Japan Triples Airborne Radiation Checks as ‘Hot Spots’ Spread
August 24th, 2011Ok, so a diabolical regime with no credibility at all is going to step up monitoring efforts. That’s nice.
Via: Bloomberg:
Japan will more than triple the number of regions it checks for airborne radiation as more contaminated “hot spots” are discovered far from Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s crippled Fukushima nuclear power station.
The government said it will increase radiation monitoring by helicopter to 22 prefectures from the six closest to the plant, which began spewing radiation after an earthquake and tsunami struck the station in March. The plan comes after radioactive waste more than double the regulatory limit was found 200 kilometers (125 miles) from the plant this week.
Authorities have refused to give a cumulative figure for radiation released from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant after estimating in June that fallout in the six days following the quake was equal to 15 percent of total radiation released in the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986. The authorities have been too slow to widen airborne radiation testing, said Tetsuo Ito, the head of Kinki University’s Atomic Energy Research Institute in Osaka.
“The government should have expanded the monitoring area by helicopters much earlier to ease concerns among the public,” Ito said in a telephone interview yesterday.
Officials on Aug. 12 found compost in a kindergarten yard in Tokamachi city, Niigata prefecture containing radioactive cesium measuring 27,000 becquerels per kilogram, Kenichiro Kasuga, an official at the city’s disaster prevention department, said by phone.
Under Japanese law, waste measuring over 8,000 becquerels per kilogram must be treated as radioactive waste and can’t be buried in a landfill.
City officials found sludge measuring 18,900 becquerels per kilogram from radioactive cesium on the same day as part of tests done at 60 educational and childcare facilities, Kasuga said. The city government is storing the waste in drums until the government sets final guidelines for its disposal, he said.
“We still don’t know why this level of cesium was found in the compost,” Kasuga said.
The hotspots in Niigata were likely caused by wind blowing northwest towards the prefecture in the days following the Fukushima accident, Kinki University’s Ito said.
According to Arnie Gundersen, the Japenese are allowed to mix radioactive dirt with non radioactive one as a way to avoid treating it as radioactive waste.
So what are they doing with this newly diluted radioactive waste you ask? Well it seems that they burn it! wich make the radiation airborn again!
They (governement) really can’t face reality there. I went in Japan in late May and took my own radiation readings outside the no-go zone (as nobody is allowed to take independent measurement inside it). I’ve met some brave people whose food they gave us tripped our geiger counter and the dirt they used to grow their food was highly contaminated. They wanted to leave but they were outside the 30 km exclusion zone so the governement refused to evacuate them (wich mean they won’t receive financial compensation, but they are too poor to leave by themself so they stay there). One have to wonder why the evac zone must be perfectly symetric around a circle, but hey! the Japenese governement know better than the people..
But meanwhile, the governement is wondering “We still don’t know why this level of cesium was found in the compost,”
@rotger: yes, just what i was going to say (the “burning” issue).
i live in tokyo.
over 17 years in japan.
this is the end of japan as a viable nation state, i am beginning to conclude. i will likely end up moving much further west at least, and then i have to try and persuade various loved ones to do likewise. my anger and sadness are getting more intense, not less. but the country carries on in its dazed stupor. in 20 years time, there is a high probability that this country won’t exist.
for what? those greed fcukers and their nuclear profit-fleecing scam.