Fukushima: 1,600 Dead From Evacuation Stress

seven of five writes: The NYT reports that radiation-related hysteria and mistakes have cost the lives of nearly 1,600 Japanese since the Fukushima disaster. The panic to evacuate, not the radiation itself, led to poor choices such as moving hospital intensive care patients from hospitals to emergency quarters. The government's perception of radiation exposure risk, rather than the actual risk itself, may have caused far more harm than it prevented.

Comments

Another Win For the Anti-Nuclear Guys

[Anonymous Coward]

So fearmongering by the anti-nuclear body has lead to more deaths. Those guys are really doing a great job of increasing carbon emissions, increasing energy prices, increasing deaths due to continued use of coal fired power states, and now increasing deaths thanks to the fear of nuclear power that they've been spreading for years.

The reaction to Fukushima was totally overblown, and the media made it sound like a global catastrophe when in reality it was a minor incident that was primarily caused by continued use of a reactor that should have been retired. Had it been replaced by a newer reactor, as it should have been, the whole incident would never have happened, but then that's another example of how the anti-nuclear guys are endangering lives by not allowing newer reactors to be built.

Re:Another Win For the Anti-Nuclear Guys

[Mr D from 63]

Some Clarifications to the 1600 are in order;

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/ne...

Around 90 percent of those who died of indirect causes were aged 66 or older, according to Reconstruction Agency statistics published in September.

Unlike those caused by collapsed buildings or tsunami, indirect deaths are determined by municipal panels by examining links between the disaster and the cause of death. This occurs when a relative of a deceased files a request.

Causes of indirect deaths include physical and mental stress stemming from long stays at shelters, a lack of initial care as a result of hospitals being disabled by the disaster, and suicides.

Many of these deaths happened well after the evacuation. So effectively all deaths of the elderly displaced are blamed on Fukushima. It appears there is extra compensation if you can attribute a death to Fukushima.

Re:Another Win For the Anti-Nuclear Guys

[Uberbah]

99.99999999% of Americans were completely unaffected by 911. So it must not have made any impact on the nations consciousness or changed any policies, right?

Re:Another Win For the Anti-Nuclear Guys

[Uberbah]

The Green movement has none of the power in Japan that it does in the US and Europe

If the Green movement had the power in the U.S. that nuke fans thought it did, all coal and nuclear power in the country would have been replaced with solar panels. In the Carter Administration.

After Fukushima, foreign Greens and their pet journalists swarmed in to fire up a mass movement like the ones in Western countries.

Greens didn't tell the Japanese that TEPCO was a habitual, corner cutting liar that put their employees and surrounding region at risk. TEPCO did that through their corruption and hubris.

But because there is no anti-technology movement in Japan, they will figure out how to do better next time.

Standard nuke fan storyline: if you oppose nuclear power, you're a luddite! Reality: you can be fascinated by the technology, but realize that nuclear power is the most expensive technology ever invented by man.

Let's pretend that the IAEA isn't as incestuous with the industry it's supposed to oversee as Treasury is with Goldman Sachs, and that there will never be a nuclear meltdown again, anywhere. Nuclear power is still completely unjustifiable, as no plant rolls the full cost of it's construction, operation, security, maintenance into the rates it charges much less storing the waste for hundreds of years.

Nuclear power == corporate pork and fluffing Tom Swift fanboys.

And yet

[drinkypoo]

The government's perception of radiation exposure risk, rather than the actual risk itself, may have caused far more harm than it prevented.

And yet, Tepco downplayed and lied about the actual risk, and the amount of radioactive material released, literally at every turn. That is, literally everything Tepco said about it was a lie, and it was actually more and higher than they said literally every time. Perhaps the public loses confidence in official reports when they are all lies?

The Other Victims.

[Mr D from 63]

You'll find that there were many deaths also associated with the indirect effect of the tsunami and earthquake across Japan. A high number of suicides,stress on the elderly were part of it. And the depression of many who lost loved ones or lost their homes and all their belongings.

The devastation from the earthquake and tsunami was massive, but all those victims get ignored because of the focus on Fukushima. 60 minutes did a Fukushima documentary, and didn't even find 30 seconds to acknowledged those countless tragedies.

Re:Oh No!

[Orgasmatron]

Yes, all zero of them have been fully counted.

Same issue with Hurricane Evacuations

[trout007]

Evertime there is a Hurricane Evacuation you get a couple dozen that die from car accidents or falling off ladders boarding up their houses to prevent looting, etc. That is one of the reasons politicians are wary of calling evacuations unless really needed.

Re:Unintended consequences

[rasmusbr]

Nuclear power has been a disaster and widespread adoption of clean, renewable energy can't come soon enough.

Bullshit.

There have been multiple individual coal mining accidents that have killed more people than the entire nuclear industry has ever killed. Millions of people are estimated to die prematurely every year from pollution-caused heart and lung disease, and coal is one of the main culprits.

Every decision ever made to invest in nuclear instead of coal has been a life saving decision. The same could be said of investment in wind an solar in places where they can partially replace coal, but wind and solar will need to be paired with energy storage or long-range low-loss power distribution. Until we have either a cheap scalable energy storage technology or superconducting power distribution wind and solar will never replace coal.

And don't get me started on hydroelectrical dams. Dam breaches have killed more people than we could ever hope to kill with flawed nuclear reactor designs if we tried on purpose.

Re:Oh No!

[Mr D from 63]

They are the foremost experts on this type of analysis, and they are not a nuclear power associated body but rather work to ensure global nuclear safety for all radio logical venues, including medical, weaponry, power, industrial, etc. You can find your personal excuse to dismiss these well documented reports, and instead believe whatever you decide, but you'll have a hard time finding the data, basis, and proven methodology presented in these reports. Do you dismiss IPCC reports on global warming as well?