Nuclear Expert: Radiation Could Spread ToThe West Coast

Joesph Paul Watson - Nuclear expert Joe Cirincione warns that radiation from Japan’s multiple potential nuclear meltdowns could spread to the US west coast and that the threat represents an “unprecedented crisis,” as another explosion rocked the Fukushima complex and officials admitted that nuclear fuel rods at reactor number two have been fully exposed.

“The worst case scenario is that the fuel rods fuse together, the temperatures get so hot that they melt together in a radioactive molten mass that bursts through the containment mechanisms and is exposed to the outside. So they spew radioactivity in the ground, into the air, into the water. Some of the radioactivity could carry in the atmosphere to the West Coast of the United States,” Cirincione told Fox News.

When host Chris Wallace questioned whether radioactivity could travel thousands of miles across the Pacific, Cirincione responded, “Oh, absolutely. Chernobyl, which happened about 25 years ago, the radioactivity spread around the entire northern hemisphere. It depends how many of these cores melt down and how successful they are on containing it once this disaster happens.”

“One reactor has had half the core exposed already,” explained Cirincione. “This is the one they’re flooding with sea water in a desperate effort to prevent it from a complete meltdown. They lost control of a second reactor next to it, a partial meltdown, and there is actually a third reactor at a related site 20-kilometers away they have also lost control over. We have never had a situation like this before.”

Fears that the radiation could reach the United States have prompted the California Department of Public Health to issue a statement saying they are assessing the situation and that they have radioactivity monitoring systems in place for air, water and the food supply.

As the Washington Blog has documented, pollution from Chinese coal factories routinely hits California.

But it’s not just the west coast that could be affected. According to Yoichi Shimatsu, former editor of the Japan Times, “In the event of a major meltdown and continuous large-volume radioactive release, airborne particles will be carried across the ocean in bands that will cross over the southern halves of Oregon, Montana and Idaho, all of California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, the Dakotas, northern Nebraska and Iowa and ending in Wisconsin and Illinois, with possible further eastward drift depending on surface wind direction.”

Shimatsu now states that after a high-level government meeting, “Japanese agencies are no longer releasing independent reports without prior approval from the top,” and that censorship of what is really occurring at the plant is being overseen under the Article 15 Emergency Law.

Following dramatic footage of another blast, this time affecting Fukushima Daiichi’s reactor 3, which shot plumes of smoke high into the air, officials from the Tokyo Electric Power Co. have conceded that fuel rods at the facility’s reactor number 2 have been fully exposed, threatening a complete meltdown.

The Pentagon has also confirmed that radiation particles were detected by helicopters flying 60 miles away from the nuclear plant, suggesting widespread environmental contamination. The discovery of the two radioactive isotopes, cesium-137 and iodine-121, can only mean one thing, according to the Seattle Times: “One or more of the reactor cores is badly damaged and at least partially melted down.”

“If true, this also means that the Japanese government is blatantly lying to its people and the world, in its relentless determination to prevent panic and to pursue the party line that after two massive blasts the cores are still stable,” writes Tyler Durden. “And judging by the time stamp, this was announced before last night’s second blast: if radioactivity had spread then, how about now? And who can blame Americans and people around the world who are concerned that radiation may be coming their way if nobody is to be trusted.”

Reports are also circulating that sailors on the USS Ronald Reagan were exposed to radiation doses equivalent to a month’s worth in one hour when they sailed into a radiation cloud off the coast of Japan.

All the evidence clearly indicates that the Japanese government is covering up the true scale of the disaster in an effort to prevent hysteria from engulfing a population already devastated by last week’s earthquake and tsunami, not to mention ongoing powerful aftershocks that continue to spread terror.