Magazine Editor’s Final Words: Fukushima exponentially more dire than Chernobyl — Deteriorating plant threatens mass extinction around world 

ENENEWS

Guy Crittenden, editor of HazMat Management magazine and Solid Waste & Recyclingmagazine (Part of the EcoLog Environmental Resources Group, “Canada’s leading publisher of print and electronic environmental, occupational health and safety, workers’ compensation news, legislation and compliance solutions – Subscribers include environmental health and safety managers, engineers, executives and lawyers in all industry sectors and government”), Dec 11, 2014 (emphasis added):

• [After a quarter-century, this is] my last article written as Editor of HazMat Managementmagazine [and] Solid Waste & Recyclingmagazine
• Instead of a long article about what transpired in 2014 and what may be ahead, I’m going to offer readers three items… that have made a deep impression on me recently; these are “must watch” items for anyone interested in helping our species avoid peril from environmental degradation
• The deteriorating status of things at the destroyed nuclear plant at Fukushima, Japan…you have an obligation, really, to be aware of conditions there
• [There is a] very real and present threat from the… highly radioactive… destroyed cores of the reactors, as well as things like the storage of contaminated water in hastily-built, rusting containers
• This is serious stuff… an actual meltdown of the reactors — real China Syndrome stuff — as had been assumed would never likely happen in a modern reactor
• The situation is exponentially more dire than Chernobyl
• [Workers must] remove the rods for safe containment without having them contact one another and trigger a fire, the consequences of which would be unimaginable — We’re talking mass extinction around the world, especially in the northern hemisphere
• Most people have forgotten the situation and think of it only as a local Japanese problem
• It’s only a matter of time before another earthquake or tidal wave triggers such an event

Kevin Kamps, nuclear waste watchdog for Beyond Nuclear, Nuclear Hotseat, Dec 9, 2014 (at 37:00 in):  “If the meltdown is bad enough, that’s going to burn its way right through the foundations of the containment — like we’ve seen at Fukushima Daiichi.”