5/8 Release of Contamaination of Radionuclides in the Sky within 80km radius

This post is pretty outdated as well--the link below show the map of 80km from FNPP and its contamination levels up high in the air. MEXT and the U.S. forces fled the inner 80km radius and gathered data on contamination.


The guy below (who posted the link) dramatically calls the map, "Map of Hell" but don't let him freak you out. He should have reconsidered re-naming, it's too insensitive. He should be compassionate and caring, especially during these hard times. As of May 31st, 18% of entire people living in Iitate refused to evacuate the area for not being able to find a place to live outside their region. People still live there. Even those who left have part of themselves there.
Good or bad, it's one accumulated data. Good or bad, it's something that affected people has to face.


Well, here it is.




Hirotsugu Nakanishi

The map of hell.
Mext and the U.S published latest level report.
http://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/saigaijohou/syousai/__icsFiles/afieldfile/2011/05/06/1304694_0506.pdf

Geoffrey Can’t find an english version, only Japanese, is there one in english?

Jill And can't see it on the browser I'm using.

James I can see it... but why is it the "map of hell"?

Hirotsugu it's in Japanese. Sorry
If you can't see it on your browser Then try to in MEXT web site. and maybe there's subscription in English.
why it's hell? cos there are too spoiled purification badly in radiation for human tough to livelihood. made a place no one wants to go. I beg to people to get out of there soon...

Jill Well, so has the government.

Tokyo Radiation Levels Hirostugu: Thank you for this map. There are danger areas and some places will not be able to be safely inhabited for quite a while. The dangerous places 30km from the plant and Iitate have been evacuated. The other areas do have a high background radiation level but not immediately dangerous or cumulative. It is risky for children in some places my opinion but not deadly. However, there are hotspots in these towns, and parks seem to be quite high as my Koriyama trip suggests. Certainly more attention and information needs to be given to the people living there, and the government and science bodies finally seem to be getting their act together and have started putting out un-glossed over information (like what you just posted).

But people live there still and you need to sensitive to this. So please don't post these kind of "map of hell" and fear mongering stuff from the safety of Tokyo or where you live (unless you live in the affected areas) because it doesn't help anyone. I get the feeling you don't quite understand the map, since an area marked on it doesn't mean it's spoiled land. It's showing concentrations of particular contaminants.

Jill Hell is just too dramatic. Say it like it is "A map of radiation concentration. Red is really, really bad."

Tokyo Radiation Levels The first map is dose. Red and orange will put you over the yearly limit in 3 months. Yellow is OK for a short while too. Green is livable but you'll get a higher yearly dose than normal (but under 20 mSv year).

Second, third and fourth map is concentration of contaminants on the ground. Green is OK for living but wouldn't eat food unless grew in the blue areas.

Interesting to note from the first map that a few kilometers north of the fukuhsima daiichi plant and also less than 20 km south (both inside the exclusion zone) it's marked as blue and it would be safe to live in those areas. However 50km to the north west (outside the exclusion zone) it's unsafe.

Thanks Romain, some good points actually. Judging by what happened in Chernobyl about 20-50% of the yearly dose of people in affected USSR states could be attributed to internal radiation. However the water and food were not regulated so people were ingesting heavily contaminated water and food. I think this is less an issue here so internal dose will mostly be incidental do what you breath in or drank in the last 2 months (if drinking Fukushima tap water).

You're right that some people may be able to go over 20 mSv/year in the green in certain circumstances, but it would seem that even though there is a high dose outside, the sheer amount of time people spend in cement areas, parks or forests is likely negligible compared to time spent inside and in places with lower amounts of contaminants. Still it seems that the effects of a dose below 200 mSv/year and 100 mSv the next year are not really understood because cancer doesn't particularly stand out in those groups according to a few papers I read (also in the first link below). However dose doesn't equal exposure to particular contaminants so I'm not talking about ingesting say I-131, and certainly there will be plenty of Cs-137 around for a while now. But people being educated properly about the risks by the government and being careful not to eat food they grow in contaminated areas is an important factor in prevention of long term risk factors. Looking at google maps, it seems that not a lot of populated places fortunately lie in the green. The big population centers are in the light and dark blue and Iitate is evacuated (though there seems to be one town in the green but I can't read it's name).

Sorry I'm rambling but thanks for making me think about it more. I haven't been called a Pollyanna before, but I really liked the book when I was a kid.

Some interesting sources if you want to read more.

About internal dose and exposure the Europeans (1997): http://epirev.oxfordjournals.org/content/19/2/187.full.pdf

WHO report on chernobyl from 1986:
http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Magazines/Bulletin/Bull283/28302792729.pdf

Paper critical of IAEA (2006):
http://epirev.oxfordjournals.org/content/19/2/187.full.pdf

Decidedly anti nuclear:
Fallout and genetic effects:
http://www.ratical.org/radiation/Chernobyl/RIGEinEuroandCNPPc.pdf

Health effects of Chernobyl slide:
http://www.chernobylcongress.org/fileadmin/user_upload/pdfs/fairlie.pdf

I just want to add that this is completely my opinion. I've read up on this quite a bit and I've come to this conclusion on my own. I don't want to mislead anyone into making a decision based solely on what I think. I'm also not saying this because I doubt myself either, but I just want to not pass myself off as THE definitive expert on this.

Romain Fair enough :-). I am no expert either. But it is by always listening and criticize each other in a positive manner that we can reconsider our position and understand things better, as long as it is driven by logic. Btw, I have read that radiation in building is 40% of the amount you would get outside. I am really wondering how they get those values considering the half-distance for gamma rays in material. Honestly, a 80% seems a lot more logical to me for typical Japanese houses. (some wood, very light metal plate, etc...) compared to a concrete based building (even in thise case, it really depends on the position of your apartment inside the building)