Hot Concern: Japan Risks
Another Crisis Over Decontamination
Fukushima Power Plant
EMF Protection Devices
Magnetic Field Detector
Aug 13th 2011
SINCE April, Kiki Tanaka and hundreds of other ordinary
citizens have been uploading radiation measurements to
Safecast.org, a non-profit group. On a fine summer day she
drives to Nihonmatsu, 56km (35 miles) from the ruined
nuclear plant at Fukushima, and notes her Geiger counter
ticking higher: another step in the DIY defence against
radioactivity.
This grass-roots monitoring reflects a loss of trust in the
authorities. Until June the government in Tokyo took
radiation measurements at just one site, as if that were
enough to survey the city’s 2,200 square kilometres and 13m
people. In fact levels are known to vary widely within even
small areas, depending on weather patterns and building
materials.
http://www.economist.com/node/21525966
Safecast’s 20 fixed sensors and 15 mobile units, which
identify “hot spots” by going from schoolyard to sandpit,
seek to fill a gap in the official information. With half a
million data points so far, they have tended to corroborate
the government’s work, but have also revealed some places
where radiation was worse than expected. “It was not until
local people raised their voices that the municipal
governments took it seriously,” explains Ryugo Hayano, a
nuclear physicist at the University of Tokyo.
Hot spots have become a chief worry. Radiation in some parts
of Fukushima city can be measured in the millisieverts per
hour—a dangerous level, says an official dealing with
nuclear policy. Children and pregnant women should leave,
and possibly others. But the authorities are reluctant to
announce bad news.
Any delay in the clean-up poses problems, as radioactive
particles may seep into groundwater and contaminate crops.
In a few places where the work has begun, such as
Minami-Soma, people are given no guidance on handling hot
material. Contaminated water drains into sewers and tainted
soil sits piled under tarpaulins. Detection has been spotty.
Cattle were tested, but their feed and meat were not. Even
when human health is not at risk, mismanaging the clean-up
does social and economic damage.
More than 10,000 people remain in shelters, five months
after the tsunami that triggered the nuclear crisis. While
the government dithers, Ms Tanaka and the amateur Geiger
geeks at Safecast.org go where its radiation monitors do
not.
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