No real steps toward restoration can be taken until it is removed. Last month, Prime Minister Naoto Kan's administration at long last introduced a bill to the Diet to place the national government in direct control of the cleanup. Will concentrated efforts to remove the debris now finally get underway?

At the end of June, disaster experts, representatives from the Environment Ministry and officials from affected municipal governments gathered at a conference in Sendai for a meeting on how to dispose of the debris. The gathering, organized by Japan Society of Material Cycles and Wast Management, a scientific group studying the debris problem, attracted 150 people, well above expected numbers, forcing organizers to change the venue to a larger room.

During the Q&A session, municipal government personnel peppered representatives from the environment ministry, which is responsible for dealing with the debris problem, with questions concerning the cleanup.

Report to the IAEA Member States

Tokyo, Fukushima Dai-ichi NPP, Fukushima Dai-ni NPP, and Tokai Dai-ni NPP, Japan

24 May - 2 June 2011

By agreement with the Government of Japan, the International Atomic Energy Agency

conducted a preliminary mission to find facts and identify initial lessons to be learned from

the accident at Fukushima Dai-ichi and share this information across the world nuclear

community. To this end, a team of experts undertook this Fact Finding Mission from 24 May

to 2 June 2011. The results of the Mission will be reported to the IAEA Ministerial

Conference on Nuclear Safety at IAEA headquarters in Vienna on 20 24 June 2011.

During the IAEA Mission, the team of nuclear experts received excellent cooperation from all

parties, receiving information from many relevant Japanese ministries, nuclear regulators and

operators. The Mission also visited three affected nuclear power plants (NPP) — Tokai Dai-

ni, Fukushima Dai-ni and Dai-ichi — to gain an appreciation of the status of the plants and

the scale of the damage. The facility visits allowed the experts to talk to the operator staff as

submitted by Samuel Bendett

Homeland Security Newswire - July 19, 2011

Researchers from U.S. universities are collaborating to implement a new network of seismic sensors aimed at arming communities with early earthquake detection and warning capabilities; the sensors, no bigger than a Post-it note, are part of a new phase of the Quake-Catcher Network (QCN), a project gathering detailed data to help scientists understand the earthquake process and how to mitigate against its effects.

Six thousand seismic sensors, 200 volunteers, and a University of Delaware researcher all have one thing in common – helping scientists study earthquakes.

Michela Taufer, assistant professor in the Department of Computer and Information Sciences, is collaborating with researchers from Stanford University and the U.S. Geological Survey to implement a new network of seismic sensors aimed at arming communities with early earthquake detection and warning capabilities.