You may have read it here first {"Fukushima"}, but you certainly did not get the information from the Japanese government or its corporate spin-off, TEPCo, until now--half a year after the monster earthquake destroyed four of the six nuclear reactors at the seaside Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. Japan is preparing to officially announce that the evacuated 12 mile zone around the reactors is a "dead zone" or uninhabitable by humans for decades into the future. The area around Chernobyl in Ukraine has been depopulated since the 1986 accident. This means the 80,000 residents evacuated after the March 11th earthquake and tsunami caused four nuclear reactors to begin melting down will have to be permanently resettled. Many of them are still living in temporary shelters. High levels of radiation were measured throughout the zone by the government. The levels were higher than previously admitted, up to 50rems/year in Okuma, two miles away. High radiation was also measured beyond the evacuation zone in Namie, reported to be 23rems/year, far too high to allow human habitation. The Japanese government considers 2rems/year to be safe. Just how large the dead zone will be is an issue government scientists and technicians must decide in the days before the official announcement. There has been a first report of Cesium contamination in rice, Japan's staple food. The rice harvest is just beginning, and finding any contamination will add to the anxieties the ever-patient Japanese public must endure in the aftermath of history's worse nuclear accident.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Fukushima Dead Zone
You may have read it here first {"Fukushima"}, but you certainly did not get the information from the Japanese government or its corporate spin-off, TEPCo, until now--half a year after the monster earthquake destroyed four of the six nuclear reactors at the seaside Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. Japan is preparing to officially announce that the evacuated 12 mile zone around the reactors is a "dead zone" or uninhabitable by humans for decades into the future. The area around Chernobyl in Ukraine has been depopulated since the 1986 accident. This means the 80,000 residents evacuated after the March 11th earthquake and tsunami caused four nuclear reactors to begin melting down will have to be permanently resettled. Many of them are still living in temporary shelters. High levels of radiation were measured throughout the zone by the government. The levels were higher than previously admitted, up to 50rems/year in Okuma, two miles away. High radiation was also measured beyond the evacuation zone in Namie, reported to be 23rems/year, far too high to allow human habitation. The Japanese government considers 2rems/year to be safe. Just how large the dead zone will be is an issue government scientists and technicians must decide in the days before the official announcement. There has been a first report of Cesium contamination in rice, Japan's staple food. The rice harvest is just beginning, and finding any contamination will add to the anxieties the ever-patient Japanese public must endure in the aftermath of history's worse nuclear accident.