Original Japanese written by staffer
The English below translated from the original Japanese by Heeday
The English translation edited by Rev. Dr. Henry French, ELCA
(Based on articles from the January 7th, 2016 editions of the Asahi Shimbun, Fukushima Minpo, and Akahata newspapers)
On January 6th, 2016, North Korea held an underground nuclear weapon test, and announced that the nation had accomplished its first successful test of a hydrogen bomb. This was North Korea’s fourth nuclear bomb test, following those of 2006, 2009, and 2013.
Using an atomic bomb as the detonator, a hydrogen bomb utilizes the extreme heat, high pressure, and radiation from the fission of the atomic bomb to start nuclear fusion, which creates deuterium and/or tritium. Such fusion emits tremendous energy, way beyond that of an atomic bomb.
Mr. Susumu Misaki, a member of the crew of “Daigo Fukuryu-maru,” a tuna fishing boat from Yaizu, Shizuoka, Japan, is a survivor from the Bikini Atoll hydrogen bomb incident of 1954. He turns 88 years old this year. On March 1st, 1954, the U.S. held a hydrogen bomb test at the atoll, part of the Marshall Islands in the Pacific. The unlucky fishing boat was exposed to fallout from the bomb, which blew away the atoll. Though the boat was some 160km (100 miles) from the explosion, the fallout devastated the crew, 23 in number.
Says Mr. Misaki, “That’s how terrible a hydrogen bomb really is. It devastates to such a great extent.” Half a year after this exposure to radiation, the boat’s chief radio engineer, Mr. Aikichi Kuboyama, passed away at the age of 40. After the boat returned to the port of Yaizu, Mr. Misaki was hospitalized for a year and two months. Said he, “Hydrogen bombs today, I believe, are several times more destructive than they were back in 1954. If several such bombs hit Japan today, the nation might face its end. This thought frightens me.”
Another former crew member of the fishing boat, Mr. Hiroshi Kozuka (84), has a 56-year-old daughter-in-law who said, “The Bikini tragedy left unbearable burdens on my father-in-law, both mental and physical, which consumed most of his life after the disaster. I, as part of his family, find it unbearably tragic.” She went on to say tearfully, “We don’t want nuclear tests, for the sake of our children and their children. We don’t want a world where hydrogen bombs are used.”
2,379 nuclear bomb tests were held, in many nations, during the half century beginning in 1945. The total energy from all those nuclear bombs amounts to more than 35,000 times that of the atomic bomb that devastated Hiroshima.
A nuclear weapon test often goes beyond the purely military or scientific sphere and plays a role in political propaganda. Especially, the former USSR and China often claimed that their tests were “unavoidable” and “agonizing choices” in order to resist “U.S. imperialism.” At the same time, such nuclear tests were often meant to show off the might of the countries that conducted them. The tests held by North Korea were no exception.
At the nuclear bomb test site of Semipalatinsk (ex-USSR), there were 456 tests in all during the four decades between 1949 and 1989. At a hydrogen bomb test on August 12th, 1953, the relevant authorities forced some adult males from the surrounding area to stay in the zone contaminated with radioactivity, probably as a human experiment. Just as Agent Orange did in Vietnam, radioactivity in and around this site caused some birth defects. Some victims’ bodies are still preserved in formalin. After the site was shut down, a medical examination discovered that fallout at the site had given some 200,000 residents in the area direct health hazards. Especially notable is the fact that those victims showed high rates of many types of cancer. Also, the examination found a correlation between exposure to radiation and thyroid abnormalities.
In the world today, people are more loudly voicing their concerns over the inhumanity of nuclear weapons and are demanding that such weapons be abolished. The UN General Assembly, in the fall of 2015, adopted, with an overwhelming majority, resolutions calling for “a humane pledge to prohibit and abolish nuclear weapons,” recognizing “a moral duty to build a world free of nuclear weapons,” and calling for a study of the “effects of nuclear weapons on humans,” along with other resolutions. While the rest of the world is calling aloud for the abolishment of nuclear weapons, North Korea has conducted nuclear bomb tests over and over again, “showing off” that it “has nuclear weapons.” The country has been running right against humanity’s yearning for freedom from nuclear weapons. This must not be tolerated.
Fukushima is irretrievable. Its radiation-free beauty before the meltdown will never be restored. Right now, right here (Translator’s note: The author is a resident of Koriyama, Fukushima), invisible radiation is harming the bodies and minds of many people. In spite of this tragedy, Japan’s government is still trying to use nuclear energy, and is attempting to cover-up such tragedies. Still, there is only one right direction for humanity to follow. Each and every one of us should follow this direction, and spread the message that we seek for a world free of nuclear weapons and nuclear power.