Shii visits Semipalatinsk

Japan Press Weekly

Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

Shii visits Semipalatinsk

Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo on September 27 visited Semei City in Kazakhstan to learn about the damages caused by nuclear test bomb explosions that the former Soviet Union had conducted there.

Between 1949 and 1989, the Soviet Union carried out 456 nuclear tests in air, on land, and under ground in East Kazakhstan State (former Semipalatinsk State), where Semei City is located. The total explosive power of those tests amounts to 2,500 times larger than that of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. They damaged the ecosystem over 300,000 sq km. Residents are still suffering from many health problems caused by residual radiation.

Zhanat Moldagalieva, the chief physician at the Semipalatinsk Consultative Diagnostic Center welcomed Shii and explained in detail about the serious nuclear damages still ongoing and even expanding in the area.

"Nuclear victims should never be created again. The only way to make it sure is to eliminate nuclear weapons from the earth," said Shii, and introduced the international signature campaign "For a Nuclear Weapons-Free World" launched by the World Conference against A & H Bombs. Moldagalieva signed the petition.

Shii later had talks with Semei City Vice Mayor Musapirbekov Tursyngazy and offered flowers to the monument commemorating the victims of nuclear tests.

- Akahata, September 29, 2009