Image Copyright Studio Ghibli
More than 6 years have passed since Fukishima became one of the worst nuclear disasters in human history. The Japanese government is allowing people to return to some of the exclusions zones that were put in place after the incident, but there is a problem. Many of the cities have been taken over by hordes of radioactive boars.
In the wake of the accident, the evacuated towns were invaded by wild boars from the surrounding mountains. They have taken up residence in the exclusion zones, and the radiation doesn’t seem to be affecting them.
A full grown male boar can weigh in excess of 90kg, and are known to be aggressive.
The local governments have instituted a program for hunting down the boars, but it has been more work than they originally thought. The mass graves have been filled up, with more boars coming in all the time.
Their plan B was to incinerate to boars, however there simply aren’t enough people to operate the furnaces. Unfortunately, the boars have a radiation level that is 300 times higher than the level allowed for human consumption. This means they can’t be sold into northern Japan, where they are highly sought after for Boar-B-Q.
Tamotsu Baba, who is the mayor of a deserted town called Namie, told Ruters that, “It is not really clear now which is the master of the town, people or wild boars,”
Many residents are nervous about returning back to their towns, given the high levels of radiation. More than half say they aren’t interested in living in the area anymore.
The aggressive radioactive boars don’t add any incentive to come back, nor does their level of radiation do anything to assure us of the state of the reactor.
The boars haven’t been in the area very long, yet in the space of a few years they are highly contaminated with radiation. Fukushima is far from resolved, and we can all wonder if the safety of the civilians is really being taken into account.
We now know how poor of an idea nuclear power is, but the potential side effects continue to amaze me. I never would have thought that radioactive wild boars would be an issue in urban Japan, yet here we are.
Good luck to all of you, the boars included.
[via washingtonpost]
Great picture of Nago…