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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.

5 of 178 comments (clear)

  1. Another Win For the Anti-Nuclear Guys by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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 Had it been replaced by a newer reactor, as it should have been, the whole incident would never have happened, but then that's another example of how the anti-nuclear guys are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.

  2. And yet by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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?

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  3. Re:Oh No! by Orgasmatron · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yes, all zero of them have been fully counted.

    --
    See that "Preview" button?
  4. Re:Unintended consequences by rasmusbr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  5. Re:Oh No! by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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?