16 U.S. Navy Ships Are Still Contaminated With Radiation After Fukushima

PACIFIC OCEAN (March 23, 2011) Sailors aboard the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) conduct a countermeasure wash down on the flight deck. Sailors scrubbed the external surfaces on the flight deck and island superstructure to remove potential radiation contamination. Ronald Reagan is operating off the coast of Japan providing humanitarian assistance as directed in support of Operation Tomodachi. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Nicholas A. Groesch/Released)

Zero Hedge: Five Years After Fukushima, 16 U.S. Cleanup Ships Are Still Contaminated With Radiation

The Fukushima disaster was over five years ago, and may have been largely forgotten by the general public and the media (perhaps because the Japanese olympics are just four years from now), but its effects still linger. Perhaps nowhere more so than for those who took pare in the Fukushima clean up effort: as Starts and Stripes reports, sixteen U.S. ships that participated in relief efforts after Japan’s nuclear disaster five years ago remain contaminated with low levels of radiation from the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant.

In all, 25 ships took part in Operation Tomadachi, the name given for the U.S. humanitarian aid operations after the magnitude-9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami on March 11, 2011. In the years since the crisis, the ships have undergone cleanup efforts, the Navy said, and 13 Navy and three Military Sealift Command vessels still have some signs of contamination, mostly to ventilation systems, main engines and generators.

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WNU Editor: 370 US sailors are suing for being exposed to enough radiation poisoning that is is impacting their health .... I expect this number to climb over the next few years.