U.S.-Japan joint survey reveals high radiation beyond evacuation zone

2011/05/08

http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201105070143.html

The first map of ground surface contamination within 80 kilometers of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant shows radiation levels higher in some municipalities than those in the mandatory relocation zone around the Chernobyl plant.
The map, released May 6, was compiled from data from a joint aircraft survey undertaken by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology and the U.S. Department of Energy.

It showed that a belt of contamination, with 3 million to 14.7 million becquerels of cesium-137 per square meter, spread to the northwest of the nuclear plant.

After the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, those living in areas with more than 555,000 becquerels of cesium-137 per square meter were forced to relocate. However, the latest map shows that accumulated radioactivity exceeded this level at some locations outside the official evacuation zones, including the village of Iitate and the town of Namie.

"I am surprised by the extent of the contamination and the vast area it covers," said Tetsuji Imanaka, assistant professor of nuclear engineering at the Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute. "This (map) will be useful in planning evacuation zones as well as the decontamination of roads and public facilities." more at link

NOT. K&R

Canada and U.S. cut back radiation reporting, CBC News, May 9, 2011:

Canadian and U.S. authorities have both cut back radiation reporting after detecting only minuscule increases following the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear crisis, despite ongoing clean-up efforts in Japan. <...>

But some critics felt the move was premature given that the world’s second-worst nuclear accident is still unfolding.

“Throughout this and other radiation accidents it has always turned out that more radiation was involved than we initially thought,” said Ira Helfand, a co-founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility and a physician who practices internal medicine in Springfield, Mass.

“The U.S. should continue to monitor milk and rainwater until we can be sure that the plant is under control and there are no further emissions.”

What do you want to bet that they are still doing the testing, they have just cut back on reporting it because the recent results aren't that reasuring?

The kamikaze pilots.
Not unlike strapping a belt of explosives around ones mid section, am I not right?

http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/05/tepco-opened-double-door-to-reactor-1.html

Monday, May 9, 2011
#TEPCO Opened the Double Door to Reactor 1, 500 Million Becquerels of Radioactive Materials Released (Estimate)

And that's nothing, says Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency. It not only has close to zero effect on the environment (I suppose NISA is talking only about the environment around the plant, which is already very, very bad) but the amount is nothing, the agency says (if I paraphrase..): "Compared to the much bigger release when we let TEPCO dump the "low-contamination" water into the Pacific, it's nothing! This time the amount of radioactive materials (we're talking only iodine and cesium, mind you, don't ask us about strontium and plutonium) was only 1/300th of that dump."

------------- snip of a lot of other piles of radioactivity being released news..


Meanwhile, Asahi Shinbun says the radiation level even after the air-filtering system had supposedly reduced it to a safer level still measured several 10s of millisieverts/hr up to 700 millisieverts/hr, and the workers were exposed to as much as 10.56 millisieverts radiation for the work that lasted 29 minutes from 4:18AM JST on May 9.

Seven TEPCO employees and two from NISA entered the reactor building to measure the radiation levels at various spots inside the building.

That doesn't sound low to me. But Asahi reports that TEPCO is going to remove the air-filtering system they just installed, and continue to have human workers work inside the reactor building to install the water cooling system

unfuckingbelievable

Even though he missed much of the previous week's practice because of a painful knee cyst, actor Ralph Macchio performed two separate routines May 9, 2011, on ABC's "Dancing With the Stars." Judges praised his dedication

much, but still 40x more than Fukushima!