Radioactive caesium and iodine have been discovered in the urine of residents in Iitate and Kawamata, two locations hit hardest in mid-March by fallout from the damaged nuclear plant at Fukushima, cited 35 and 40 kilometres away, respectively.
They are the first results from a planned 30-year project to monitor the ill health of the 2 million residents of Fukushima prefecture who have been affected by the still ongoing Fukushima Nuclear Reactors meltdown disaster.
According to samples taken from the same people at the beginning of the disaster and at the end of May — showed that their cumulative individual exposure is far beyond the maximum annual “safe” dose of 20 millisieverts.
In a dry humour sense of the disaster the lead scientist said: “It will be difficult for people to continue living in these areas.” Nanao Kamada of Hiroshima University, and head of the investigation team, said of the ongoing threat to human life and health.
Kamada found iodine-131 at doses up to 3.2 millisieverts in six people in the first round of tests. Half of any given amount of radioactive iodine decays away every 8 days, so it’s possible most of it can disappear but the preparatory stage for cancer has been set.
Iodine is the main immediate hazard in nuclear fallout, because it accumulates in the thyroid gland, leading to thyroid cancers.
“If they found it in the urine, almost all of it will have been through the thyroid,” says Richard Wakeford of the Dalton Institute in Manchester, UK, and an authority on the hazards posed by radioactive material. Almost all cases of thyroid cancer following the Russian nuclear accident at Chernobyl in 1986 were a result of children drinking heavily contaminated milk, he says.
Kamada also found contamination from radioactive caesium in all the Fukushima samples from residents. This brought the doses experienced over about two months to between 4.9 and 14.2 millisieverts in concentrated doses.
“Although most of the figures in the human samples did not exceed the maximum allowed of 20 millisieverts a year, because of the very concentrated internal doses, we want residents to use these results to decide to move away” Kamada said.
Isotopes caesium-134 and caesium-137 persist longer in the environment, with half-lives of 2 and 30 years respectively. So while the threat of cancer is less than that for iodine, caesium in the soil can potentially contaminate vegetables and other foodstuffs for many years, says Kamada in Japan Times newspaper.
Wakeford said that the amounts found were hardly surprising given the heavy contamination of areas northwest of Fukushima. In an effort at pacification, he also said, that although the radiation was considerably higher than typical annual natural doses of around 1 millisievert, the levels shouldn’t pose too much of a hazard provided the amounts begin to fall in the coming months.
“These sort of levels pose a pretty small additional risk,” he says.
But he expressed surprise that iodine was found, as it should have decayed by a factor of 50 by early May. The most important thing, said Wakeford, was for the authorities to continue cleaning up the contamination in priority areas, removing topsoil from school playgrounds, for example, so children are not exposed. The figures also justify the Japanese government’searly decisions to ban sales of vegetables, milk and other food produce from Iitate and elsewhere in Fukushima prefecture.
In the next two weeks, another 110 people from Iitate, Kawamata and nearby Namie will be tested for contamination. In all, 28,000 residents of the three towns will receive initial check-ups, reports the NHK news channel. Eventually, 2900 people will be examined by a whole-body counter to measure their internal exposure in more detail. Meanwhile the radioactive urine in the Tokyo sewers has been measured in the whole sewer network of the metropolis. And this although, Tokyo is more than 180 miles away from Fukushima’s melt down reactors causing the fallout cloud.
Finally, the Fukushima prefectural government approved a plan on Friday to issue personal radiation dosimeters to 280,000 children and 20,000 pregnant women in Fukushima. Ten dosimeters will also be installed in each of the 500 elementary schools in the prefecture, reports the Asahi Shimbun newspaper.
At Fukushima High School in the City of Fukushima, students have begun their own independent investigation into levels of fallout, reports today’s Mainichi Shimbun. They measured radiation at 700 locations in their school in May, and created a radiation map, finding the highest contamination in water flooding ditches.
At present, they’re monitoring contamination in the student’s urine…
A Japanese scientist friend of mine attempts a comedic reply, and jokes that they should bottle their urine and sell it for use as a night light or glow in the dark paint for your Halloween costumes…
Japanese dry humour is worse that the British variety — truly.
But these tough times require levity — for all else appears just too bleak and dark — and people here are really depressed.
Depressed and irradiated.
Clearly people are really Pissed-Off with the nuclear industry, with the fumbling Prime Minister Naoto Kan and with his Tokyo Electric Power Company friends.
They want all of the gone by yesterday…
And Japanese people really docile and polite have strict limits of ow much they are willing to take. And they are simmering to a boil right now and then God help them all — especially the daft bastards in government and industry.
In a sign of resistance, some old Samurai family scions are publicly sharpening their Katana sword blades in Fukushima.
Yours,
Pano
PS:
Americans, meanwhile, can expect radioactive caesium from Fukushima to start washing up in their urine too… especially in the West Coast.
And paradoxically so can the Chinese residents of the NE coast of China.
Strange the ways the currents and the winds work in making two competing powers, instant allies in the Fukushima fallout disaster.
And the silver lining here is that this disaster might motivate them to help & force Japan to shut down the reactors and bury them fast in a mountain of cement, boric acid, silica and lead…
And the learnings from this international cooperation will be great for both super powers.
Yet most importantly it might help them to learn te cardinal lesson.
Life before nukes.
And if they learn this, then they can embark in a giant renewable energy program and also place a moratorium on the development of any new nuclear plants in their own countries, thereby protecting their own citizens fully.
Same like Germany and Japan have learned how to do and decided to rid themselves of nuclear energy for their future. But do we have to learn this lesson the hard way in the Anglo Saxon world? Why does the US and the UK persist against all freshly received wisdom to built new nuclear reactors?
And isn’t some measure of justice or divine retribution that the infamous Los Alamos nuclear laboratory is burning in a wild fire?
All the signs point to a nuclear free future. Let’s heed the message…
No reason to wait for a major nuclear accident in the US or in the mainland China to process this knowledge…
Because you don’t need to expect a tsunami or an earthquake, to screw up your reactors… and cause a melt down. Nature can do it many different ways…
Times are changing and the rivers are flooding…
Just look at the nuclear reactors flooding along the Missouri and Mississippi rivers upstream from Omaha. The news are not good with record flooding in the US river systems. As it turns out the nuclear plants are cited near the waterways in order to use the water resources to cool down the reactors… Now this seeming advantage has turned into a major design flaw as rising waters have engulfed the nuclear plants causing potential catastrophic scenarios. Two nuclear plants in Nebraska are at their worst. Both the nuclear plant at Fort Calhoon 20 km from Omaha and the Cooper nuclear plant near Brownville are under shutdown conditions due to the rising waters of the Missouri and both have flooded their spent fuel ponds to keep the fissionable material cool. With the river floods expected to last throughout the summer, the situation can become critical fast…
And China’s Wuhu nuclear plant flooded on the overflowing Yangtze River in the Bamaoshan area is not a hopeful sign either. Neither the other nuclear plants along the Yangtze river where heavy rains have brought the worst flooding in more than 50 years to eastern provinces along China’s Yangtze River. Floodwaters here have claimed at least 175 lives and displaced more than a million people. The area has suffered an estimated $5.4 billion in direct losses as rising waters destroyed crops and businesses and caused the collapse of many thousands of homes.
