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Science Friday: The Top Secret Pictures of Hiroshima They Didn't Want You to See | Fukushima, and other Bad Nuclear News

Submitted by Tjadendevries on Fri, 08/05/2011 - 12:48pm


Hiroshima: The Lost Photographs

    One rainy night eight years ago, in Watertown, Massachusetts, a man was taking his dog for a walk. On the curb, in front of a neighbor’s house, he spotted a pile of trash: old mattresses, cardboard boxes, a few broken lamps. Amidst the garbage he caught sight of a battered suitcase. He bent down, turned the case on its side and popped the clasps.

    He was surprised to discover that the suitcase was full of black-and-white photographs. He was even more astonished by their subject matter: devastated buildings, twisted girders, broken bridges — snapshots from an annihilated city. He quickly closed the case and made his way back home.

    At the kitchen table, he looked through the photographs again and confirmed what he had suspected. He was looking at something he had never seen before: the effects of the first use of the Atomic bomb. The man was looking at Hiroshima.

    In a dispassionate and scientific style, the seven hundred and one photographs inside the suitcase catalogued a city seared by a new form of warfare. The origin and purpose of the photographs were a mystery to the man who found them that night. Now, over sixty years after the bombing of Hiroshima, their story can be told.

    [...]

http://observatory.designobserver.com/entry.html?entry=7517


Hiroshima, the pictures they didn't want us to see

    The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed about 250.000 people and became the most dreadful slaughter of civilians in modern history. However, for many years there was a curious gap in the photographic records. Although the names of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were incised into our memories, there were few pictures to accompany them. Even today, the image in our minds is a mixture of devastated landscapes and shattered buildings. Shocking images of the ruins, but where were the victims?

    The American occupation forces imposed strict censorship on Japan, prohibiting anything "that might, directly or by inference, disturb public tranquility" and used it to prohibit all pictures of the bombed cities. The pictures remained classified 'top secret' for many years. Some of the images have been published later by different means, but it's not usual to see them all together. This is the horror they didn't want us to see, and that we must NEVER forget:

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http://www.fogonazos.es/2007/02/hiroshima-pictures-they-didnt-want-us_05.html


Fukushima Radiation Highest Ever, Exceeding Capacity of Measuring Device ... Fuel Likely Leaking Out Of Containment Vessel

    Things are - literally - heating up again at Fukushima:
    • Tepco Says Highest Radiation Yet Is Detected at Fukushima Dai-Ichi
    • 10+ sieverts per hour means there is direct exposure to fuel rods or spent fuel ponds: Australia’s former top radiation official
    • Tepco: Ultra-high radiation levels may be from melted fuel that leaked out of containment vessel
    • Paper: TEPCO needs to check if high radiation doses are “spreading elsewhere” — Two more spots appear to be above 10 sieverts per hour, but no plans to actually take measurements

    [...]

    But Reuters notes that the world's most hazardous nuclear plant in terms of worker radiation exposure is in the U.S., not Japan. This Reuters graphic ranks the world's 5 most hazardous plants (Fukushima is only the 5th most hazardous):

[...]

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/08/fukushima-radiation-highest-ever.html