‘1000s die in US due to Japan N-crisis’

A scientific study has found that an estimated 14,000 excess deaths in the US are linked to the radioactive fallout from the disaster at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant.

According to an article published in the December 2011 edition of the International Journal of Health Services, the estimated 14,000 excess deaths in the US during the 14 weeks following the Fukushima disaster in March are comparable to the 16,500 excess deaths in the 17 weeks after the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986.

Over that period, the number of deaths, compared with the same period in 2010, was up 4.46 percent, the article said.

According to the article, most of the deaths were infants, under the age of one. Studies show that despite infant deaths decreasing by more than 8% this year in the weeks leading up to the Fukushima disaster – the fatalities increased by nearly 2% in the weeks following the nuclear crisis in Japan.

Around a week after the disastrous meltdown at Fukushima, scientists detected a plume of toxic fallout that had arrived over American shores.

Subsequent measurements by the US Environmental Protection Agency found levels of radiation in air, water, and milk hundreds of times above normal across the US, but the risk was downplayed by mainstream media.

The Japanese nuclear crisis broke out on March 11, 2011 after a 9-magnitude earthquake and a following tsunami hit Japan’s northeast coast, where Fukushima nuclear power plant is located.

The tremor triggered the nuclear disaster by knocking out power to cooling systems resulting in reactor fuel rod meltdowns at the nuclear power plant.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), which runs Japan’s quake-hit Fukushima nuclear plant, said last month that a thorough cleaning of the contamination at the facility will take at least 30 years.

The article called for further studies on the true impact of the Fukushima disaster around the world.