Fukushima Nuclear Disaster

The Hon. S.W. KEY (Ashford) (15:16): In noting the five year anniversary of the Fukushima Daiichi earth quake resulting in a tsunami disaster, I asked the parliamentary library to brief me on what action has been taken. There are a number of reports; they very generously supplied me with quite a few reports, half of which I am still to read, but one of them that I wanted to refer to today is the World Health Organisation's report entitled Fukushima Five Years On. In that report they tell us that:

On 11 March 2011, a magnitude 9 earthquake occurred off the east coast of Japan, generating a tsunami that severely damaged coastal areas and resulted in 15,891 deaths and 2,579 missing people. As a consequence of the tsunami, the Fukushima Daaichi Nuclear Power Station (FDNPS), located along the shoreline, lost its core cooling capacity which caused severe damage to the reactor's core and led to a nuclear accident rated as Level 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES). Substantial amounts of radioactive materials (radionuclides) were released into the environment following explosions at the FDNPS on March 12, 14 and 15.

They say that:

People living in the vicinity of the [power plant] were exposed externally to irradiation from the radioactive cloud and ground deposits and internally from inhalation and ingestion of radio nuclides. There were public health consequences [strangely] related to the result of this disaster such as the evacuation and relocation of people. These measures were taken based on radiation safety considerations and the massive damage to the infrastructure and facilities following the earthquake and tsunami. These measures resulted in a wide range of social, economic, and public health consequences. A sharp increase in mortality among elderly people who were put in temporary housings has been reported, along with increased risk of non-communicable diseases, such as diabetes and mental health problems.

Also, the issue is raised about the lack of access to healthcare having further contributed to people's health. I guess the only good news in this particular WHO report is that they say that, similar to what was observed and reported in the Chernobyl population, the displaced Fukushima population is suffering less from psychosocial and mental health impacts following relocation, ruptured social links of people who lost homes and employment, disconnected family ties and stigmatisation. There has also been a further occurrence of post-traumatic stress disorder amongst evacuees, as assessed and compared to the rest of the population.

Psychological problems such as hyperactivity, emotional symptoms and conduct disorders have also been reported amongst the evacuated Fukushima children. At this stage there are no adverse outcomes that have been observed in pregnancy and birth after the disaster but a high prevalence of postpartum depression was noted amongst the mothers in the affected region.

When I say that this is a slightly better outcome than that of Chernobyl, I am also advised in this report that the level of estimated doses, the lifetime radiation-induced cancer risks other than thyroid are small and much smaller than the lifetime baseline cancer risks. Regarding the risk of thyroid cancer in exposed infants and children, the level of risk is uncertain since it is difficult to verify thyroid dose estimates by direct measurements of radiation exposure.

For the 12 workers who were estimated to have received the highest absorbed radiation doses to the thyroid, an increased risk of developing thyroid cancer and other thyroid disorders was estimated. About 160 workers, we are told, received whole body effective doses estimated at over 100 mSv, an increased risk of cancer could be expected in the future although it would not be detectable by epidemiological studies because of the difficulty of confirming a small incidence against the normal statistical fluctuations in cancer incidence.

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