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Japan nuclear crisis: Pressure to widen evacuation zone(Japan balks at UN demand)
BBC ^ | 03/31/11

Posted on 03/31/2011 4:23:15 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster

Japan nuclear crisis: Pressure to widen evacuation zone

UN nuclear monitors have advised Japan to consider expanding the evacuation zone around the stricken reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.

An exclusion zone with a radius of 20km (12 miles) is currently in place but the UN says safe radiation limits have been exceeded 40km away.

/snip

'No immediate action'

The UN's nuclear watchdog (International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA) found safe radiation limits had been exceeded at the village of Iitate, 40km north-west of the nuclear plant.

"The highest values were found in a relatively small area in the north-west from the Fukushima power plant and the first assessment indicates that one of the IAEA operational criteria for evacuation is exceeded in Iitate village," senior IAEA official Denis Flory said.

Japan's top government spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, said on Thursday that the IAEA had advised the government to "carefully assess the situation on the basis of this report".

"I don't think that this is something of a nature which immediately requires such action," he told reporters.

(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Japan; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: evacuationzone; fukushima; iaea; radiation
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To: driftdiver

You and I agree, then, that the problem has not been solved.


21 posted on 03/31/2011 9:20:56 AM PDT by swain_forkbeard (Rationality may not be sufficient, but it is necessary.)
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To: TigerLikesRooster

Haven’t logged on for years. The quality of freeper discourse became annoying.

I have been following the Fukushima Daiichi events. Have some background in the field.

The Japanese Government and TEPCO have been acting like hens in a henhouse do after a weasel has gotten in. Panic, denial, foolish, useless actions, etc. They recently admitted that they don’t have a dose rate meter that can read over one Sievert per hour. Imagine. I can’t believe it.

Can you imagine letting people walk into water emitting at “4 to 6” Sieverts per hour (which they can’t measure)? They have violated the very first rule, survey dose rate, survey it often, mark the area clearly, and log.

“Incompetent” isn’t the correct word for this. “Criminal” is.

Large areas in Japan appear to be contaminated by health hazard levels of Cesium 137. The Government is pushing this under the rug. Probably they are more incompetent than malign, but still, guys, for once in your lives decide to act like grownups.

A hint: Find out what is going on. Act on the data. Be conservative where health is concerned.

Me, I would dose all children in the country with potassium iodide. In areas where radioiodine is detected dose everyone. Do it now. It is probably too late for many, many Japanese. I advise Korea to do likewise.

In most cases one dose will be sufficient. Look at the Polish program after Chernobyl, worked great.

What a mess.


22 posted on 03/31/2011 9:36:31 AM PDT by Iris7 ("Do not live lies!" ...Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)
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To: TigerLikesRooster

I think they would have evacuated if there was anywhere they could evacuate them to easily. It’s kind of hard when you have hundreds of thousands already displaced because of the earthquake and tsunami damage, to ask people to leave perfectly good homes because of radiation levels slighty above the conservative “safe” levels for permanent exposure.


23 posted on 03/31/2011 10:41:57 AM PDT by CharlesWayneCT
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To: driftdiver

eat yer sushi raw alert


24 posted on 03/31/2011 4:28:45 PM PDT by SteveH (First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.)
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To: Iris7
Large areas in Japan appear to be contaminated by health hazard levels of Cesium 137. The Government is pushing this under the rug. Probably they are more incompetent than malign, but still, guys, for once in your lives decide to act like grownups.

Bad it is, yes. But low the warning levels had initially been set...

This often tends to counterbalance and counteract, in practice, the government sweeping their excrement under the carpet.

Get your geiger counters from Akihabara (etc). Or ebay. whatever works, works, use.

Me, I would dose all children in the country with potassium iodide. In areas where radioiodine is detected dose everyone. Do it now. It is probably too late for many, many Japanese. I advise Korea to do likewise.

Please watch out for iodine allergies, can cause permanent damage to liver and/or heart problems, etc. So take only under strict medical guidelines and even then don't trust what the pros tell you (goes for all drugs). Actually IMHO Japan has done a pretty fair job of not overreacting and causing unnecessary panic. Operating principle: excess panic endangers lives.

In most cases one dose will be sufficient. Look at the Polish program after Chernobyl, worked great.

Caveat: unless one considers what Poland might have swept under the carpet...(?)

25 posted on 03/31/2011 4:44:45 PM PDT by SteveH (First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.)
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To: swain_forkbeard

The storage problem has been solved and is waiting to be used. The political problem has not been solved.

There really is no solution that will work if yer not gonna use it.


26 posted on 03/31/2011 4:48:00 PM PDT by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
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To: Iris7
Can you imagine letting people walk into water emitting at “4 to 6” Sieverts per hour (which they can’t measure)? They have violated the very first rule, survey dose rate, survey it often, mark the area clearly, and log.

If that is an accurate report -- that's a big IF too -- it would proper to accuse them of a criminally callous disregard for human life.

27 posted on 03/31/2011 4:52:27 PM PDT by bvw
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