Petition to Ban Ki-moon

on the "Blog de Fukushima":

An urgent appeal to avoid another global nuclear disaster

Because the building of reactor no.4 has been badly shaken by the terrible earthquake of 3/11 and the violent explosions of March 15, 2011 and therefore its structure has suffered severe stress, which makes it very vulnerable,

Because the spent fuel in this unit sits in an elevated pool 30 metres high and threatens to collapse with the building or to drain because of a number of cracks,

Because this pool contains 1,535 spent fuel assemblies, i.e. the equivalent of 10 times the amount of cesium 137 released by Chernobyl,

Because failure of the water cooling of the fuel would cause the temperature to rise and the fuel to degrade, and the resulting fire would then release enormous amounts of radioactivity into the atmosphere,

Because a back-up cooling system for the pool is not evailable and the cooling system regularly fails, 

Because a fire in the uranium and plutonium assemblies would make human intervention impossible due to the intense radioactivity,

Because the Fukushima Daiichi plant contains nearly 2,500 tons of nuclear fuel – a source of radiotoxicity equivalent to 90 times that of Chernobyl – and a fire at unit 4 would force the authorities to abandon the entire plant,

Because the strength of the earthquake of March 2011 increased the probability of further disastrous quakes which could in turn cause the half-ruined building of reactor no.4 to collapse,

Because numerous experts all over the world agree on the urgency to act in order to avoid having to evacuate the whole of Japan and at the same time prevent an international radiological disaster that would endanger the health of the world population and their descendants,

Because Tepco says there is no risk the pool will collapse and because the company plans to take years to transfer the spent fuel and store it in a safe place,

Because Tepco and the Japanese government are incapable of managing the crisis situation of the spent fuel pool at Fukushima Daiichi reactor no.4, 

Because the UN, as guarantor of international security, is the only organisation capable of dealing with this permanent threat to humanity,
 

We, citizens of the world,

-          request that the UN rapidly set up an international, independent and interdisciplinary team. This team would be responsible for managing the transfer of the fuel at the Unit 4 pool and its safe storage.

-          urge that every possible means be devoted to this crisis team, in order to avoid any delay and to ensure that the spent fuel be safely disposed of as soon as possible,

-          demand that the UN facilitates every possible technical, scientific, economic and political means of collaboration, including non-governmental measures, in order to put an end to a global threat without equivalent in the whole history of humanity.