The Heroes of Fukushima and Chernobyl

As the desperate battle to put out the hellish fires at the Fukushima nuclear facility continues.

“What you are seeing are desperate efforts — just throwing everything at it in hopes something will work,” said one American official with long nuclear experience who would not speak for attribution. “Right now this is more prayer than plan.”

I can't help thinking about  the heroic plant workers who are sacrificing their lives, to try to save their country, and the world, from a nuclear catastrophe.

One, his body being bombarded with soaring doses of radiation but refusing to give up the fight, wrote to his wife: “Please continue to live well, I cannot be home for a while.”

Or the pain of their families.

One young girl tweeted about her doomed father: “My dad went to the nuclear plant, I’ve never seen my mother cry so hard. People at the plant are struggling, sacrificing ­themselves to protect you. Please daddy come back alive.”

Heroes is a word that is awarded cheaply these days. But they are the real thing.

Just like the heroic workers at Chernobyl.

Death came to the many firefighters and staff who stayed and the divers who swam in radioactive pools to reach critical valves. Helicopter pilots also fell ill as they ferried in water and cement to smother the whole mess from above. Had they not sacrificed themselves -- or been sacrificed -- the harm would have been a great deal worse to the rest of the public.

To paraphrase that old saying... greater love hath no human, than one who lays down his or her life for others.

Never forget them, and all the other victims.

Or this lost city.

They say nuclear energy is the energy of the future eh?

But if we're going to have a future, we need something BETTER...

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