I Can’t Remember How Many Times I Was told, ” You’ll Never Stop Those Ships”

Banner and bridge bottom left, the Volcanic Island Rangitoto top

Over 30 years ago, I alongside thousands of other Kiwis blockaded our harbours in Auckland and Wellington to prevent the Imperialist nuclear powered and armed navies of Britain and the USA from entering our ports as part of our campaign to make NZ Nuclear Free.

I can’t remember how many times I was told ” You’ll never stop those ships”. Those people were wrong and the rest is history.

It was a major victory for the global anti-nuclear movement and acted as a motivator for our like minded activists world wide. It even had us ‘kicked out’ of the ANZUS military alliance, another great result.

Then 5 years ago today a magnitude 9 earthquake struck 231 miles north of Tokyo that generated a massive tidal wave destroying the coastline for many miles particularly in Fukushima Prefecture where it destroyed infrastructure along the coast knocking out both incoming and outgoing power to the 6 Nuclear Reactors at Fukushima Daiichi.

As a cost cutting exercise when the plants were built TEPCO the operator of the 6 plants, built a much smaller sea wall than was necessary to protect the plants.

The wave swept ashore knocking out the incoming and out going power and swamped the plants sea side reactors knocking out the emergency generators that were built in the plant basements.

So began the single worst industrial disaster of all time. Worse than Bhopal, The Deep Water Horizon, Chernobyl and all others.

TEPCO knew within hours that they were dealing with multiple meltdowns and they launched into damage control mode at the plant and in the media.

They immediately began lying to us which has continued for the next 1825 days.

I firmly believe that Honshu with a population of over 100 million should be evacuated. Obviously this is impossible and hence why it hasn’t happened. Imagine what would be said and done if this type of disaster happened near a large metropolis like New York??

The glorious victory we won the day NZ was declared ” Nuclear Free” was effectively lost.

The plant has been bleeding radionuclides into the Pacific now for 5 years, day and night, with an unknown number of hundreds of tonnes of highly radioactive water entering the Ocean and an immeasurable quantity of isotopes entering the atmosphere from the escaped coriums which are now somewhere below the three plants that have melted down in what is know as ” The China Syndrome”.

Fukushima Daiichi was built on a dry river bed at the foot of a beautiful mountain range.

When the plants melted down clouds of radioactive fallout literally rained down on the surrounding countryside making it uninhabitable.

Now whenever it rains on Honshu additional radiation is washed down from the mountains into my / our beloved Pacific Ocean.

There is an extremely high probability that arterial water is also washing across the molten and highly radioactive coriums and bleeding out to sea.

The Fukemobile showing signs of wear after 3 yrs!

Today I took for the 2nd year my ” Fukushima Daiichi is Never Going Away” banner down to the Auckland Waterfront with my great mate and activist Marx Jones, renowned for being the pilot of the plane from the now infamous ” Flour Bombing Test at Eden Park” during the anti-apartheid days in NZ. We hung the banner off a bridge in the faces of thousands of Kiwis as they drove to work at peak hour.

Get the message?

I have previously done this action as part of a global campaign to raise awareness about this ongoing catastrophe and you will see people doing this world wide over the next 24 hrs.

I had a lovely conversation with two NZ Police personal who came onto the bridge, checked that I had fixed the banner securely and didn’t hassle me in any way, shape or form. They were delightful in fact.

I had a second conversation with a pedestrian crossing the bridge who addressed me with ” I see you’re back again, another year passed has it ?” he recognised me from last years action.

Our friendly ” Boy and Woman in Blue coming to visit!

We got talking about the lack of media coverage generally and I said ” It is one of the two biggest cover ups of all time. The severity of Fukushima Daiichi and the fact that runaway abrupt climate change is of itself an extinction event”. He replied ” Maybe that is a good thing all things considered.” Man, between the two cops and this near stranger the pragmatism was amazing. It does go to show how engaged some of us are with our unfolding climate and biosphere crisis.
Over the last 5 years I have learned an enormous amount about nuclear from Sean Arclight,, Ray Masalas, John Bertucci. and Mimi German the power behind Radcast. and Facebook group No Nukes North West. and another great Facebook group. ” The Rainbow Warriors”. I would suggest if you wish to know more about these issues join them.
Fukushima Daiichi is Never going away.
I was interviewed on “Nuclear Hotseat” about our anti-nuclear activities here in Aotearoa N.Z. In the interview embedded here I made one mistake about meeting Peter Wilcox in the police paddy wagon after my boat was sunk by the police and I was arrested. Subsequently I discovered it wasn’t Captain Wilcox it was another Greenpeace activist name unknown.

This is a discreet photo I took of the approaching lovely ” Old Bill”.

Activism has been one of the most rewarding aspects of my life.I was recently interviewed for an episode of “Moving Forward” by Rob Steimetz where we discussed the reasons why I have been an activist since my youth. Click on the “Moving Forward” link above.

About Kevin Hester

I'm an anti-imperialist, environmental activist and blue ocean sailor, who is passionate about the earth and all it's inhabitants without favour. Brace for imminent impact as we bare witness to the non-linear unraveling of the biosphere and habitability disappearing for most if not all complex life on the only habitable planet we know of. To quote President Niinistö in North Russia: ‘If We Lose the Arctic, We Lose the World’. Folks we have lost the Arctic.