In terms of ongoing radioactivity, concern is minimal. You don't hear any new reports about this because the reactors have been turned off for over a year now, they have their electricity back (which means suitable cooling), and decay heat is quite manageable under those conditions.
They probably won't let people farm on the surrounding land for another decade, but that's mostly out of panic. Ingesting material that could be radioactive is a scary concept, and people really want to be careful about that. (Potassium is radioactive. Like bananas?)
To address some things other answerers have said: Some are taking it too lightly. Some are being far too dramatic. This is not a situation where we will see thousands of people developing cancer in years to come. We won't see hundreds. I would bet we won't see a single fatal cancer case from this. The radiation released simply was not high enough. It wasn't close. It was higher than background, and that's intimidating. But it did not even approach the levels of Chernobyl.
So... it's not quite fixed. The reactors are beyond repair. However, radiation isn't actively leaking into the environment causing chaos. There's still some lingering radiation from last year, but it's nothing harmful to humans, or even the surrounding wildlife. Japan will be okay.
Fix it?
it's not something that can be 'fixed' within months or a year or so.
It's going to take 4 decades to decontaminate the area & deem it safe for humans to move back into the area. See first link below.
So scared of a repeat performance of an unavoidable earthquake repeating a nuclear disaster, Japan has switch off power stations & are investing in safer options.
But their first worry is how will the country cope with a depleting power supply, brown outs & rationing is expected at peak times.
See second link below.
Disaster, there you go hyperbole, a nuclear plant stops working and it is a disaster ?
No they didn't fix it, and there is a slight risk in the surrounding area of Radioactive contamination, but nothing that cannot be dealt with.
Meanwhile more people will die from being eaten by Sharks than ever died from all the Nuclear "disasters" put together (none have died from Fukishima)
And more people die from road deaths each year than were killed at Hiroshima?
Contributor "John Ashtone", I don't know where you get your information from, and you've got a very vivid imagination. Either that or you work for the nuclear industry, and are trying to suppress the facts.
The Fukushima plant didn't just "stop working" as you put it, three of the four reactors exploded, at least one, but more probably all three went into meltdown because they were not being cooled.
And as for the "slight risk" of radioactive contamination, well, over 10,000 square kilometres of Japan's very sparse farmland is so contaminated that none of the products grown here can be sold on.
Your comparison about more chance of being eaten by sharks than dying from a nuclear accident is ridiculous. The Chernobyl nuclear accident will be responsible for between 30,000 - 100,000 premature deaths due to cancer, and Fukushima will probably be responsible for 10,000 or more over the next 50 years. The exact numbers will never be known because radiation is spread throughout the atmosphere.
Even using the most conservate figures, the death rate is equivalent to many thousands of years of the death rate of being killed by sharks !
Comparing those who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki with car accident death rates is also pretty pathetic, and an insult to both, as if they are just statistics and not human beings !
Especially when it is now known how very near the world came to "all out" nuclear war, on at least two occasions in the past. So near that on each occasion, only ONE person stood between peace and nuclear oblivion. In 1962 it was Vasili Alexandrovich Archipov and in 1983 , Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov. Both should be remembered and honoured far more than they are !
You can tip on the websites below to discover why, and to see for yourself just how near we all came to nuclear war.
FAR to near for comfort !
If you're referring to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster - no, it can't be "fixed". It can, to some extent, be controlled. Read this for a "one year after" story: http://onpoint.wbur.org/2012/03/05/lesso...
It is so bad now,complete liquefaction of the core rods-you don't even want to know what is about to happen to containment #4.Dig hole now..
PS John A is an idiot
we dropped ******* bombs on them i dont think that can be fixed but i bet ron paul can fix it if he wanted to
yea turns out their was a loose nut
oh yea, they fixed it. lol
