Published: May 25th, 2011 at 1:36 am ET
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Soil contamination from Fukushima crisis comparable to Chernobyl: study, Japan Today, May 25, 2011:
Radiation released by the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has caused soil contamination matching the levels seen in the Chernobyl disaster in some areas, [...] said Tomio Kawata, a research fellow of the Nuclear Waste Management Organization of Japan, at the meeting of the Japan Atomic Energy Commission, which sets policies and strategies for the government’s nuclear power development.
According to Kawata, soil in a 600 square kilometer area mostly to the northwest of the Fukushima plant is likely to have absorbed radioactive cesium of over 1.48 million becquerels per square meter, the yardstick for compulsory migration orders in the 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe.
Kawata also said soil in a 700 square km area is likely to have absorbed 555,000-1.48 million becquerels per square meter, which was a criteria for temporary migration during the Chernobyl disaster.
[...] radioactive cesium binds strongly to soil, making it hard to reduce radiation levels, Kawata said.
Published: May 25th, 2011 at 1:36 am ET
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So does this mean that Tokyo has likely been contaminated also? When will it be admitted, ever?
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When the Truth can no longer be Hidden.
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exactly its coming but only when they cant squirm out of it anymore. it will be like this . oh by the way we screwed up about the levels in tokoyo and everybody in the city will contract cancer without a doubt. sorry about that we apologize for the error and thanks for being stupied enuf to think that we ever cared about u in the first place
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When the kind of weather you see in the following animation smears the ongoing output of Fukushima radiation all over Japan they will eventually collapse. It is not a pretty picture what awaits them. This weather pattern becomes the norm in summer months plus lots of rain to wash all the radioactivity out of the air column and like this concentrate it on the ground.
http://www.zamg.ac.at/pict/wetter/sonderwetter/fuku/20110524_I-131_FUKU.gif
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Thanks for the link, it looks really scary. I wish I could figure out their units of measurement though. What are those units?
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This “simulation” was already exposed as a hoax nearly a month ago.
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How many square kilometers is Japan? Anyone figure it out?
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23 million people.
solution = sell japan detroit.
switch a couple of general motors signs, with a couple of honda and acura signs.
Change the deli’s into sushi bars. sign a treaty limiting the newly developed detroit/japan in only establishing coal powered power plants. Mission accomplished. You saved japan, increased american exports and productivity, made a huge financial gain, empowered the american economy, and saved 36 million lives… Or you can let them sit there in japan. Where radiation levels are rising everyday, misinform them of the impact of your evils, and let them wither away in the biggest public health scandal humanity has ever witnessed. Your call.
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Thats actually a pretty good idea. you should really follow up on that.
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There is great potential, while the market is a buyers market, and the redevelopment effort of a booming 36million, people could instantly generate huge benefits to our country. That growth could re-stimulate the housing crisis, in the entire usa.
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There is plenty of vacant housing for them as well in Detroit. The US would instantaneously have at its disposal a huge group of highly skilled and highly motivated people with a lot of financial assets. They would in theory hit the ground running. This possibility could have many interested countries, IMO.
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its a great idea tg. makes a lot of sense beneficial for both countries.
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ty
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I suspect that these people will NOT want to come to a country where they use nuclear power. I don’t think they would be happy in a country whose government and large corporations and military seduced them into using nuclear power in the first place and into using unsafe parts repair. A country whose large corporations and large investors condoned casting a blind eye for safe and transparent inspections, a country who now actually allows monopolies to stifle all education, responsibility, and creativity. A country that allows its farmlands to be flooded with killing levels of radiation both from Japan and from its own nuclear irresponsibility. A country who will not support a health system that allows fair and affordable health care for everyone.
It would be like going back to the dark ages to come to this country.
I am writing this because I love my country and hope desperately that it will make a new and sane beginning.
The new technologies of solar, wind, and geothermal energies are available NOW. We don’t have to wait 40 years to make the change from nuclear and coal and oil. We just have to WAKE UP, mobilize, and stop exploiting 98% of the population, but treat them as worthy brothers and sisters, not exploitable objects and expendable microchips!
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Hey ROBBER BARONS, why don’t you go and live in Japan and demonstrate your business acumen, fair-minded practices, and technological know-how to clean up the country and to make it a beautiful and habitable place to live again. You could establish a country with NO ELECTORAL COLLEGE, which allows fair and free elections and equal, free air-time to all candidates, and run offs to actually establish which candidate is the actual choice of the people. In truth the broadcast waves in the air belong to all the people, not corporations. The world has never needed a shining example of TRUE democracy more than now! Oligarchies and monarchies DON’T WORK. Immigrants came to the U.S. to find freedom from elitist oppression. All oligarchies and monarchies should now live in Japan and pull their own weight in the international community by setting a shining light by the sea.
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I meant to say oligarchs and monarchs.
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i think you mean anthrocentric, greedy, profit-motivate, selfish, slave-driving souls. same difference.
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No Frickin Way
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*36million people
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tokyo detroit would kick ass. I bet the yakuza would chase all them gang bangers out with them ninja skills to boot.
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Fukushima melt-down worse than Chernobyl
*** Certainly, in the first hours after the tragedy happened the operators were too shocked to unveil any details to the public. However, things did not get clearer with time. Deputy Director at the Russian Institute for Nuclear Engineering, Chernobyl clean-up worker Igor Ostretsov commented on the situation in an interview with the VOR…
“The Fukushima disaster has proved that nuclear industry should be controlled only by the state and not by private companies. The outcome of this tragedy has turned even worse than it was in Chernobyl. Graphite which was part of the reactor`s core, burnt out and vanished in the atmosphere. But at Fukushima the reactor`s core melted.” ***
http://english.ruvr.ru/2011/05/24/50766848.html
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@ Steve.
I am not an expert, but I have some knowledge and I listen to/read experts.
I am inclined to assume that similar applies to Tokyo as applied to the reactors, which actually went into melt-down on day one … but the information has only just been released.
From what I have read/managed to form a reasonable opinion on, I think that Tokyo was contaminated within the first two weeks, or so.
If that is so, then it is understandable that the government covered it up. How can you evacuate 13+million people?
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By asking them to evacuate.
I mean you could start by telling them they are in danger. Right?
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how can u not evacuate them and still live with yourself
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Some people were already well on their way to hell before this happened I presume.
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Relocation topic – How can such an enormous exodus be implemented in any manner that will prevent massive spread of contamination? Very problematic. Radioactive materials will be spread into the relocation destination. It clings to clothing, shoes and personal articles. And the people, even the most stellar in hygiene will still likely pick up material on their bodies, in the hair and scalp etc. as they leave. Random hot spots make everything in the region is a suspect source. Contamination will be on the bodies and in the bodies,and coming out of the bodies in perspiration, ( that sad contamination event in Brazil I had a link to sometime back mentioned the problems the hospital had with bed sheets and linens that the radiation victims came in contact with) and .. etc. I am profoundly saddened by thoughts ( which I try to keep positively focused) of this unfolding nuclear nightmare. I would invite some that are dislocated to stay at my humble digs for a time, but they would have to go through a complete de-contamination procedure and have no articles or clothing from the source before I could say I had a safe feeling and peace of mind in the matter.
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That doesn’t sound right. Except for the severely exposed first responders at Chernoyl, I have never read that.
What are your sources?
Fearmongering helps no one.
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Forgive me the tone of the earlier post. Hope for the best.. plan for worst
Informative links related to former post subjects:
Cesium Radiation Dispersal Disaster in Goiania, Brazil – if your in a hurry scroll down about 2/3 to get to the medical response:
http://www.semp.us/publications/biot_reader.php?BiotID=234
The source of the Goiânia accident was a small thimble containing about ten grams of highly radioactive cesium chloride
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident
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OK I was being conservative at 13+million, because maybe the entire population of Japan … S Korea? E China? The N Hemisphere?
I am in Australia, but have any of you ever seen the movie/read the book, “On the Beach”?
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36 million tokyo
126million japan
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Gary,
I’m looking into moving to Australia to get out of the northern hemisphere. Planning on visiting in July. Any suggestions?
Living in California now.
Lucy
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@ Lucy – but everyone really.
By all means come to Australia, but if things are as bad as I think they probably are (have thought since almost day one) there is probably no point … which is why I mentioned “On the Beach”.
I was not being callous when I said about not evacuating Tokyo, but I will turn to dark satire to explain my thinking these days (though I was never an end-of-the-worlder until Fuc[k]ushima).
Chuck Berry’s “No particular place to go …” seems apt
Or darker still, Tom Lehrer’s “We Will All Go Together When We Go”.
I will be back with a link and repost, whether in this or another thread, but meanwhile: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frAEmhqdLFs
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Yes, read the book, saw the movie, think of it every day.
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Same here.
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Thanks for your daily information.
For us in Europe it will be our 2nd Chernobyl (Fallout) – or it already is.
http://you-measure.com/
I don´t know what it means for the United States and I really suffer while thinking about whats happening to the Japanese people and the environment.
SamsuLevin,
Germany
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Seems to be a pattern of under reporting if they are admitting this now what aren’t they admitting to?
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and thats the understatement of the crisis of the year award.
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you guys were talking meltdown way before mainstream media. doubt they want to evacuate California coast
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yet I bet they were supposed to by now.
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A 1300sq KM area would be about 50km by 26km. Tokyo is 220km from Fukushima. Tokyo is also in the other direction (south of Fukushima) from where the soil is contimated (northwest).
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right except that they have found highly contaminated soil in rice plantations well past tokyo. This is just more time released sorry you glow in the dark nonsense.
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Weather pattern changing, see post at top of this thread.
http://www.zamg.ac.at/pict/wetter/sonderwetter/fuku/20110524_I-131_FUKU.gif
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songda
just made a slight right, in its track
its on its way to japan
at this time
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dosent matter were you are in japan………….
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Japan unlikely to build new nuclear plants after crisis, Kan tells FT
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110525p2g00m0dm009000c.html
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“According to Kawata, soil in a 600 square kilometer area mostly to the northwest of the Fukushima plant is likely to have absorbed radioactive cesium of over 1.48 million becquerels per square meter, the yardstick for compulsory migration orders in the 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe.”
I’ve seen the yardstick for the Chernobyl evacuation mentioned here and discussed amongst my colleagues since 11 March.
About time Tomio Kawata, a research fellow of the Nuclear Waste Management Organization of Japan mentions it.
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Its hinting at tokyo in a subtle way. Those smart ones will get the idea.
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But they don’t give the equivalent areas around Chernobyl with the same deposition.
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“According to Kawata, soil … is likely to have absorbed radioactive cesium of over 1.48 million becquerels per square meter, the yardstick for compulsory migration orders in the 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe.
Kawata also said soil in a 700 square km area is likely to have absorbed 555,000-1.48 million becquerels per square meter, which was a criteria for temporary migration during the Chernobyl disaster.”
The respected scientist is lying, apparently to play down the severity of contamination. 555,000 Bq/m2 of cesium ground contamination was the level for compulsory evacuation after the Chernobyl accident. The voluntary level was 185,000 Bq/m2. (Where he got the “1.48 million becquerels” is beyond me — probably just made it up.) The formula was actually more complex than that, involving separate measurements for strontium and plutonium, and can be found here (in Russian):
http://chernobyl-serp.narod.ru/chernobyl-exclusion-zone.htm
For Fukushima ground contamination sampling data, see:
http://onioni2.blogspot.com/2011/05/summary-of-detected-radioactive.html
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IAEA reported on 30 March:
http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/2011/fukushima300311.html
It sounds like Kawata is saying he found an area 600km^2 throughout which every reading was 1.48MBq/m^2 or higher. This may have simply been a convenient level at which to draw the highest contour line, since 600km^2 is sort of a round number.
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1300 sq.km = about 36 x 36 km (or 50 x 26 km)
Not an expansion of the old evacuation zones.
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I take back my above comment and apologize to Mr. Kawata. It appears his figures are indeed correct. According to the Chernobyl
Law of the Russian Federation (http://pravosoznanie.chel.org/2306/)
“Chapter 9. Resettlement Zone”, 5-15 curies/km2 is the voluntary
evacuation level and >15 curies/km2 the mandatory one. Those
would correspond to Kawata’s figures of 555,000-1.48M Bq/m2 and >1.48M
Bq/m2, respectively.
Just goes to show one should always consult the original source.
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Correction: The above should read “5-40 curies/km2 is the voluntary evacuation level and >40 curies/km2 the mandatory one”.
The confusion is in that the law actually stipulates two categories of voluntary evacuees with somewhat different legal statuses: 1) 5-15 curies/km2; and 2) 15-40 curies/km2.
5 curies/km2 = 185,000 Bq/m2
15 curies/km2 = 555,000 Bq/m2
40 curies/km2 = 1.48M Bq/m2
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And this means the lower limit of Chernobyl’s voluntary evacuation zone is indeed 185,000 Bq/m2, not the 555,000 Bq/m2 claimed by Mr. Kawata.
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Immediate and long term restrictions on consumption of agricultural products and water from affected areas are additional considerations.
CBS News mentioned it briefly here: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7366842n&tag=mncol
****
The consequences following Chernobyl have been described here, quietly:
1.Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment by Alexey Yablokov (Author), Vassily Nesterenko (Author), Alexey Nesterenko (Author), Janette Sherman-Nevinger (Editor), Dmitry Grodzinsky (Foreword).
Free online PDF: http://www.strahlentelex.de/Yablokov%20Chernobyl%20book.pdf
2. Voices From Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster by Svetlana Alexievich (Author), Keith Gessen (Translator)
3. Chernobyl Heart by Adi Roche available from AMAZON UK.
4. Chenobyl: Forbidden Truth by Alla Yaroshinskaya (Author), Michell Kahn (Translator), Michele Kahn (Translator), Julia Sallabank (Translator), David R. Marples (Introduction), John Gofman (Foreword)
*****
I wasn’t aware of any of this until very recently. I hope the internet helps change what happens in Japan.
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All that beautiful land rendered uninhabitable. That’s one of the worst crimes imaginable but does the nuclear lobby care? No! We want to build more of these deathbringers…and we need YOU to subsidise us. Sickening.
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The largest cities in Fukushima Prefecture, Fukushima City (pop. 290,000) and Koriyama (pop. 339,000), could have ground contamination levels well above those of the voluntary Chernobyl evacuation zone and quite possibly above the mandatory one.
Here’s how I arrived at that conclusion:
Greenpeace volunteers (http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/nuclear/safety/accidents/Fukushima-nuclear-disaster/Radiation-field-team/) found soil in Fukushima City and Koriyama with the following levels of contamination:
Fukushima City: 55150 Bq/kg (April 7)
Koriyama: 32980 Bq/kg (April 8)
Using the 20x and 65x conversion methods described in http://onioni2.blogspot.com/2011/05/summary-of-detected-radioactive.html, we get surface area contamination levels of:
Fukushima City: 1.1M-3.6M Bq/m2
Koriyama: 659,600-2.14M Bq/m2
Thus, surface contamination in both cities could exceed the mandatory Chernobyl evacuation level of 1.48M Bq/m2.
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Tokyo may or may not have to be evacuated. I hope that it is not. But a Russian engineer (who predicted the 3-11 quake (and several other disasters) named Artem Dragunov has also predicted the evacuation of Tokyo
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The largest cities in Fukushima Prefecture, Fukushima City (pop. 290,000) and Koriyama (pop. 339,000), could have ground contamination levels well above those of the voluntary Chernobyl evacuation zone and quite possibly above the mandatory one.
Here’s how I arrived at that conclusion:
Greenpeace volunteers (http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/nuclear/safety/accidents/Fukushima-nuclear-disaster/Radiation-field-team/) found soil in Fukushima City and Koriyama with the following levels of contamination:
Fukushima City: 55150 Bq/kg (April 7)
Koriyama: 32980 Bq/kg (April 8)
Using the 20x and 65x conversion methods described in http://onioni2.blogspot.com/2011/05/summary-of-detected-radioactive.html, we get surface area contamination levels of:
Fukushima City: 1.1M-3.6M Bq/m2
Koriyama: 659,600-2.14M Bq/m2
Thus, surface contamination in both cities could exceed the mandatory Chernobyl evacuation level of 1.48M Bq/m2. And it most certainly exceeds the 185,000 Bq/m2 of the Chernobyl voluntary evacuation zone.
At minimum, the Soviet government offered the residents of such areas the option of relocating, with compensation. Will Japan do the same?
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Chernobyl zone map:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/–bqtowpimgQ/TdzYJxzEscI/AAAAAAAAAcU/mPTsm78aZKo/s1600/CZ.jpg
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based on that there is no doubt that they will have to evacuate tokyo and probably the entire island. total insanity.
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Many anxious Fukushima residents undergo radiation screening tests
*** OYAMA, Fukushima — An increasing number of residents here, feeling insecure about their health and discrimination against them, have taken screening tests for radiation, with a few of them found to have been exposed to levels of radiation higher than the legal limit.
As of May 24, a total of 192,500 people, or one in 10 people in Fukushima Prefecture, had taken screening tests since March 13 when the Fukushima Prefectural Government started the program in the wake of the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, which has been crippled by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. ***
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110525p2a00m0na015000c.html
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Unhappy campers …
JAPAN
Respect for Authority Gives Way to Anger
By Suvendrini Kakuchi
TOKYO, May 20, 2011 (IPS) – More than a hundred young nursing mothers living in Fukushima and nearby areas have signed up to get themselves checked for radiation contamination, but they would rather do it on their own, with no help from the Japanese government.
A laboratory the women have selected will conduct the radiation checks, said nurse Saeko Uno, who recently joined the group Mothers Monitoring Breast Milk Radiation Contamination. “This is because we do not trust the government to release the correct figures,” she added.
Uno lived 50 kilometres from the Fukushima nuclear plant and harboured her own doubts about it. But she laments that local residents were lulled into a false sense of safety. “This is something I will never forget or forgive,” she told IPS. ……
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=55714
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Angry Parents in Japan Confront Government Over Radiation Levels
By HIROKO TABUCHI
Published: May 25, 2011
****FUKUSHIMA CITY, Japan — The accusations flew on Wednesday at the local school board meeting, packed with parents worried and angry about radiation levels in this city at the heart of Japan’s nuclear crisis.
“Do you really care about our children’s health?” one parent shouted. “Why have you acted so late?” said another. Among other concerns: isn’t radiation still raining down on Fukushima? Shouldn’t the entire school building be decontaminated? The entire city? Can we trust you?
“We are doing all we can,” pleaded Tomio Watanabe, a senior official of Fukushima’s education board.
A huge outcry is erupting in Fukushima over what parents say is a blatant government failure to protect their children from dangerous levels of radiation. The issue has prompted unusually direct confrontations in this conflict-averse society, and has quickly become a focal point for anger over Japan’s handling of the accident … ***
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/26/world/asia/26japan.html?_r=1
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“I am very sorry that the public is mistrustful of the various disclosures made by the government on the accident,” Prime Minister Naoto Kan said in parliament on Monday.
- Reuters
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Concerned parents in Fukushima snap up free radiation dosimeters for children
**** FUKUSHIMA — A swarm of worrisome parents snapped up free radiation dosimeters here out of concerns that the ongoing nuclear crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power plant may pose a threat to their children’s health.
When a citizens’ group called “Kodomo tachi o hoshano kara mamoru Fukushima network” (Fukushima network to protect children from radioactivity) started lending radiation dosimeters to local residents for free on May 15, it was flooded with so many requests that they had to stop taking calls after only two hours. ****
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110524p2a00m0na021000c.html
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Japan: anti-government criticism on the rise
Public criticism is rare, but that isn’t stopping people from protesting the government’s handling of the nuclear crisis.
Sonia Narang May 25, 2011 06:20
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/japan/110523/anti-government-criticism-protests-kyoto-japan-nuclear-power
**Explosive story***
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Report from Tokyo: It Just Keeps Getting Worse…
Posted: 05/24/11 05:06 PM ET
*** The latest came yesterday when a Japanese friend sent me a YouTube video from May 19th showing an exchange between Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) member Mizuho Fukushima and members of Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA). In the video, Ms. Fukushima presses MOFA on an extraordinary issue — why are 40,000 dosimeters sitting in a warehouse at Narita airport and have not been distributed to people living near the Daiichi nuclear plant? Why indeed.
No one here to my knowledge has been able to confirm the details of this story. This includes the Japanese media who have for some reason elected not to write about it.
So, 40,000 dosimeters sent by nations including the United States, France and Canada, are sitting in a warehouse in Tokyo and people living near the Fukushima nuclear plant who could be using them must try to get Geiger counters on their own. This is what really puzzles me. Anyone here in Japan can still buy a dosimeter (if they can find one) or order it from overseas. So it is not like Geiger counters are banned. But why haven’t they been distributed? It boggles the mind. Is it an attempt to limit people’s access to the extent of the radiation leaks or it is mere incompetence? ***
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-wagner/report-from-tokyo-it-just_b_866459.html
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Japanese refuse to bow to authority
Furious public demands truth about meltdown
By Christopher Johnson – Special to The Washington Times
9:27 p.m., Wednesday, May 25, 2011
**** TOKYO — In a stuffy room at the headquarters of the Tokyo Electric Power Co., many of the 250 Japanese journalists were furious at the executives lined up in crisp blue uniforms.
The reporters, mostly young men, demanded answers from the executives — exhausted older men seemingly from a different culture. Some reporters called on the executives to give back their salaries and swank vacation resorts. Others made long speeches listing the executives’ alleged misdemeanors, and they refused to heed a Tepco moderator imploring them to stop.
Reporters, protesters, evacuees and others are increasingly showing anger and losing their trust in Japanese authorities, who for years could count on an apathetic public to let them take care of things behind the scenes.****
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/may/25/japanese-refuse-to-bow-to-authority/?page=all#pagebreak
Great article – the people ARE rising and taking numbers behind the scenes…..
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