Peter1469
12-25-2013, 06:51 AM
Crew of the USS Ronald Reagan and Radiation Sickness (http://www.ibtimes.com/uss-ronald-reagan-crew-members-sick-cancer-three-years-after-fukushima-contamination-photos-1519170)
A little known story.
Nearly three years after the destruction of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, at least 70 U.S. Navy sailors who participated in relief efforts after the accident have been suffering from radiation sickness and even cancer as the crew of the USS Ronald Reagan was exposed to fallout.
“I was standing on the flight deck, and we felt this warm gust of air, and, suddenly, it was snowing,” sailor Lindsay Cooper told the New York Post (http://nypost.com/2013/12/22/70-navy-sailors-left-sickened-by-radiation-after-japan-rescue/) in an interview published Monday. The metallic-tasting snow was caused by the freezing Pacific air that mixed with the radioactive fallout from the Fukushima power plant that was wrecked in the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
Fukushima was the world's worst nuclear disaster since the meltdown of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in Ukraine in 1986. Japanese utility crews are still struggling to contain radioactive water leaking from the plant into the Pacific Ocean. It has been estimated that some 300 tons of toxic water enter the ocean each day.
“We joked about it: ‘Hey, it’s radioactive snow!’ ” Cooper said. “I took pictures and video.”
A little known story.
Nearly three years after the destruction of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, at least 70 U.S. Navy sailors who participated in relief efforts after the accident have been suffering from radiation sickness and even cancer as the crew of the USS Ronald Reagan was exposed to fallout.
“I was standing on the flight deck, and we felt this warm gust of air, and, suddenly, it was snowing,” sailor Lindsay Cooper told the New York Post (http://nypost.com/2013/12/22/70-navy-sailors-left-sickened-by-radiation-after-japan-rescue/) in an interview published Monday. The metallic-tasting snow was caused by the freezing Pacific air that mixed with the radioactive fallout from the Fukushima power plant that was wrecked in the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
Fukushima was the world's worst nuclear disaster since the meltdown of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in Ukraine in 1986. Japanese utility crews are still struggling to contain radioactive water leaking from the plant into the Pacific Ocean. It has been estimated that some 300 tons of toxic water enter the ocean each day.
“We joked about it: ‘Hey, it’s radioactive snow!’ ” Cooper said. “I took pictures and video.”