Three Mile Island Rally Attracts 2000 to Common

More than 2000 persons gathered on Boston Common Saturday to commemorate the first anniversary of the accident at Three Mile Island nuclear plan outside Harrisburg, Pa.

Spokesmen for Mobilization for Survival, the organization that sponsored the rally, said they had gathered not to celebrate, but "to shut down every nuclear facility and nuclear weapons plant in this country."

Speakers at the demonstration included Helen Caldicott, physician at Children's Hospital and president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, Michio Kaku, associate professor of theoretical physics at the City College of New York; Rep. Mel King (D-South End); and several Japanese survivors of the atomic bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The Boston rally coincided with almost 100 similar protests throughout the United States.

One year after the Three Mile Island accident, which Nuclear Regulatory Commission studies have confirmed could have caused a meltdown, another mishap could occur, Kaku said.

The nuclear physicist, who was the first to visit the power plant after the accident, said that 70 per cent of its reactor core has collapsed as a result of internal fusing, melting and splintering, and that six feet of debris is lying inside the reactor.

"It is very difficult to cool the core," Kaku said. "That's why we have fears of another meltdown."

Caldicott, recently returned from a nationally televised debate with plant officials in Harrisburg, discussed the medical implications of the accident.

Referring to studies of children born in three countries downwind of the power plant in recent months, Caldicott said there has been an increase of hypothyroidism, which can cause retardation.

"Twelve babies have no thyroid function at all--the doctors expected one," she said, attributing the rise to the low level radiation discharged by the plant.

Caldicott also said that unusually high numbers of abnormalities, Caesarian births and signs of radiation poisoning among farm animals living near the plant had been reported.

"Maybe we're seeing the first results of the accident in the babies and the animals. It's a big experiment, and the people are the guinea pigs," Caldicott said.

During the afternoon rally the crowd browsed through alternative energy exhibits and displays of antinuclear information.

One demonstrator crossed the street to the State House and hung the American flag there, upside down, where it remained for several minutes before a guard returned it to its former position.

Most listened silently and tearfully, however, as Hiroshima survivor Kazu Shibama, 74, detailed the events of August 8, 1945.

"I have no word to explain the shock," Shibama said, after describing the hundreds of people wandering silently through the city with their clothes burned off and skin hanging from their bodies.

Shibama, who taught English at Hiroshima Girls' School, survived the aftermath of the bombing, which immediately killed 350 of her students, by walking ten miles to the country residence of her father, who nursed her to health.

Smiling, Shibama told the crowd, "I am here to give you a message today. Wars do not help us at all."