Wednesday, March 16, 2011

I sacrificed Fukushima

"We are staying in the middle." They know what they face: they will be contaminated by radiation. And then there are the explosions that at any moment could wipe them out. But still, to fight against the six reactors crazy. I am fifty TEPCO engineers who volunteered to remain to prevent the merger, the disaster for Japan.

A Fukushima I work eight hundred workers. Most were evacuated, but TEPCO has launched an appeal to engineers: "We ask you to remain at fifty." And they have taken a step forward. No, not for promotion, for an award, because it is useless to hide it: who is today in Fukushima will not have time to enjoy anything.

Who is he does forget himself. He does it for his family devastated and Japan. It is a moment, the time to write your name on the register of TEPCO. And that's it: once in Fukushima I go back is impossible. The body will absorb more radiation in a few hours in many years. As the helicopters Chernobyl airmen were engaged on the Afghan front, were allowed to return home in exchange for this mission.

Unloaded from the sky tons of cement to cover the core. We succeeded, but all died after suffering atrocious. TEPCO engineers, however, have freely chosen. They could save themselves. Useless, however, looking back once passed the gates of Fukushima. No need to look at the geiger counters with the hands hanging on the belt mad.

And there is time, inside the headquarters, to hear that nuclear engineers from comfortable television studios warn: "The level of radioactivity is likely to kill a few hours ones at Fukushima I". Now it's another world that out, the campaign seems to center around the bare hand, but it's a lifetime away.

The technicians wear white overalls and respirator, but more than they do to protect themselves to the discipline that they can not shake off. In the face of a merger a few steps away, naked. So the battle continues. Until yesterday with them were soldiers and American experts. Now I am alone.

We first have to supervise the control room, although the huge instrument panel remains the hope hundreds of lights are on, all levels off the scale, now no longer appropriate to alarms. There are three days that the central slides toward disaster: the explosion of the reactor a Saturday, Sunday at 3 reactor.

Monday-2: the uranium fuel rods have been exposed, without water cooling, and the fusion has begun. Then here is a roar, the smoke that enveloped everything and took away the lives of six people, five soldiers and a technician than thirty years. But now all six reactors (including the three already turned off when the earthquake) are out of control.

It's like a sinking ship, but the crew does not abandon it. "We need to pump water reactors," are the instructions. Easy to say, but the water is gone, evaporated, if they are drunk all the hot rods. All that remains is the sea, but the pumps and motors are out, reduced to a tangle. In the corridors of the central desert resound voices, a swing of hope and fear: "The bars are 2 discoveries, there is likelihood of merger." But the engineers are trying, they steal each liter available: "We reported thirty centimeters of water." The illusion lasts for a moment: "The liquid has evaporated, the merger has begun." But the fifty technicians remain.

The families can only watch from a distance the images on television. The telephoto framing those white dots that move continuously between the reactors. from the March 16, 2011

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