Effects of the Fukushima nuclear meltdowns on environment and health

Effects of the Fukushima nuclear meltdowns on environment and health

http://www.ippnw.de/commonFiles/pdfs/Atomenergie/Effects_Fukushima_rosen.pdf

February 16th, 2012

Dr. med. Alex Rosen, University Clinic Düsseldorf, Department of General Paediatrics

Abstract

The earthquake and tsunami on March 11th, 2011 led to multiple nuclear meltdowns in the reactors of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Northern Japan. Radioactive emissions from the plant caused widespread radioactive contamination of the entire region. The vast majority of the nuclear fallout occurred over the North Pacific, constituting the largest radioactive contamination of the oceans ever recorded. Soil and water samples, as well as marine animals have been found to be highly contaminated.
Increased levels of radioactivity were recorded at all radiation measuring posts in the Northern Hemisphere. Fallout contaminated large parts of Eastern Honshu island, including the Tokyo metropolitan area. Within a 20 km radius, up to 200,000 people had to leave their homes. Outside of this evacuation zone, the radioactive fallout contaminated more than 870 km2 of land, home to about 70,000 people who were not evacuated. These people were exposed to harmful radioisotopes and now have an increased risk to develop cancer or other radiation-induced diseases. Many people still live in areas with high contamination. Food, milk and drinking water have been contaminated as well, leading to internal radiation exposure. Most severely affected are children, as their bodies are more susceptible to radiation damage. Preliminary tests have shown internal radioactive contamination of children with iodine-131 and caesium-137. It is too early to estimate the extent of health effects caused by the nuclear disaster. Taking into consideration the studies on Chernobyl survivors and the findings of the BEIR VII report, scientists will be able to estimate the effects once the true extent of radioactive emissions, fallout and contamination are better studied. Large-scale independent epidemiological studies are needed in order to better help the victims of this catastrophe. Claims by scientists affiliated with the nuclear industry that no health effects are to be expected are unscientific and immoral.

The nuclear meltdowns

On the 11th of March, 2011, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake hit Northern Japan. The earthquake led to a tsunami on the Eastern coast of Northern Japan, leading to further destruction. More than 15.000 people died as a direct result of the earthquake and tsunami, more than 500.000 had to be evacuated.
1
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was severely damaged by the quake and the tsunami. With no electricity to power the cooling systems, water inside the reactors began to boil off, causing meltdowns of the uranium fuel rods inside of reactor cores 1 to 3. TEPCO, the company responsible for the plant, began to vent steam from the reactors in order to relieve pressure and prevent a giant explosion. This steam carried radioactive particles out to the Pacific Ocean.

Since it became evident that a nuclear meltdown was possibly taking place in the reactor cores, a 20 km zone around the power plant was declared an evacuation zone, a total of 200,000 people were forced to leave their homes and iodine tablets were distributed to the population in order to reduce the uptake of radioactive iodine.2 While evacuations were commencing, multiple explosions destroyed reactor 1, 2 and 3 and caused a fire of the spent fuel pond of reactor 4. To cool off the cores, TEPCO took the controvesial decision to pump seawater into the reactor. This could not prevent the temperatures from rising even further, as the nuclear fuel rods were left partially uncovered. According to TEPCO, all fuel rods in reactor 1 melted, a well as 57% of the fuel rods in reactor 2 and 63% of those in reactor 3.3 Also, as a result, massive amounts of radioactively contaminated water flowed into the groundwater and back into the ocean.

On March 25th, people living in the 30 km radius were asked to voluntarily evacuate their homes and leave the contaminated areas. On April 12th, the Fukushima nuclear meltdowns were categorized as a level 7 nuclear accident – the highest level on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES), which had previously only been reached by the Chernobyl disaster.

Radioactive emissions into the atmosphere

The four large explosions, the fire of the spent fuel pond, smoke, evaporation of sea-water used for cooling and deliberate venting of the pressurized reactors all caused the emission of radioactive isotopes into the atmosphere. Measurements of radioactivity taken outside of the power plant reached a maximum of 10.85 mSv/h, or about 38,000 times the normal background radiation. Further deliberate venting of block 2 and 3 on March 16th led to additional air-borne releases of radioactivity in similar magnitudes.4 Radioactivity doses around the plant a week after the earthquake reached levels of up to 1,930 mSv/h – more than 6,000 times normal background radiation.5

Using data from radioactivity measuring posts set up under the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the Austrian Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics (ZAMG) calculated the amount of radioactivity released by the Fukushima meltdowns to be between 360-390 PBq of iodine-131 and around 50 PBq of caesium-137 for the period of March 12th – March 14th. According to their calculations, the iodine-131 emissions from Fukushima in those three days amounted to 20% of the total iodine-131 emissions from Chernobyl (1,760 PBq), while the emissions of caesium-137 in those three days amounted to about 60% of the total caesium-137 emissions from Chernobyl (85 PBq).6

A study by the Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU) found that around 16,700 PBq of xenon-133 (250% of the amount released at Chernobyl) were emitted by the Fukushima power plant between March12th and 19th. This constitutes the largest release of radioactive Xenon in history. Xenon-133 is a radioactive gas with a half-life of 5.2 days, which emits beta- and gamma-radiation and cause harm upon inhalation. Additionally, the NILU study found that 35.8 PBq of caesium-137 (42% of the amount released at Chernobyl) were emitted by the Fukushima power plant between March 12th and 19th.
Their study found that radioactive emissions were first measured right after the earthquake and before the tsunami struck the plant, showing that the quake itself had already caused substantial damage to the reactors. The NILU report also suggests that the fire in the spent fuel pond of reactor 4 may have been the major contributor of airborne emissions, since emissions decreased significantly after the fire had been brought under control.7

In its report to the IAEA, the Japanese government states that the total amount of fission products released into the atmosphere amounts to 840 PBq, a number even higher than previous estimates. Their calculations for the emission of iodine-131, caesium-137 and xenon-133 show results in the same magnitude as those calculated by the ZAMG and NILU scientists. In addition to the emission of iodine-131, caesium-137, strontium, plutonium and xenon-133 listed below in Table 1, a number of other radioactive isotopes were also released, namely caesium-134, barium-140, tellurium-127m, tellurium-129m, tellurium-131m, tellurium-132, ruthenium-103, ruthenium-106, zirconium-95, cerium-141, cerium-144, neptunium-239, yttrium-91, praseodymium-143, neodymium-147, curium-242, iodine-132, iodine-133, iodine-135, antimony-127, antimony-129 and molybdenum-99.8

Table 1: Estimated amounts of total emissions



The radioactive particles were carried away by prevailing wind currents in the form of radioactive clouds, similar to the phenomenon after the Chernobyl disaster. According to the Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU), precipitation from the radioactive clouds released approximately 79% of the total caesium-137 above the North Pacific Ocean. Approximately 19% of the caesium-137 (6.4 million MBq) precipitated above the landmass of Eastern Honshu Island.7 While western Japan was sheltered by mountain ranges, large areas of north-eastern Honshu Island, including the Tokyo metropolitan area, were radioactively contaminated by nuclear fallout. The radioactive cloud created a trace of contamination more than 40 km in length and about 20 km width with hot-spots where precipitation was highest.9 The remaining 2% were spread further East, as the radioactive cloud reached North America on March 15th and Europe on March 22nd.7 Three weeks after the earthquake, all CTBT-measuring posts in the Northern Hemisphere recorded increased atmospheric radioactivity. By the middle of April, these measurements began to decrease, as radioactive particles had precipitated over land and water.
10 Yet even after almost a year, the release of radioactive isotopes has not been brought under control. According to a TEPCO status report from January 27th 2012, atmospheric emission of radioactive caesium was still measured with 60 MBq per hour – that's 1,440 MBq each day.29

Soil contamination

The nuclear fallout included different types of radioactive particles, each with its own characteristics.
The Japanese Ministry of Science and Technology (MEXT) conducted soil surveys in 100 locations within 80 km of the Fukushima power plant in June and July of 2011. In the entire prefecture, they found contamination with various radioactive substances. While the list of radioactive isotopes released during the meltdowns included more than 30 (see previous chapter), the most well-known for causing damage to human tissue are the following:

· Strontium-90: Strontium-90 with a physical half-life of 28 years is a beta-emitting radioactive particle. Upon ingestion, it is metabolized similar to calcium. This means that it is incorporated into the bone, where it can remain for many decades (biological half-life of 50 years). In the bone, strontium irradiates the sensible blood-producing bone-marrow and can cause leukemia and other malignant diseases of the blood.11 On April 18th, 2011, TEPCO found 400 Bq/kg of strontium-90 on a playground near the plant. The MEXT survey found strontium-90 in concentrations of 1.8-32 Bq/kg in places outside the 30 km evacuation zone like Nishigou, Motomiya, Ootama or Ono.12

· Iodine-131: This radioisotope has a relatively short half-life of 8 days. If ingested, it behaves like normal iodine and is incorporated into the thyroid gland. Here, it damages surrounding tissue with beta- and gamma-radiation until its full decay, causing thyroid cancer, especially in children.11 Radioactive iodine has been found in milk, drinking water, vegetables and water around Northern Japan (see section on food and drink below). According to the IAEA, iodine-131 deposition in Tokyo reached 36,000 Bq/m2 on March 22nd and 23rd.5 Soil samples in the municipalities of Nishigou, Izumizaki, Ootama, Shirakawa, Nihonmatsu, Date, Iwaki, Iitate, Ono, Minamisoma and Tamura showed concentrations of radioactive iodine-131 between 2,000 and 1,170,000 Bq/kg. In the municipality of Ono, 40 km southwest of the Fukushima plant, MEXT scientists found up to 7,440 Bq/kg of iodine-131 in rainwater samples.13 In August of 2011, MEXT scientists still found iodine-131 concentrations of more than 200 Bq/kg in most of the above-mentioned municipalities, with maximum ranges found in Namie and Iitate of 1,300 and 1,100 Bq/kg, respectively.14 As iodine-131 has a half-life of 8 days, measurements this high, 145 days after the initial fallout on March 15th, either suggest extremely high initial contamination of the soil of more than 288,000,000 Bq/kg or, additional contamination of the area with iodine-131 after the initial fallout on March 15th.

· Caesium-137: This radioisotope has a half live of 30 years. Upon ingestion, it is metabolized similar to potassium. This means that it is fairly evenly distributed in the body. Caesium is mainly a beta-emitter, but its decay product barium-137m also produces gamma-radiation. It can cause solid tumors in virtually all organs. Caesium-137 has a biological half-life of 70 days and is secreted through urine similar to potassium. It therefore accumulates in the bladder, where it can cause irradiation of the adjacent uterus and fetus in pregnant women.11 In its comprehensive report of May 2011, the French Institute for Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety IRSN states that around 874 km2 of the area outside of the 20 km evacuation zone must be considered highly contaminated with radioactive caesium. They estimated concentrations of the radioisotope of more than 600,000 Bq/m2, similar to the evacuation zone around the Chernobyl power plant.15 Caesium-137 levels in Fukushima prefecture even reached up to 30,000,000 Bq/m2 in the radioactive trace north-west of the plant and up to 10,000,000 Bq/m2 in the neighboring prefectures.15 Soil samples between 20,000 and 220,000 Bq/kg of caesium-137 were found by the scientists from MEXT in the municipalities of Iitate, Kawamata, Name, Katsurao and Nihonmatsu in April 2011.13 Even higher values, reaching up to 420,000 Bq/kg of caesium-137 were recorded four months later and in August of 2011.14
According to the IAEA, caesium-137 deposition in Tokyo reached 340 Bq/m2 on March 22nd and 23rd.5 Radioactive caesium was also found in large quantities in beef, rice, milk, fish, drinking-water and other foodstuff after the Fukushima meltdowns (see section on food and drink below).

Table 2: Half-lives of radioactive isotopes16:


Contamination of the marine environment

Massive amounts of water were used in a desperate attempt to cool the reactors and the burning spent fuel ponds. This led to equally large amounts of radioactive waste water, which was continually discharged into the sea, seeped into soil and ground-water deposits or evaporated into the atmosphere.
Between April 4th and 10th, TEPCO deliberately released 10,393 tons of radioactive water according to the official report by the Japanese government. This same report calculates that a total of 4.7 PBq of radioactive discharge was released into the Pacific ocean due to the meltdowns. This constitutes the single highest radioactive discharge into the oceans ever recorded.17 Together with the atmospheric nuclear weapons tests, the fallout from Chernobyl and the radioactive discharge of nuclear reprocessing plants like Sellafield or La Hague, the Fukushima disaster already ranks as one of the prime radioactive pollutants of the world’s oceans according to a comprehensive report by the IAEA.18

Measurements by the IAEA and the German Society for Reactor Safety showed levels of radioactive iodine in the water close to the Fukushima nuclear power plant of 130,000 Bq/l, while radioactive caesium was detected with concentrations of up to 63,000 Bq/l.19 20 Activity of radioactive caesium in bottom sediments amounted to 910 Bq/kg in the vicinity of the plant.20 According to the Japanese Atomic Industrial Forum, the levels of radioactive iodine-131 were found to be 7.5 million times the safety limit near reactor No. 2.21 Concentrations of caesium-137 28 km off shore were much higher than those measured in the ocean after Chernobyl.17 Even 60 km away from the coastline, radiation readings still reached 100 Bq/l, both on the surface and in deep water.20 By July 2011, levels of caesium-137 in the coastal waters off Japan were still more than 10,000 times higher than levels measured in 2010.22

The waters north-east of the Fukushima plant are amongst the busiest fishing zones in the world. Half of Japan's sea-food comes from this area. Fish and other marine animals in Ibaraki prefecture showed elevated levels of radioactive isotopes and had to be treated as radioactive waste (see section on food and drink below).20 23

It is often stated that the dilution effect of the radioactive waste discharged into the ocean decreases the effects on the environment and the food chain. It has to be noted, however, that the radioactive particles do not disappeared through dilution but are only distributed over a larger area. This is dangerous for two reasons: Due to the spread of radioactive contamination in the Pacific Ocean, more people are potentially affected, as there is no safe minimum threshold for radioactivity.24 Even the smallest amount can cause cancer in human beings when ingested with water or food (see section on health effects below). Secondly, the trophic cascade leads to an accumulation of radioactivity in fish higher up the food chain, which are then eaten by humans. Radioactive caesium levels in sea bass caught in the North Pacific continually rose from March until September, for example, with a maximum contamination found on September 15th of 670 Bq/kg.20

Effects on food and drinking water

As stated above, there is no safe level of radioactivity in food and drinking water. Potentially, even the slightest amount of radioactivity can cause genetic mutation and cancer.24 According to the German Society for Radiation Protection, it is estimated that a person is normally exposed to about 0.3 mSv per year through ingestion of food and drink. This should be considered the permissible level of ingested radioactivity in order to prevent excessive health risks. In order not to surpass this level, the amount of radioactive caesium-137 should not exceed 8 Bq/kg in milk and baby formula and 16 Bq/kg in all other foodstuff. Radioactive iodine with its short half-life should not be permitted in food at all.25 In Japan however, the permissible level of radioactive caesium in milk and baby formula was set at 200 Bq/kg and 500 Bq/kg for all other foodstuff. For radioactive iodine, the permissible level was set at 300 Bq/kg for milk and drinking water and 2,000 Bq/kg for vegetables.25 26

The Fukushima nuclear meltdowns caused a major contamination of food and drink in Japan. According to the IAEA, nearly all vegetable and milk samples taken in Ibaraki and Fukushima prefectures one week after the earthquake revealed levels of iodine-131 and caesium-137 exceeding the radioactivity limits set for food and drink in Japan.5 In the months after the catastrophe, contamination was found to be even higher in certain foods:

· Vegetables and fruits: Outside of the evacuation zone in Fukushima prefecture, the MEXT survey one week after the earthquake found contaminated vegetables in the municipalities of Iitate, Kawamata, Tamura, Ono, Minamisoma, Iwaki, Tsukidate, Nihonmatsu, Sirakawa, Sukagawa, Ootama, Izumizaki and Saigou, some with iodine-131 concentrations as high as 2,540,000 Bq/kg and caesium-137 concentrations of up to 2,650,000.13 One month after the meltdowns, concentrations were still found to be above 100,000 Bq/kg for iodine-131 and 900,000 Bq/kg for caesium-137 in some regions.13 In Ibaraki prefecture, about 100 km south of the Fukushima plant, the prefectural government announced finding spinach with radioactive iodine-levels of up to 54,100 Bq/kg and radioactive caesium-levels of up to 1,931 Bq/kg.27 Beside spinach, most other vegetable samples also included more or less radioactivity, most notable mustard plants with 1,200 Bq/kg of iodine-131, parsley with 12,000 Bq/kg of iodine-131 and 2,110 Bq/kg of caesium-137 and Chichitake mushrooms with 8,000 Bq/kg of caesium-137. Lesser amounts of radiation were found on lettuce, onions, tomatoes, strawberries, wheat and barley.27

· Milk: On March 20th, the IAEA first warned of milk from Fukushima prefecture containing significant amounts of radioactive iodine-131 and caesium-137.28

· Beef: Distribution of beef continues to be restricted due to radioactive materials exceeding provisional standards set by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare: Fukushima, Toshigi, Miyagi, Iwate.29

· Rice: Japanese Atomic According to the Fukushima prefectural government, contaminated rice was found in Onami district and in Date city with caesium-levels reaching 1,050 Bq/kg.30

· Drinking water: The IAEA warned that permissible levels of iodine-131 were exceeded in drinking water samples taken in the Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma, Chiba and Saitamar prefectures between March 17th and 23rd.5 Even in a northern district of Tokyo, tap water contained 210 Bq/l of iodine-131.31

· Fish and sea-food: Radioactive caesium in fish and sea-food caught close to the nuclear power plant was found to reach levels of 500-1,000 Bq/kg.20 In April of 2011, the Japanese Fishing Ministry measured radioactive iodine and caesium in sand lance from Fukushima prefecture each with an activity of up to 12,000 Bq/kg.32 In its “Analysis of Matrices of the Marine Environment”, the independent French radioactivity laboratory ACRO found radioactivity readings of more than 10.000 Bq/kg in algae fished outside of the 20 km evacuation zone. One sample even showed levels of 127.000 Bq/kg of iodine-131, 800 Bq/kg of caesium-134 and 840 Bq/kg of caesium-137.33

· Tea: According to the prefectural government of Shizuoka, a prefecture about 400 km away from Fukushima, local tea leaves were found to be contaminated with 679 Bq/kg of radioactive caesium-137. Radioactive Japanese green tea was discovered in France in June 2011.34


Case report: Iitate village

The village of Iitate is an example of the effects of radioactive fallout on a typical residential area.
The explosion of reactor 2 and the burning spent fuel pond of reactor 4 on March 15th, 2011 led to a massive emission of radioisotopes that were carried 40 northwest by a radioactive cloud, where they precipitated over the village of Iitate at around 18:00 in the evening. As the village lay outside the concentric 20 km evacuation circle around the plant, no evacuation measures were undertaken.
35

Two weeks after the nuclear fallout occurred, scientists from the Japanese Ministry of Science MEXT, the university of Hiroshima and the university of Kyoto found radioactivity levels of 2-3 mSv/h in dust samples inside of buildings and between 2-44.7 mSv/h on the outside.13 35 A child living in Iitate and spending about 8 hours of the day outside and 16 hours inside would be exposed to about 148 mSv in the course of a year - 100 times the natural background radiation in Japan of 1.48 mSv per year.36 Even five months after the fallout, radioactivity levels of around 16 mSv/h were still recorded in dust samples in Iitate.13 Soil samples taken by MEXT scientists in Iitate showed radioactive caesium concentration as high as 227.000 Bq/kg, radioactive strontium-90 with concentrations of 32 Bq/kg and radioactive iodine concentrations of up to 1,170,000 Bq/kg.
Scientists calculated an individual external exposure dose over the 90 days after the radioactive fallout of 30-95 mSv, depending on movement patterns and habits.35 This amounts to 20-64 times the natural background radiation level or the equivalent of 300-950 chest x-rays over three months
(one chest x-ray causes a dose of about 0,1 mSv).37 Levels this high are especially dangerous for pregnant women, children and people with reduced immune systems who are more susceptible to the development of cancer.

An additional source of radiation is the inhalation of radioactive particles and the ingestion of contaminated food and water. Japanese government samples found vegetables from Iitate highly contaminated with more than 2,500,000 Bq/kg of iodine-131 and more than 2,600,000 Bq/kg of caesium-137.13 Drinking water was found to contain 965 Bq/l.38 No epidemiological data has yet been published on the observed health effects of the Iitate population (birth statistics, morbidity, etc.).


Effects on health

When discussing health effects of the Fukushima disaster, it is important to distinguish several groups with different risk constellations:

· Employees, rescue- and clean-up workers: The most acutely affected by high radiation were the workers and emergency personnel in and around the failing nuclear power plant. According to the Japanese Atomic Information Forum, radiation levels inside the plant peaked at 1,000 mSv/h, a dose that is fatal to human beings exposed to it for more than a few hours.8 39
While initial airborne emissions decreased gradually, massive amounts of radiation still existed on the site, especially through washout effects of the water which was continually pumped into the plant in order to cool the reactors. By August 1st, five months after the earthquake, radiation
of 10 Sv/h was still detected around the plant's premises, endangering the workers involved in the clean-up and shut-down of the plant.40 According to the Japanese Atomic Information Forum, a total of 8,300 workers have been deployed in the rescue- and clean-up operations since March. In July, TEPCO announced that 111 workers had been exposed to radiation of more than 100 mSv, some as high as 678 mSv.41 Not taken into consideration at all are the effects of internal radiation through ingestion or inhalation of radioisotopes, which may cause diseases similar to those occurring in the liquidators of the Chernobyl accident.42

· Inhabitants of contaminated areas: Following the nuclear meltdowns, the government ordered 200,000 people to evacuate their homes as an area of about 600 km2 around the plant was deemed to be uninhabitable due to radioactive fallout.2 About 70,000 people, including 9,500 children were still living in highly contaminated areas outside of the evacuation zone two months after the Fukushima meltdowns.15 Radiation levels between 16-115 mSv/h were measured outside of the 20 km evacuation zone by the IAEA radiation monitoring team.5 The IAEA's conservative extrapolations from these soil samples calculate the total dose of beta-radiation in the area of 30-32 km from the plant to be 3,800,000-4,900,000 Bq/m².5 MEXT scientists
confirmed these readings in their soil surveys in April of 2011: Dose rates recorded in several cities of the affected region outside of the evacuation zone still showed radiation levels of more than 2 mSv/h in Nihonmatsu, Tamura, Souma, Minamisoma and Date, more than 5 mSv/h in Fukushima city and Katsurao, more than 10 mSv/h in Kawamata and Hirono, more than 50 mSv/h in Namie and more than 100 mSv/h in Iitate.13 35 Four months later, in August of 2011, the MEXT scientists still found radiation doses of up to 34 mSv/h in Namie, up to 16 mSv/h in Iitate and up to 17,5 mSv/h in Katsurao.14

The IRSN projected the external exposure of the 70,000 people living in the highly contaminated areas outside of the 20 km evacuation zone can reach up to 200 mSv in the first year and up to 4 Sv over the course of a lifetime, not including additional radioactive exposure through ingestion of contaminated food, air or water.15 The external collective dose received over 4 years by this population was calculated to be 4,400 person-Sv. This amounts of about 60% of the collective dose received by the population in the highly contaminated regions around Chernobyl.15 The IRSN concluded in its report that only the evacuation of people from these areas could lead to a decisive reduction of the radioactive exposure.15

Data published by MEXT in April of 2011 seems to confirm these calculations. They estimate doses over the course of one year of up to 235.4 mSv in the town of Namie, 61.7 mSv in Iitate,
24.2 mSv in Kawamata, 21.2 in Date, 18 mSv in Katsurao, 15.6 in Minamisoma and more than 10 mSv in Fukushima city and Koriyama – both more than 55 km away from the plant.9 The natural background radiation in Japan is 1.48 mSv per year.36 This means that in April of 2011, the Japanese Ministry of Health expected the population in these cities to be exposed to more than 6-160 times the normal background radiation in the year after the catastrophe. In a press release on March 23rd, the Japanese Nuclear Safety Commission estimated the thyroid dose for children of one year to be between 100 mSv and 1000 mSv through inhalation of radioactive iodine-131.43

· People affected through ingestion of contaminated food: Fukushima caused the greatest radioactive contamination of the world's oceans ever recorded.17 This and the large-scale contamination of harvest crops, the pollution of groundwater supplies and the high permissible levels of radioactivity in food and drink have led to the ingestion of radioactive particles like iodine-131, strontium-90 or caesium-137 by people in Japan, in countries around the North Pacific and everywhere contaminated products ended up in markets or on the supermarket shelves. As stated in the section on food and drinks, the MEXT survey found vegetables contaminated with iodine-131 concentrations of more than 100,000 Bq/kg and caesium-137 oncentrations of more than 900,000 Bq/kg one month after the meltdowns. The external radiation dose of these vegetables lay between 10 and 30 mSv/h.13

Knowing the activity (measured in Bq) and multiplying this by a dose coefficient, it is possible to calculate the dose of internal radiation (measured in Sv). In 2010, the European Committee on Radiation Risks (ECRR) published such dose coefficients specifically for nuclear disasters where internal radiation exposure through ingestion or inhalation plays a large role in the development of cancer diseases.44 Using these dose coefficient, listed in detail below, it can be calculated that the internal organs of an adult eating 500g of food contaminated with 100,000 Bq/kg of iodine-131 and 900,000 Bq/kg of caesium-137 would be exposed to about 34,8 mSv.
As stated above, the normal exposure to internal radioactivity through food per year is 0.3 mSv.25 Eating just 500g of this contaminated food would cause an internal radiation exposure of more than 100 times the normal exposure per year. For a child of 1-14 years, the internal radiation exposure would be double that of an adult and for toddlers and fetuses, the impact of radioactively contaminated food is even more harmful as the different dose coefficients in Table 3 and the exemplary calculation in Table 4 demonstrate:

Table 3: Dose coefficients upon ingestion in Sv/Bq, depending on age44



Table 4: Examples for internal radiation through ingestion of contaminated food in children*



As stated before, the greatest health effects of radiation are seen in children. They have a higher surface area, a more permeable skin, their immune systems are not yet fully developed, they breathe in more air per minute than adults, the metabolism of their tissues is higher and their habits like playing on or eating from the ground lead to a higher exposure to radiation. In the womb, the unborn child receives radioactive isotopes through the umbilical vein and is irradiated by gamma-radiation from isotopes collected in the bladder. Radioactive isotopes like iodine-131 are also transmitted through breast-milk. In May of 2011, the MEXT published a list of soil measurements taken in kindergartens, schools and day-care centers. None of the places surveyed had radioactive iodine-131 measurements below 1,200 Bq/kg. The highest measurement was found at an elementary school in Date city: 6,800 Bq/kg of iodine-131.45 Concerning caesium-137, the soil concentrations laid between 620 Bq/kg and 9,900 Bq/kg.45 After the Fukushima disaster, the Japanese government raised the permissible level of radioactive exposure for children to 3.8 mSv/h, which amounts to about 20 mSv per year on April 19th, 2011.46 After protests by parent organizations, scientists and doctors, the government rescinded the new guidelines on May 27th,
distributed dosimeters to all students in the region and returned to the former permissible level of 1 mSv per year.47

First studies have been performed to estimate the effect of radioactive iodine-131 on the thyroid glands of children. In the end of March, 2011, a group of researchers around Hiroshima University professor Satoshi Tashiro tested 1,149 children aged 0 to 15 from Iwaki city, Kawamata town and Iitate village. 44.6 % of these 1,080 valid results showed radioactive contamination of up to 35 mSv in their thyroid glands. The results of this study were presented to the Japan Pediatric Society on August 13th, 2011, but have not been published yet.48 In October of 2011, the University of Fukushima began with thyroid-examinations on 360,000 children living in the regions affected by radioactive contamination.
The university hopes to have finished initial testing of all children by the end of 2014. According to the Japanese Atomic Industrial Forum, the affected children would then have to undergo biannual checkups until the age of 20 and every 5 years above that age for the rest of their lives.49

Radioactive caesium is another substance posing a health threat to children. A large-scale urine study performed on 1,500 children from Minamisoma in November of 2011 found caesium concentrations of 20-30 Bq/l and, in the case of a one-year old boy, even up to 187 Bq/l.50 These measurements do not allow extrapolation of radiation exposure dose, but show that some amount of radioactive caesium had to have been ingested by these children and remained in their systems for it to show up in urine samples eight months after the catastrophe.

Not a single epidemiological study on the health effects of the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe has yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal. Except for the unpublished small studies cited above, there is no scientific data to as certain the extent to which the people of the affected regions will be affected.
As for estimations, we have a fairly good idea of the effects of external high-level radiation of more than 100 mSv on the human body from Hiroshima and Nagasaki.51 We know that a certain dose of radiation can cause acute radiation sickness and can lead to the development of malignant diseases in
the long-term.

*The average annual dose of internal radioactivity through food and drink is about 0.3 mSv, which breaks down to about 0.0008 mSv per day. All of these exemplary calculations result in doses above this daily level.

The studies after Chernobyl have shown however that after a nuclear meltdown, the more relevant mode of radioactive exposure in terms of population health is internal low-level radiation (<100 mSv) through the incorporation of radioactive particles.44 52 These particles remain inside the body, damaging internal organs and causing malignancies many years after initial exposure. The overall health impact of internal radiation is naturally very difficult to ascertain. After the Chernobyl disaster, a study published in the International Journal of Cancer estimated an additional 41,000 cases of cancer and more than 15,000 additional cancer deaths due to radiation from the nuclear fallout.42 Birth defects, genetic mutations, infertility and still-births also rose significantly after the nuclear catastrophe in 1986.
Additionally, numerous studies have been published in recent years, showing a significant rise in the incidence of non-cancer diseases amongst the affected populations.52

The National Academy of Sciences Advisory Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR) published a lifetime cancer risk model in its report “Health risks from exposure to low levels of ionizing radiation”, also known as BEIR-VII. Taking into consideration the effects of ionizing radiation on human tissue, the BEIR committee calculates that exposure to 1 Sv causes cancer in 1 out of 10 people, while exposure to 100 mSv would cause cancer in 1 out of 100 people, exposure to 10 mSv in 1 out of 1,000 people and so on.24 This model has been used to calculate expected cancer cases in similar accidents, such as the Chernobyl disaster, and could be used to predict excess cancer cases in the people affected by the Fukushima fallout. For the 70,000 people in the highly contaminated regions outside of the evacuation zone, IRSN calculated a dose of 200 mSv in the first year after the catastrophe. If it is assumed that all of these people remained in the region and did not evacuate, the BEIR model roughly estimates a cancer rate of 2 %. According to this example, about 1,400 people would be expected to contract cancer due to the additional radiation from Fukushima fallout during this one year. This does not yet take into consideration the effects of internal radiation through ingestion or inhalation of radioactive particles. Also, this model does not take into consideration the higher susceptibility to radiation by children and people with immune deficiencies. As no estimates exist regarding the total amount of internal radiation exposure through ingestion or inhalation and as the amount of radiation discharged from the Fukushima plant continues to rise (according to TEPCO, atmospheric emissions of radioactive caesium still occurred at 60 MBq/h on January 27th, 2012),29 calculations of expected cancer cases or deaths are not possible at this stage.

Ultimately, no proper estimates can be made on the basis of the existing data. Large-scale epidemiological studies are needed in order to better understand the effects of internal low-level radiation and to estimate the extent of health effects in the coming decades and possibly even for future generations.
It is important that these studies are undertaken by independent researchers and not by organizations with the aim to promote nuclear energy, such as the IAEA.**

As with Chernobyl, the case will not be closed for many decades to come. While short-lived radioisotopes like iodine-131 decay below critical levels within a matter of months, long-lived substances like caesium-137 or strontium-90 will continue to emit radioactivity and endanger human life for many decades.
More than half of the total caesium-137 emitted by the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 is still emitting radiation, as the half-life of 30 years has not been reached. Also, latency periods of malignant diseases have to be considered in order to get a complete picture of the health impacts. Considering the victims of this disaster, the claim by several government advisers in Fukushima that the nuclear catastrophe will have little to no effect on people's health is not only unscientific but also deeply immoral.

**According to Article 1, Paragraph 3 and Article 3, Paragraph 1 of the “Agreement between the International Atomic Energy Agency and the World Health Organization”, the WHO is bound by agreement not to publish scientific articles without consent by the IAEA. This agreement was approved by the World Health Assembly May 28th, 1959 in resolution WHA12.40 and can be found on the WHO website at http://apps.who.int/gb/bd/PDF/bd47/EN/agreements-with-other-inter-en.pdf


Conclusions:

· The damage to the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant leading to the emission of radioactivity was caused primarily by the 9.0 magnitude earthquake. Further damage was incurred by the ensuing tsunami. Overheating of the core due to total power failure then caused separate
nuclear meltdowns in reactors 3 and the spent fuel pond of reactor 4
· Atmospheric emissions of more than 30 radioactive isotopes occurred through the explosions in reactors 1-3 and the spent fuel pond of reactor 4, smoke from the ensuing fires, deliberate venting of the reactors to relieve pressure as well as the evaporation of massive amounts of water used for cooling the reactors
· Total emission of iodine-131 in the first three to four days of the Fukushima nuclear disaster amounted to about 20% of the total iodine-131 emissions of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
Total emission of caesium-137 in the first three to four days of the Fukushima nuclear disaster amounted to about 40-60% of the total iodine-131 emissions of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster
· While iodine-131 and caesium-137 are the most prominent radioactive isotopes emitted by Fukushima, strontium-90, xenon-133, plutonium-239 and more than two dozen more radioactive substances were spread throughout the region as radioactive fallout.
· Marine and groundwater contamination was caused by backflow and deliberate discharge of radioactive waste water from the plant. With approximately 4.7 PBq of radioactive marine discharge, the Fukushima nuclear disaster constitutes the single worst radioactive contamination of the oceans ever recorded. Dilution and dispersion effects may reduce the amount of contamination in the vicinity of the plant, but only causes the long-lived radioactive isotopes to spread out over a larger area, exposing an even greater population to the effects of radioactive contamination.
· Radioactive fallout occurred mainly above the Northern Pacific (79%), with about 19% of the fallout contaminating Eastern Honshu island, including the Tokyo Metropolitan area and leaving an area of more than 1000 km2 highly contaminated with radioactive isotopes
· 200,000 people were forced to leave their homes as a 20 km2 zone around the plant was evacuated indefinitely
· 70,000 people remained in more than 870 km2 of highly contaminated land outside of the evacuation zone, where they were exposed to an external radioactivity 100 times higher than the normal background radiation in the first year after the catastrophe.
· The risk of developing cancer and other radiation-induced diseases increased proportionally to the amount of radioactive exposure. There is no lower threshold, as even the slightest amount of radioactivity can cause harmful tissue damage and genetic mutations.
· Radioactive contamination has been detected in all kinds of fruits and vegetables grown in the affected regions as well as in meat of animals grazing on contaminated land. Radioactivity has also been detected in milk, tea and tap water, even in the Tokyo Metropolitan area. Eating just
500g of contaminated vegetables can cause internal exposure to more than 100 times the normal annual amount of radioactive food content for adults and more than 200 times for children.
· Fish and seafood caught in the North Pacific are highly contaminated, with a clear accumulation of radioactivity in animals higher up the food-chain in the months after the disaster.
Washout and bioaccumulation will continue to cause radioactive contamination of marine animals for many years.
· Children are most severely affected by radioactivity, as their bodies have a higher sensibility and as their natural habits expose them to greater dosage. Raising the permissible radioactive dose level to 20 mSv per year has led to a high exposure of children in Fukushima prefecture.
· It is too early and too little data exists in order to estimate the extent of health effects caused by the nuclear disaster. Large-scale epidemiological studies are required in order to determine the effect and the extent of health consequences for the population. It is important that this research is performed by independent groups not associated with the nuclear industry, such as TEPCO, JAEA, the IAEA or affiliated organizations.
· Claims by scientists affiliated with the nuclear industry that no health effects are to be expected are unscientific and immoral.

Glossary:
Scientific units:
· Bq = Becquerel
· MBq = Mega-Becquerel (1 x 106 Becquerel)
· PBq = Petabecquerel (1 x 1015 Becquerel)
· Sv = Sievert
· mSv = Millisievert (1 x 10-3 Sievert)
· mSv = Microsievert (1x 10-6 Sievert)
Acronyms:
· BEIR = National Academy of Sciences Advisory Committee on the Biological Effects
of Ionizing Radiation
· IAEA = International Atomic Energy Agency
· INES = International Nuclear Event Scale
· IRSN = Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire (French Institute for Radiation
Protection and Nuclear Safety)
· MAFF = Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries
· MEXT = Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology
· NILU = Norsk institutt for luftforskning (Norwegian Institute for Air Research)
· TEPCO = Tokyo Electric Power Company
· WHO = World Health Organization
· ZAMG = Zentralanstalt für Meteorologie und Geodynamic (Austrian Central Institute
for Meteorology and Geodynamics)


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Truth about Fukushima

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/Truth_About_Fukushima.php

ISIS Report 05/06/12

Truth about Fukushima

The release of radioactivity from Fukushima is at least as great as from Chernobyl, and a humanitarian disaster on the scale of Chernobyl needs to be averted by acknowledging the truth and taking responsibility for mitigating measures Dr. Mae-Wan Ho

Please circulate widely and repost, but you must give the URL of the original and preserve all the links back to articles on our website

Regulators seriously economical with the truth

“Few people will develop cancer as a consequence of being exposed to the radioactive material that spewed from Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant…and those who do will never know for sure what caused their disease.” These conclusions, published in the journal Nature [1] are based on two “comprehensive, independent assessments” from UNSCEAR (United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation) and WHO (World Health Organisation), both notorious for downplaying and denying the devastating health impacts of the Chernobyl accident [2] (see Chernobyl Deaths Top a Million Based on Real Evidence, SiS 55). They are now using the same tactics to rule out, a priori, potential health impacts from Fukushima radioactive releases.
According to the draft UNSCEAR report seen by Nature [1], 167 workers at the plant received radiation doses that “slightly raise their risk of developing cancer.”  Actually, six former reactor workers have died since the catastrophe, but UNSCEAR ruled they were unrelated to the accident [3].
“There may be some increase in cancer risk that may not be detectable statistically,” Kiuohiko Mabuchi, head of Chernobyl studies at the National Cancer Institute in Rockville, Maryland, told Nature. He said that in Chernobyl, where clean-up workers were exposed to much higher dose, 0.1 % of the 110 000 workers surveyed have so far developed leukaemia, although not all of those cases resulted from the accident. In fact, the death rate of the “clean-up workers” at Chernobyl remained high even four years after the accident, and 20 years later, 115 000 (out of 830 000) are dead [2].
WHO, for its part, estimates that most residents of Fukushima and neighbouring Japanese prefectures received absorbed doses below 10 mSv [1]. Residents of Namie town and Iitate village, not evacuated until months after the accident, received 10-50 mSv, though infants in Namie may have been exposed to enough I-131 to have received 100-200 mSv. The government aims to keep public exposure from the accident below 20 mSv, but in the longer term, it wants to decontaminate the region so residents will receive no more than 1 mSv per year from the accident. Thus, people have been exposed within a matter of weeks, 10 to 200 times the legal limit dose for a whole year.
Yet, WHO’s conclusion for Fukushima is the same as for Chernobyl [1]: “A greater health risk may come from the psychological stress created.”

A day later..

A day later, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) announced that the amount of radioactive material released during the first days of the Fukushima nuclear disaster was almost two and a half times the initial estimate by Japanese safety regulators [4]. The operator said the meltdowns at the three reactors released about 900 000 Terabecquerels (10¹² Bq) of radioactive substances into the air during March 2011.
The later estimate was based on measurements suggesting the amount of radioactive iodine I-131 released was much larger than previous estimates. TEPCO said it had initially been unable to accurately judge the amount of radioactive materials released because radiation sensors closest to the plant were disabled in the disaster.
Several days later, ex-Prime Minister Naoto Ken apologized for his role in the Fukushima nuclear crisis [5]. His government’s push for nuclear energy was largely to blame. Ken had stepped down in September 2011 when the government faced fierce criticism over its handling of the crisis and for providing too little information to the public. It was Ken, however, who ordered TEPCO to keep the men on site; otherwise Fukushima would have spiralled out of control, according to a private panel probing the accident.
But the threat remains. Experts are now worried about the state of the spent fuel pool in unit 4, which is unlikely to withstand another earthquake [6]. The severely damaged unit 4 building houses a spent nuclear fuel pool that contains 10 times the amount of Cs-137 released at Chernobyl. Nearly all of the 10 893 spent fuel assemblies at the Fukushima Daiichi plant sit in pools vulnerable to future earthquakes, with altogether 85 times the long-lived radioactivity released at Chernobyl. A letter was sent by 72 Japanese NGOs to the United Nations with an urgent request for immediate action to stabilize unit 4’s spent nuclear fuel. The letter was endorsed by nuclear experts from both Japan and abroad.
Andrew DeWit, professor of political economy at Rikkyo University told Al Jazeera that transparency on the issues of nuclear energy was paramount. And that is precisely what’s lacking, in Japan, and in the world at large.

“We heard it first from the internet”

Miwa Chiwaki from Kodomo Fukushima (Fukushima network to protect children from radiation) said [7] it was in a BBC programme via the internet that people first saw pictures of the explosions at the power station. The Japanese government had information from SPEEDI (System for Prediction of Environment Emergency Dose Information) and they passed the information first to the US government on 14 March and to the Japanese people only on 23 March.
The day after the tsunami struck the Fukushima nuclear plant, thousands of residents at the nearby town of Namie gathered to evacuate. In the absence of guidance from Tokyo, the town officials led the residents north, in the belief that the winter winds would blow south and carry away the radioactive plume. They stayed in the Tsushima district for three nights where the children played outside and some parents used the water from a mountain stream to cook rice [8]. But the ill winds from Fukushima had been blowing directly towards them in Tsushima, as it would transpire two months later. SPEEDI had predicted that. But bureaucrats in Tokyo had not seen it their responsibility to make that information public. Japan’s political leaders did not know about the system, and later downplayed the data, fearful of having to enlarge the evacuation zone and acknowledge the severity of the accident.
Tamotsu Baba, the mayor of Namie, now living with thousands in temporary housing in another town, condemned the withholding of information as being akin to “murder”.
The true level of contamination is also hidden from people, Chiwaki said [7]. Many mothers queued up with their children in the rain for several hours to receive water rations (while radioactivity was being washed down over them with the rain), in Iitate, villagers were left in very high levels of contamination for a whole month.
“Advisers on radiation control from Fukushima prefecture flocked to the villages,” Chiwaki said, “and, with broad smiles on their faces, told the people that “there is nothing to worry about, you can let your children play outside.”” Three days later, the village was classified “planned evacuation zone”. 
The circumstances of the accident and the real levels of contamination were only revealed piecemeal. A “safety campaign” was initiated on 20 March. Professor Shunichi Yamashita of Nagasaki University was sent around the country, smiling and say things like: “100 mSv? No problem!” “Radiation is only a threat to people who worry about it.” “Smile and you won’t be affected by the radiation.”

Radioactivity, dose and general exposure limits

A great deal of confusion and anxiety is created by the different units used in announcements to the popular media. The unit of radioactivity is a Becquerel, Bq, equal to 1 radioactive disintegration per second, coming directly from a source, a radionuclide in contaminated food or drink, soil or air. Larger units are the kBq (1 000), MBq (10⁶), (GBq (10⁹), TBq (10¹²), PBq (10¹⁵), and EBq (10¹⁸).
The unit of absorbed dose (amount of energy absorbed by a unit of material) is the Gray, Gy, equal to 1 Joule/kg. The equivalent or effective dose is the Sievert, Sv (also in units of Joule/kg) is the absorbed dose modified to represent the presumed biological effect. Note that 1 Joule is a very small amount of energy. But unlike ordinary chemical energy, where typically kJ quantities are needed before anything can happen, the energy in ionizing radiation exists in extremely concentrated quanta or packets; hence 1 J of energy would already contain many of these energetic missiles (typically a billion) that target atoms and molecules. This is the major difference between ionizing radiation and ordinary chemical energy.
The Becquerel and the Sievert are not directly convertible, because it depends on the radionuclide involved, which particles or photons it produces per disintegration, and how much energy each of the photons or particles carries. There is a website that tells you how the calculation is done and actually does it for you [9] (http://www.radprocalculator.com/Gamma.aspx). Some useful approximate correspondences are: 
1 mSv of I-131 = 2.06525 x 10⁶ Bq
1 mSv of Cs-137 = 1.30878 x 10⁶ Bq
Radiation exposure considers how long a period over which the dose is absorbed, usually in mSv/year.
The exposure limit in Europe is 1 mSv/year for the public, and the occupational exposure, 20 mSv/year [10]. For USA, the occupational exposure limit is 50 mSv, reduced to 10 % for pregnant women. Dose limit for the public is 1 mSv/year, in addition to a background of o.3 mSv and 0.05 mSv from sources such as medical X-ray [11].
To put these exposure limits in perspective, it is generally recognized that a dose of 1 000 mSi will kill an adult. A whole body dose of 400 mSi will kill about 50 % of people within 60 days of the exposure, mostly from infection, as their immune systems are destroyed [12]. At very low doses, such as what most of us receive every day from background radiation, the cells are able to repair the damage, though the recent discovery of bystander effects indicate that doses as low as tens of mSi are harmful [3]. At higher doses (up to 100 mSi), the cells may not be able to repair the damage, and may either be changed permanently, or die. Most cells that die are replaced with few consequences. Cells changed permanently may give rise to diseases, they may go on to produce abnormal cells when they divide, and may become cancerous.
A comment submitted to the ICRP (International Commission on Radiological Protection) by the Sierra Club in 2006 stated [13]: “Numerous academic researchers, independent scholars, and governmental bodies, such as the U.S. National Academies of Science and National Research Council, have now concluded that the linear no-threshold hypothesis is valid and that there is no “safe” level of radiation exposure.”

Exposure limits and exposure levels in Japan post-Fukushima

The pre-Fukushima legal exposure limit for the public in Japan was 10 mSi/y and 50 mSi/y for occupational exposure [14]. The occupational legal limits were soon scrapped after the accident. At the end of April 2011, the Japanese government released a map based on air surveys done by MEXT (Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology), which revealed that people living in areas not being evacuated will receive radiation doses up to 23.5 times their annual legal limit over the course of the next year [15].
It is important to note that all the exposure limits and projected exposure mentioned so far are for external sources. As the French expert body, Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire (IRSN) pointed out, they take no account of [15, p. 4] “exposure from other pathways such as immersion within the plume and inhalation of particles in the plume during the accident nor the doses already received or to be received from ingestion of contaminated foodstuffs.  The total effective doses to be received (external + internal) could be much higher according to the type of deposit (dry or wet), diet and source of food.” 
In addition, as Director of the Medical Institute of Environment at Gifu in Japan Matsui Eisuke pointed out [16], the government and its professional advisors in measuring exposure have relied mainly on g-rays that are easy to detect. But, in terms of internal radiation exposure, b and a- particles have a far more serious effect. “The government and TEPCO hardly measure such isotopes as b-emitting strontium-90 or a-emitting plutonium-239.”
Exposure due to ingested or inhaled radionuclide is a major problem in radioactive fallout, particularly when prompt evacuation, radioactive monitoring, and remediation have all failed to be carried out, as was the case for both Chernobyl and Fukushima.
IRSN’s assessment of projected doses based on the Japanese map released (see Figure 1), estimated that some 70 000 people including 9 500 children are living in the most contaminated areas outside the initial 20 km evacuation zone projected to receive further doses up to 200 mSv or more. This clearly calls for further evacuation beyond the initial 20 km zone. Under Japanese Food Sanitation Law, 5 000 Bq/kg of radioactive Cs is considered the safe limit in soil [17]. Consequently, large areas of Japan may no longer be suitable for agriculture.

Figure 1  Map of caesium 137 + 134 deposits (Figure 7) superimposed on the map of projected doses for the 1st year (Figure 4) for 3 dose levels only (5, 10 and 20 mSv)
 

The Japanese government at first raised the legal exposure limit to 20 mSi a year for the public, including children, thereby leaving them in areas from which they would have been barred under the old standard [7]. The limit for children was later scaled back to 1 mSi/y but only applies while they are inside school buildings.
In March 2012, the Japanese government announced a new standard limit for radionuclides in foods to 1 mSv/y, reducing from a previous provisional limit of 5 mSv/y. This translates into a maximum of 100 Bq/kg for regular food items such as meat, vegetables and fish (revised down from 500 Bq just after the Fukushima meltdown), 50 Bq/l for milk and infant food and 10 Bq for drinking water (revised down from 200) [18]. As shown above, this still means an accumulation of internal exposure up to 1 million Bq a year, depending on how fast the radionuclides are cleared from the body. We already know that much lower levels have proven deadly for the children of Belarus (see [19] Apple Pectin for Radioprotection, SiS 55).
According to the German Society for Radiation Protection, a person is normally exposed to about 0.3 mSv per year through ingestion of food and drink; and this should be considered the permissible level of ingested radioactivity. In order not to go beyond this level, the amount of radioactive caesium-137 should not exceed 8 Bq/kg in milk and baby formula and 16 Bq/kg in all other foodstuff. Radioactive iodine with its short half-life should not be permitted in food at all [20].

How much radioactivity was released by the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant?

Although a picture of the radioactivity deposited on land is emerging, the actual levels of radioactivity to which people have been exposed are impossible to tell because there is a lot of uncertainty as to how much radioactivity has been released in the series of explosions in the Fukushima nuclear plant thus far.
TEPCO’s latest press release [21] gave the amounts of radionuclides released between 12 and 31 March 2011 as follows.
Releases into the air:
Noble gas: Approx. 5x10¹⁷ Bq
Iodine 131: Approx. 5x10¹⁷ Bq
Caesium 134: Approx. 1x10¹⁶ Bq
Caesium 137: Approx. 1x10¹⁶ Bq
Releases into the ocean:
Iodine-131: Approx. 1.1x10¹⁶ Bq
Cesium-134: Approx. 3.5x10¹⁵ Bq
Cesium-137: Approx. 3.6x10¹⁵ Bq
These add up to a total of 1 038.1 x 10¹⁵Bq or 1 038.1 PBq released.
TEPCO admits that the radioactivity measuring equipment were “unavailable due to the accident,” so “further data still need to be collected to review the validity of the evaluation result.” These reported radioactive releases from Fukushima are less than one-tenth those from the Chernobyl accident, a total of some 14 EBq (14 x 10¹⁸ Bq), over half of it in noble gases [22].
How reliable are the latest TEPCO results?
Using data from radioactivity measuring posts set up under the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the Austrian Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics (ZAMG) gave estimates of between 360-390 PBq iodine-131 and about 50 PBq of caesium-137 for the period of 12-14 March [23]. According to their calculations, the iodine-131 emissions from Fukushima in those three days amounted to 20 % of the total iodine-131 emissions from Chernobyl (1 760 PBq), while the emissions of caesium-137 in those three days amounted to about 60 % of the total caesium-137 emissions from Chernobyl (85 PBq).
A study led by the Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU) found about 16 700 PBq of xenon-133 (250% of the amount released at Chernobyl) emitted by the Fukushima power plant between 12 and 19 March 2011, the largest release of radioactive Xenon in history [24]. In addition, 35.8 PBq of caesium-137 (42% of the amount released at Chernobyl) was emitted in the same period. The study found that radioactive emissions were first measured right after the earthquake and before the tsunami struck the plant, indicating that the quake itself had already caused substantial damage to the reactors. The NILU report also suggests that the fire in the spent fuel pond of reactor 4 may have been the major contributor to airborne emissions, as emissions decreased significantly after the fire had been brought under control.
The same team of researchers updated their estimates in a paper published online giving estimates of 15 300 PBq of Xenon-133 and 36.6 PBq Cs-137 released into the atmosphere [25], not counting iodine-131 or Cs-134 (which was as much as Cs-137), nor releases into the ocean.  But already, this is nearly 15 times the latest TEPCO estimate for total releases. I shall report separately in detail on this latest independent estimate, which gives a global picture of contamination from the fallout (see [26] Fukushima Fallout Rivals Chernobyl, SiS 55).

Contamination of soil [27]

MEXT conducted soil surveys in 100 locations within 80 km of the Fukushima power plant in June and July of 2011. They found contamination with various radionuclides; the main ones were strontium-90, iodine-131, and caesium-137. Strontium-90, with a half-life of 28 years, is similar to calcium, and is therefore incorporated into bone where it can remain for decades, emitting b-particles and irradiating the bone-marrow, causing leukaemia and other cancers. Strontium-90 was found at concentrations of 1.8-32 Bq/kg at sites outside the 30 kM evacuation zone in Nishigou, Motomiya, Ootama and Ono.
Iodine-131 has a half-life of 8 days. When ingested, it is incorporated like ordinary iodine in the thyroid gland, where it emits b- and g-radiation, causing thyroid cancer especially in children. I-131 was found in milk, drinking water, vegetables and water around Northern Japan. According to the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), iodine-131 deposition in Tokyo reached 36 000 Bq/m²  between 22 and 23 March 2011. Soil samples in the municipalities of Nishigou, Izumizaki, Ootama, Shirakawa, Nihonmatsu, Date, Iwaki, Iitate, Ono, Minamisoma and Tamura showed concentrations of I-131 between 2 000 and 1 170 000 Bq/kg. In the municipality of Ono, 40 km southwest of the Fukushima plant, MEXT scientists found up to 7 440 Bq/kg of I-131 in rainwater samples. In August 2011, MEXT scientists still found I-131 concentrations of more than 200 Bq/kg in most of the municipalities, with maximum in Namie and Iitate of 1 300 and 1 100 Bq/kg respectively. Given its short half-life, this high level detected 145 days after the initial fallout on 15 March suggests extremely high initial contamination of the soil > 288 MBq/kg, or additional contamination of the area after the initial fallout. To convert from Bq/kg to Bq/m², the convention is to multiply by 20 or 65, depending on the depth to which the soil is sampled. A conservative multiplier of 20 would give a value of > 5760 MBq/kg, going way off the top of the scale shown in the map of Fig. 1, which only gives radioactivity due to Cs-137 and Cs-134.
Cs-137 has a half-life of 30 years. It is similar to potassium, so its distribution is fairly even throughout the body if ingested. It is mainly a b-emitter, but its decay product barium-137 also produces g-radiation. It can cause solid tumours in virtually all organs. Cs-137 has a biological half-life of 70 days and is excreted through urine like potassium. It therefore accumulates in the bladder and irradiates the adjacent uterus and foetus in pregnant women. IRSN states that around 874 km² of the area outside the 20 km evacuation zone must be considered highly  contaminated with Cs-137, to an estimated concentration >6MBq/m², similar to the evacuation zone around the Chernobyl power plant [15] (see Figure 1). In fact, Cs-137 in the Fukushima prefecture even reached up to 30 MBq/m² north-west of the plant, and up to 10 MBq/m² in neighbouring prefectures. Soil sample with Cs-137 between 20 000 and 220 000 Bq/kg were found by MEXT scientists in the municipalities of Iitate, Kawamata, Name, Katsurao and Nihonmatsu in April 2011. Even higher values up to 420 000 Bq/kg were recorded later in August 2011. According to IAEA, Cs-137 deposition in Tokyo reached 340 Bq/m² 22-23 March 2011. Radioactive caesium was also found in large quantities in beef, rice, milk, fish, drinking water and other foodstuff.
       

Contamination of the marine environment

Massive amounts of radioactive waste water used in cooling the reactors and spent fuel ponds were discharged into the sea, seeped into the soil or ground water or evaporated into the atmosphere [27]. Between 4 and 10 April 2011, TEPCO deliberately released 10 393 tonnes of radioactive water. It constituted the single largest radioactive discharge into the oceans in history. A 1-2 week pulse of radioactivity peaked in the water around the Fukushima plant on 6 April 2011, with ocean concentrations of 68 MBq/m³, and an estimated total release of up to 22 PBq [28, 29]; TEPCO admits 18.1 PBq [21]. After considerable dilution 2-3 months following the peak, surface concentrations were still higher than previously existing by as much as 10 000-fold in coastal waters and as much as 1 000-fold over a 150 000 km² area of the Pacific up to 600 k east of Japan.   Radioactive Cs was detected in all species of marine organisms ranging from phytoplankton to fish.
The waters northeast of the Fukushima plant are among the major fishing zones in the world, responsible for half of Japan’s seafood. But catch from the Ibaraki prefecture showed such high levels of radioactive isotopes that it had to be discarded as radioactive waste [27]. Radioactive contamination in the ocean does not get diluted away, like other pollutants it gets accumulated in the marine food chain, up to fish consumed by humans. Radioactive caesium in sea bass caught in the North Pacific continually rose from March till September, with a maximum found on 15 September of 670Bq/kg.  Radioactivity not only disperses passively in the ocean by currents and mixing, but is also spread by fish and mammals. The Pacific Bluefin tuna was found to transport Fukushima-derived radionuclides from Japan to California. Fifteen Pacific Bluefin tuna sampled in August 2011 had elevated levels of Cs- 134 (4.0 + 1.4 Bq/kg) and Cs-137 (6.3 + 1.5 Bq/kg).

 Contamination of food and drinking water

Extensive contamination of food and drinking water was documented in the months after the disaster [27].
Outside the evacuation zone in Fukushima prefecture, MEXT survey one week after the earthquake found contaminated vegetables in the municipalities of Iitate, Kawamata, Tamua, Ono, Minamisoma, Iwaki, Tshukidate, Nihonmatsu, Sirakawa, Sukagawa, Ootama, Izumizaki and Saigou. I-131 concentrations were as high as 2.54 MBq/kg and Cs-137 up to 2.65 MBq/kg. One month after meltdown, radioactivity was still above 100 000 Bq/kg for I-131, and 900 000 Bq/kg for Cs-137 in some regions. In Ibaraki prefecture ~100 km south of the Fukushima plant,  spinach was found with I-131 up to 54 100 Bq/kg and Cs-137 up to 1 931 Bq/kg. Other highly contaminated vegetables included mustard, parsley, and Shitake mushrooms, and lesser amounts of radiation were detected in lettuce, onions, tomatoes, strawberries, wheat and barley.
Milk, beef, rice and drinking water were also contaminated. The IAEA warned that levels of I-131 exceeded permissible limits between 17 and 23 March. Even in the northern district of Tokyo, tap water contained 210 Bq/l of I-131.
Seafood and fish caught close to the nuclear plant reached 500 – 1 000 Bq/kg. In April 2011, the Japanese Fishing Ministry found radioactive iodine and caesium in sand lance from Fukushima prefecture each with an activity up to 12 000 Bq/kg. The independent French radioactivity laboratory ACRO found readings of more than 10 000 Bq/kg in algae harvested outside the 20 km evacuation zone. One sample showed levels of 127 000 Bq/kg of I-131, 800 Bq/kg of Cs-134 and 840 Bq/kg of Cs-137.
In the prefecture of Shizuoka ~400 km from Fukushima, local tea leaves were found contaminated with 670 Bq/kg Cs-137, and radioactive Japanese green tea was discovered in France in June 2011.

Emerging health impacts [27]

Employees of the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant, rescue- and clean-up workers are the most acutely exposed group. According to the Japanese Atomic Information Forum, radiation levels inside the plant peaked at around 1 000 mSi/h, a dose fatal to humans exposed for more than an hour. While airborne emissions decreased gradually, massive amounts of radiation still remained on site through wash-out in water continually pumped into the plant to cool the reactors. By 1 August 2011, radiation of 10 Sv/h was still detected around the premises. A total of 8 300 workers have been deployed in rescue and clean-up since March. In July, TEPCO announced that 111 workers had been exposed to radiation of more than 100 mSv, some as high as 678 mSv. That did not take into account effects of internal radiation through ingested or inhaled radioisotopes.
An under-cover report broadcast on 4 October 2011 on German TV ZDF revealed  radiation levels as high as 10 Sv/h, and new hotspots were still being discovered [30]. The exposure badges given to the workers routinely registered an error message as the radioactivity went way off-scale. The workers, paid €80-100 a day, were forbidden by contract to talk to reporters and given little information on the radiation levels in the plant. They only discovered that on TV. Some 18 000 workers had gone through the plant by then.
Following the nuclear meltdowns, the Japanese government ordered the evacuation of 200 000 people in an area of about 600 km². As mentioned above, 70 000 people including 9 500 children were still living in highly contaminated areas outside this evacuation zone 2 months after the accident [15]. IAEA measured radiation levels 16-115 mSv/h (i.e., up to 140-1 007 mSv/y) outside the 20 km evacuation zone. MEXT scientists confirmed these levels in their soil surveys of April 2011. Dose rates recorded in several cities outside the evacuation zone were 2 mSv/h in Nihonmatsu, Tamura, Souma, Minamisoma and Date; more than 5 mSv/h in Namie, and more than 100 mSv/h in Iitate. Four months later in August 2011, MEXT scientists still detected radiation doses up to 34 mSv/h in Namie, up to 16 mSv/h in Iitate, and up to 17.5 mSv/h in Katsurao.
IRSN projected the external exposure of the 70 000 living in the highly contaminated areas outside the 20 km evacuation zone to reach 200 mSv/y or more in the first year [15]. The external collective dose over 4 years of this population was calculated to be 4 400 person-Sv, amounting to 60 % of the collective dose received by the population in the highly contaminated regions around Chernobyl.
MEXT’s calculations confirm those exposure levels. The estimated doses over the
course of a year are up to 235.4 mSv in the town of Namie, 61.7 mSv in Iitate, 24.2 mSv in
Kawamata, 21.2 mSv in Date, 18 mSv in Katsurao, 15.6 mSv in Minamisoma and more than 10 mSv in Fukushima city and Koriyama – both more than 55 km away from the plant. The natural (pre-existing) background radiation level in Japan is 1.48 mSv/y.
These high external sources of exposure have been and will continue to be internalized in food and drink. The devastating impacts of chronic exposure have been documented especially in the multiple diseases and deaths of hundreds of thousands of children as the result of the Chernobyl catastrophe, exacerbated by official denial, suppression, and disinformation [2].
I-131 is one of the most acute causes of cancer in children after a nuclear meltdown. Uptake of radioactive iodine can be prevented by a timely supply of iodine tablets. While such iodine tablets were supplied to the municipalities and evacuation centres during the first few days of the disaster, the order to distribute them was never issued, and hence, with very few exceptions, no iodine tablets were taken by people exposed to radioactive iodine [27]. The may lead to a large number of cases of thyroid cancer, as in the case of Chernobyl [2]. And the signs are ominous.
At the end of March 2011, a group of researchers around Hiroshima professor Satoshi Tashiro tested 1 149 children aged 0 to 15 from Iwaki city Kawamata town and Iitate village. Some 44.5 % showed radioactive contamination of up to 35 mSv in their thyroid gland. In October 2011, the University of Fukushima began with thyroid-examinations on 360 000 children living in the regions affected by radioactive contamination. Matsui Eisuke reported some of the results so far [16]. Between October 2011 and 31 March 2012, 38 114 children 1-18 y in Fukushima prefecture were examined by ultrasonography of the thyroid gland. Cysts were found in more than 35 % of the children. In comparison, in Nagaski where 250 children 7-14 y had been examined since 2000, only 2 (0.8 %) had cysts in their thyroid gland. 
Chiwaki reports that today, centres for measuring levels of radioactivity in food are opening one after another all over Japan, and not just in Fukushima [7]. Parents have banded together to set up organic cafes to stock non-contaminated organic vegetables, and also to demand that school canteens use only uncontaminated ingredients. “It is mainly thanks to independent networks that people have been able to go somewhere else temporarily to take care of their health.”

Evacuation from highly contaminated areas still refused

The government still refuses to evacuate people from the highly contaminated regions [7]. The city of Fukushima organized a planning meeting in the Ônami district that had been recommended for evacuation, and the opening words were:“Evacuation reduces economic activity, so we would opt for decontamination,” in other words, “We won’t let you leave.” The city has designated zones measuring >2 mSv/h for decontamination, and wanted volunteers; but when asked about their decontamination plans, said they have none. In February 2012, an estimated 62 000 people left Fukushima prefecture to seek refuge elsewhere.
In June 2011, pupils from 14 primary and secondary schools from the town of Kôriyama formally demanded that the local authority respect their right to be evacuated and to continue their education in a less contaminated area. But six months later, the demand has been refused.
“We have launched an appeal.” Chiwaki said. Refugees from the evacuation zones leave however they can, sometimes the whole family and sometimes the mother leaves with the children, and the husband stays behind to work and look after the house. Sharp divisions of opinion end in divorce and break up families.
“We have learnt lessons from the experience of Chernobyl and will never give up in our efforts to protect the lives of our children and everyone else. We ask the whole world to give us their support.”
For more information and especially if you can offer help, please contact http://fukushima-evacuation-e.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/take-action-to-help-children-in.html

References

1. “Fukushima’s doses tallied”, Geoff Brumfiel, Nature 2012, 423-4, 24 May 2012, http://www.nature.com/news/fukushima-s-doses-tallied-1.10686
2. Ho MW. Chernobyl deaths top one million based on real evidence. Science in Society 55 (to appear) 2012.
3. “Fukushima deaths not cause by radiation, UN says”, George Jahn, Huffington Post, 23 May 2012, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/23/fukushima-deaths-radiation_n_1540397.html
4. “Utility says it underestimated radiation released in Japan”, New York Times, 24 May 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/25/world/asia/radioactive-release-at-fukushima-plant-was-underestimated.html
5. “Japan ex-PM apologises for Fukushima failure”, Aljazeera, 28 May 2012, http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2012/05/201252842649729894.html
6. “Fukushima reactor 4 requires urgent intervention; coalition calls for emergency UN action to halt catastrophic release of radiation”, Mike Adams, 6 May 2012, http://www.naturalnews.com/035788_Fukushima_United_Nations_radiation.html
7. Chiwaki M. Our struggle for survival continues. Presentation at Scientific and Citizen Forum on Radioprotection – From Chernobyl to Fukushima, 11-13 May 2012, Geneva.
8. “Japan held nuclear data, leaving evacuees in peril” Norimitsu Onishi and Martin Fackler, The New York Times, 8 August 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/09/world/asia/09japan.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2
9. Rad Pro Calculator Site Description and Details, accessed 1 June 2012,  http://www.radprocalculator.com/Gamma.aspx
10. Radiation exposure, dose limits, European nuclear society, accessed 29 May 2012, http://www.euronuclear.org/info/encyclopedia/r/radiation-exposure-dose-limit.htm
11. Occupational dose limits, US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, accessed 29 May 2012, http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/cfr/part020/part020-1201.html
12. Radiation and Risk, Idaho State University, accessed 30 May 2012, http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/risk.htm http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/risk.htm
13. Johnsrud JH. Sierra Club, Radiation Committee, Commenting on behalf of the organisation on The Scope of Radiological Protection, ICRP Consultation, accessed 31 May 2012, http://www.icrp.org/consultation_viewitem.asp?guid=%7B762C6A55-ECE0-41AB-A349-AB5E7FD56462%7D
14. “Japan forsees high radiation over the next year in areas not evacuated”, Alexander Higgins, 28 April 2011, http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2011/04/28/japan-forsees-high-radiation-year-areas-evacuated-20732/
15. Assessment on the 66^th day of projected external doses for populations living in the north-west fallout zone of the Fukushima nuclear accident, outcome of population evacuation measures, Report DRPH/2011-10, Directorate of Radiological Protection and Human Health, Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire, October 2011
16. 16. Matsui E. Action taken by Japanese scientists and citizens concerned about low-doses internal radiation exposure in Japan. Presentation at Scientific and Citizen Forum on Radioprotection – From Chernobyl to Fukushima, 11-13 May 2012, Geneva.
17. Yasunari TJ, Stohl A, Hayano RS, Burkhart JF, Eckhardt S and Yssunari T. Cesium-137 deposition and contamination of Japanese soils due to the Fukushima nuclear accident. PNAS 2011, 108, 19530-4.
18. Food Safety Department, Pharmaceutical & Food Safety Bureau, MHLW, New Standard Limits for Radionuclides in Foods, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, March 2012, http://www.mhlw.go.jp/english/topics/2011eq/dl/new_standard.pdf
19. Ho MW. Apple pectin for radioprotection. Science in Society 55 (to appear) 2012.
20. “Calculated Fatalities from Radiation”, Study by the German Society for Radiation Protection and German IPPNW, Berlin, September 2011 http://foodwatch.de/foodwatch/content/e10/e42688/e44884/e44993/CalculatedFatalities fromRadiation_Reportfoodwatch-IPPNW2011-09-20_ger.pdf
21. Press release, Tokyo Electric Power Company, 24 May 2012, http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/2012/1204659_1870.html
22. Chernobyl Accident 1986, World Nuclear Association, April 2012, http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/chernobyl/inf07.html
23. Accident in the Japanese NPP Fukushima: Large emissions of Cesium-137 and Iodine-131. Austrian Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics (ZAMG), March 24th, 2011, www.zamg.ac.at/docs/aktuell/Japan2011-03-24_1600_E.pdf
24. Stohl A et al. Xenon-133 and caesium-137 releases into the atmosphere from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant: determination of the source term, atmospheric dispersion, and deposition“, Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., 11, 28319-28394, 2011, www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/11/28319/2011/acpd-11-28319-2011.html
25.  Stohl A, Seibert P, Wotawa G, Arnold D, Burkhart JF, Eckhardt S, Tapia C, Varga and Yasunari TJ. Xenon-133 and caesium-137 releases into the atmosphere from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant: determination of the source term, atmospheric dispersion, and deposition. Atmos Chem Phy 2012, 12, 2313-43.
26. Ho MW. Fukushima fallout rivals Chernobyl. Science in Society 55 (to appear) 2012.
27. Rosen A. Effects of the Fukushima nuclear meltdowns on environment and health, 9 March 2012, http://www.ippnw.de/commonFiles/pdfs/Atomenergie/Effects_Fukushima_rosen.pdf
28. Buesseler K, Aoyama M and Fukasawa M. Impacts of the Fukushima nuclear power plants on Marine Radioactivity. Environ Sci Tecnol 2011, 45, 9931-5.
29. Buesseler KO, Jayne SR, Fisher NS, et al. Fukushima-derived radionuclides in the ocean and biota off Japan. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2012, 109:5984–8.
30. Fisuke M. Research and activities of scientists and citizens in Japan who are concerned about low dose internal radiation exposures. Presentation at Scientific and Citizen Forum on Radioprotection – From Chernobyl to Fukushima, 11-13 May 2012, Geneva
31.  “German TV-channel ZDF talks with workers at Fukushima Dai-ichi”,  YouTube, accessed 4 June 2012, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1T4Ac9nHeY

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Radiation: How Bad is the Pacific Ocean from Fukushima?



公開日: 2013/07/10

Cesium, iodine and tritium in NW Pacific waters -- a comparison of the Fukushima impact with global fallout
http://tinyurl.com/bnfwcnr
http://www.biogeosciences-discuss.net...

Impacts of the Fukushima nuclear power plant discharges on the ocean
(MULTIPLE studies found here)
http://www.biogeosciences-discuss.net...
http://tinyurl.com/k925vhs
THE 20 STUDIES IN LINK ABOVE INCLUDE:
1~ Inverse estimation of source parameters of oceanic radioactivity dispersion models associated with the Fukushima accident
2~ Surface pathway of radioactive plume of TEPCO Fukushima NPP1 released 134Cs and 137Cs
3~ Determination of plutonium isotopes in marine sediments off the Fukushima coast following the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant accident
4~ Iodine-129 concentration in seawater near Fukushima before and after the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant
5~ Short-term dispersal of Fukushima-derived radionuclides off Japan: modeling efforts and model-data intercomparison
6~ Initial Spread of 137Cs over the shelf of Japan: a study using the high-resolution global-coastal nesting ocean model
7~ Direct observation of 134Cs and 137Cs in surface seawater in the western and central North Pacific after the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant accident
8~ 90Sr and 89Sr in seawater off Japan as a consequence of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear accident
9~ Fukushima-derived radiocesium in western North Pacific sediment traps
10~ Natural and Fukushima-derived radioactivity in macroalgae and mussels along the Japanese shoreline
11~ Export of 134Cs and 137Cs in the Fukushima river systems at heavy rains by Typhoon Roke in September 2011
12~ Continuing 137Cs release to the sea from the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant through 2012
13~ The impact of oceanic circulation and phase transfer on the dispersion of radionuclides released from the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant
14~ Does the Fukushima NPP disaster affect the caesium activity of North Atlantic Ocean fish?
15~ Spatiotemporal distributions of Fukushima-derived radionuclides in surface sediments in the waters off Miyagi, Fukushima, and Ibaraki Prefectures, Japan
16~ Distribution of the Fukushima-derived radionuclides in seawater in the Pacific off the coast of Miyagi, Fukushima, and Ibaraki Prefectures, Japan
17~ Cesium-134 and 137 activities in the central North Pacific Ocean after the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant accident
18~ Horizontal distribution of Fukushima-derived radiocesium in zooplankton in the northwestern Pacific Ocean
19~ One-year, regional-scale simulation of 137Cs radioactivity in the ocean following the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident
20~ Cesium, iodine and tritium in NW Pacific waters -- a comparison of the Fukushima impact with global fallout

WSJ: Soaring radioactivity levels on coast of Fukushima plant — Nuclear material may have leeched from melted fuel cores and into environment:
http://tinyurl.com/n8vj52o

Wall Street Journal, July 8, 2013: Fukushima Watch: Tritium Levels Soar on Coast at Fukushima Plant [...] More than two years after the devastating accident at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, operator [Tepco] is seeing levels soar of a radioactive element called tritium. The problem spot is on the coastal side of the plant's heavily damaged No. 2 reactor, one of the areas where Tepco regularly monitors groundwater to check for radioactive elements that may have leeched from the plant's partly melted fuel cores and into the environment. [...]
http://tinyurl.com/lrb26kp

Jiji Press, July 8, 2013: Tokyo Electric Power Co. says 2,300 becquerels per liter of tritium was found in seawater sampled off its crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power station Wednesday, the highest level recorded since the March 2011 accident. [...] It is feared that groundwater containing high levels of tritium may be leaking into the sea from the plant's No. 2 reactor building.
http://tinyurl.com/knwwmzt

Officials report "troubling discovery" at Fukushima nuclear plant: Cesium levels rocket 9,000% over 3 days in groundwater — TEPCO "can't explain it"
http://tinyurl.com/lb2uxks

NHK World
http://tinyurl.com/lb2uxks

Asahi Shimbun:
http://tinyurl.com/khzxcuf

AFP: Toxic radioactive substances in groundwater at Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plan have rocketed over the past three days,
http://tinyurl.com/kvp9naqt

Wall Street Journal: Cesium tends to bind with dirt, so it's less likely it would seep distances along with groundwater. [...]
http://tinyurl.com/kh5wqdv

Uncovering Plume-Gate: http://plumegate.wordpress.com/

hatrickpenryunbound: http://hatrickpenryunbound.com/

IMPORTANT:
Plume-Gate PROOF Cover-up of Fukushima via the NRC Documents Playlist (35 videos 26 hours)
http://tinyurl.com/luvc5dx

original upload here: (thank you HatrickPenry) Good Job!
http://youtu.be/P9SilFcYVg4

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Fukushima Fallout：Worse than Hiroshima or Chernobyl?

http://www.ccnr.org/Fukushima_vs_Chernobyl.html

Fukushima Fallout:

Worse than Hiroshima or Chernobyl?

by Gordon Edwards, August 29, 2011

Background:

No one has ever before experienced the extensive radioactive contamination of air, water, soil, and food that now faces the Japanese people after the Fukushima disaster.

It is important to realize that each nuclear reactor contains more than a thousand times as much radioactive material as the radioactive fallout from a Hiroshima-type atomic bomb.

The dropping of the atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 caused enormous destruction, brought about by the blast and by the fireball. It also caused massive radiation exposures, mainly neutron and gamma radiation, most of it delivered at the very instant of the explosion.

But the fallout in the area of the bombed cities was relatively little, because in both cases the bombs were deliberately detonated high in the air so that the concussive shock wave would do the most damage on the ground. Thus no crater was created by the blast, and most of the fallout was carried high into the atmosphere by the heat of the fireball and the burning of the cities. It became global fallout more than local fallout.

At Chernobyl, there was an explosion in the core of one reactor followed by a very hot graphite fire that raged for days, lofting much of the radioactive fallout high into the air, and sending it across vast distances. A lot of it was deposited in Belarus and other European countries; it contaminated the sheep in Northern England and Wales for two decades, and the wild boar in Germany's Black Forest area. Some of it made its way across the ocean to contaminate the lichen in Northern Canada, which resulted in measurable increases of radioactive cesium in the bodies of the Inuit people who fed on the caribou that fed on the lichen.

But at Fukushima, not one but three nuclear reactors melted down -- Units 1, 2, and 3 -- as well as a spent fuel pool in Unit 4 that caught fire and spewed radioactive debris directly into the atmosphere. Because there was no fireball, no burning cities, and no burning graphite, much of the radioactive fallout rained out quickly and stayed closer to the ground and contaminated everything that it came in contact with in large swaths of territory surrounding the plant.

The local contamination at ground level is as extensive and as insidious as anything that has previously been experienced. Radioactive iodine has already done its worst, though the results will not be seen for decades in terms of thyroid cancers and developmental abnormalities caused by thyroid damage to embryos, infants and children. But the radioactive cesium and strontium and plutonium and americium and dozens of other radioactive species will be in the soil and the food and the bodies of Japanese living near the affected areas and even those further away for decades, even centuries to come.

No one truly knows the full long-term effects of chronic exposure of such a huge population to these radioactive poisons, for the degree of local radioactive contamination resulting from Fukushima is indeed unprecedented.

Gordon Edwards.

Why the Fukushima disaster is worse than Chernobyl

Japan has been slow to admit the scale of the meltdown.

But now the truth is coming out.

David McNeill, The Independent, Monday, 29 August 2011
http://tinyurl.com/3fka982

Yoshio Ichida is recalling the worst day of his 53 years: 11 March, when the sea swallowed up his home and killed his friends. The Fukushima fisherman was in the bath when the huge quake hit and barely made it to the open sea in his boat in the 40 minutes before the 15-metre tsunami that followed.

When he got back to port, his neighbourhood and nearly everything else was gone. "Nobody can remember anything like this," he says.

Now living in a refugee centre in the ruined coastal city of Soma, Mr Ichida has mourned the 100 local fishermen killed in the disaster and is trying to rebuild his life with his colleagues. Every morning, they arrive at the ruined fisheries co-operative building in Soma port and prepare for work. Then they stare out at the irradiated sea, and wait. "Some day we know we'll be allowed to fish again. We all want to believe that."

This nation has recovered from worse natural – and manmade – catastrophes. But it is the triple meltdown and its aftermath at the Fukushima nuclear power plant 40 km down the coast from Soma that has elevated Japan into unknown, and unknowable, terrain. Across the northeast, millions of people are living with its consequences and searching for a consensus on a safe radiation level that does not exist. Experts give bewilderingly different assessments of its dangers.

Some scientists say Fukushima is worse than the 1986 Chernobyl accident, with which it shares a maximum level-7 rating on the sliding scale of nuclear disasters. One of the most prominent of them is Dr Helen Caldicott, an Australian physician and long time anti-nuclear activist who warns of "horrors to come" in Fukushima.

Chris Busby, a professor at the University of Ulster known for his alarmist views, generated controversy during a Japan visit last month when he said the disaster would result in more than 1 million deaths. "Fukushima is still boiling its radionuclides all over Japan," he said. "Chernobyl went up in one go. So Fukushima is worse."

On the other side of the nuclear fence are the industry friendly scientists who insist that the crisis is under control and radiation levels are mostly safe. "I believe the government and Tokyo Electric Power [Tepco, the plant's operator] are doing their best," said Naoto Sekimura, vice-dean of the Graduate School of Engineering at the University of Tokyo.

Mr Sekimura initially advised residents near the plant that a radioactive disaster was "unlikely" and that they should stay "calm", an assessment he has since had to reverse.

Slowly, steadily, and often well behind the curve, the government has worsened its prognosis of the disaster. Last Friday, scientists affiliated with the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said the plant had released 15,000 terabecquerels of cancer-causing Cesium, equivalent to about 168 times the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima, the event that ushered in the nuclear age. (Professor Busby says the release is at least 72,000 times worse than Hiroshima).

Caught in a blizzard of often conflicting information, many Japanese instinctively grope for the beacons they know. Mr Ichida and his colleagues say they no longer trust the nuclear industry or the officials who assured them the Fukushima plant was safe. But they have faith in government radiation testing and believe they will soon be allowed back to sea.

That's a mistake, say sceptics, who note a consistent pattern of official lying, foot-dragging and concealment. Last week, officials finally admitted something long argued by its critics: that thousands of people with homes near the crippled nuclear plant may not be able to return for a generation or more. "We can't rule out the possibility that there will be some areas where it will be hard for residents to return to their homes for a long time," said Yukio Edano, the government's top government spokesman. "We are very sorry."

Last Friday, hundreds of former residents from Futaba and Okuma, the towns nearest the plant, were allowed to visit their homes – perhaps for the last time – to pick up belongings. Wearing masks and radiation suits, they drove through the 20 km contaminated zone around the plant, where hundreds of animals have died and rotted in the sun, to find kitchens and living rooms partly reclaimed by nature. "It's hard to believe we ever lived here," one former resident told NHK.

Several other areas northwest of the plant have become atomic ghost towns after being ordered to evacuate – too late, say many residents, who believe they absorbed dangerous quantities of radiation in the weeks after the accident. "We've no idea when we can come back," says Katsuzo Shoji, who farmed rice and cabbages and kept a small herd of cattle near Iitate, a picturesque village about 40 km from the plant.

Although it is outside the exclusion zone, the village's mountainous topography meant radiation, carried by wind and rain, lingered, poisoning crops, water and school playgrounds.

The young, the wealthy, mothers and pregnant women left for Tokyo or elsewhere. Most of the remaining 6000 people have since evacuated, after the government accepted that safe radiation limits had been exceeded.

Mr Shoji, 75, went from shock to rage, then despair when the government told him he would have to destroy his vegetables, kill his six cows and move with his wife Fumi, 73, to an apartment in Koriyama, about 20 km away. "We've heard five, maybe 10 years but some say that's far too optimistic," he says, crying. "Maybe I'll be able to come home to die."

He was given initial compensation of one million yen (£7,900) by Tepco, topped up with 350,000 yen from the government.

It is the fate of people outside the evacuation zones, however, that causes the most bitter controversy. Parents in Fukushima City, 63 km from the plant, have banded together to demand that the government do more to protect about 100,000 children. Schools have banned soccer and other outdoor sports. Windows are kept closed.

"We've just been left to fend for ourselves," says Machiko Sato, a grandmother who lives in the city. "It makes me so angry."

Many parents have already sent their children to live with relatives or friends hundreds of kilometres away. Some want the government to evacuate the entire two million population of Fukushima Prefecture. "They're demanding the right to be able to evacuate," says anti-nuclear activist Aileen Mioko Smith, who works with the parents. "In other words, if they evacuate they want the government to support them."

So far, at least, the authorities say that is not necessary. The official line is that they are safe.

But many experts warn that the crisis is just beginning. Professor Tim Mousseau, a biological scientist who has spent more than a decade researching the genetic impact of radiation around Chernobyl, says he worries that many people in Fukushima are "burying their heads in the sand."

His Chernobyl research concluded that biodiversity and the numbers of insects and spiders had shrunk inside the irradiated zone, and the bird population showed evidence of genetic defects, including smaller brain sizes.

"The truth is that we don't have sufficient data to provide accurate information on the long-term impact," he says. "What we can say, though, is that there are very likely to be very significant long-term health impact from prolonged exposure."

In Soma, Mr. Ichida says all the talk about radiation is confusing. "All we want to do is get back to work. There are many different ways to die, and having nothing to do is one of them."

Economic Cost

Fukushima

Japan has estimated it will cost as much as
£188bn to rebuild following the earthquake,
tsunami and nuclear crisis.

Chernobyl

There are a number of estimates of the
economic impact, but the total cost is
thought to be about £144 bn.

Safety

Fukushima

Workers are allowed to operate in the
crippled plant up to a dose of 250 mSv
(mSv = millisieverts).

Chernobyl

People exposed to 350 mSv were relocated.
In most countries the maximum annual dosage
for a worker is 20 mSv. The allowed dose for
someone living close to a nuclear plant is
1 mSv a year.

Death Toll

Fukushima

Two workers died inside the plant. Some
scientists predict that one million lives will
be lost to cancer.

Chernobyl

It is difficult to say how many people died on the
day of the disaster because of state security, but
Greenpeace estimates that 200,000 have died from
radiation-linked cancers in the 25 years since the
accident.

Exclusion Zone

Fukushima
Tokyo initially ordered a 20 km radius exclusion
zone around the plant.

Chernobyl
The initial radius of the Chernobyl zone was set
at 30 km -- and 25 years later it is still largely in place.

Compensation

Fukushima

Tepco's share price has collapsed since the
disaster largely because of the amount it will
need to pay out, about £10,000 a person.

Chernobyl

Not a lot. It has been reported that Armenian
victims of the disaster were offered about £6
each in 1986.

Foreign Aid

Fukushima

The UN's Office for the Co-ordination of
Humanitarian Affairs reported bilateral aid
worth $95 million.

Chernobyl

12 years after the disaster, the then Ukrainian
president, Leonid Kuchma, complained that
his country was still waiting for international help.