How do you spell Chernobyl in Japanese?

For several weeks now, the world has stood idle and watched and been told all was better than it really was in Japan. It looks like the truth has finally risen to the surface concerning the severity of the disaster, but so too has a lot of radiation globally. And no one is talking about the effects of that radiation on the rest of us who live east and down wind of Japan.

Japan ups nuke crisis severity

Japan raised the crisis level at its crippled nuclear plant Tuesday to a severity on par with the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, citing high overall radiation leaks that have contaminated the air, tap water, vegetables and seawater.

Japanese nuclear regulators said they raised the rating from 5 to 7 - the highest level on an international scale of nuclear accidents overseen by the International Atomic Energy Agency - after new assessments of radiation leaks from the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant since it was disabled by the March 11 tsunami.

We here in America have to wonder what we haven't been told about the danger. Radiation began showing up in our air and water within ten days of the disaster, yet each time it was registered, we were told, no need to worry, these are minuscule readings.

Meanwhile, the crisis has worsened by the day and the radiation levels have gone from 'minimal' to hundreds of thousands of times greater than the legal and lethal limit. Now we finally have concrete pumping machinery arriving in Japan and we have their admission, that this disaster is at least as serious as Chernobyl. Personally, I have to fear that the disaster in Japan is probably worse than the Chernobyl disaster.

Meanwhile, how many millions have been contaminated by the radiation that the Japanese and our own nuclear regulatory agencies 'had to know' was leaking from this facility. One thing is for sure, there isn't a damn thing that we can do about it. What is done is done and all that is left now is to live with the aftermath.