IAEA Correction: Iodine-131 in Iitate-mura Was 20 Million Becquerel/m2 (and Probably It Doesn't Matter a Bit in Japan Anyway)

and not 2 million Becquerel, as they had announced on March 30. Kyodo News Japanese (4/1/2011) reports that IAEA corrected the mistake on March 31. IAEA still says the level is twice as the amount at which IAEA considers evacuation.

But the Kyodo article also says an interesting thing in the last paragraph. IAEA may use the radiation in the soil as one of the criteria to determine the evacuation, but not Japan.

From Kyodo:

On the other hand, Japan's Nuclear Safety Commission explained on March 31 that Japan uses the radiation level in the air, not the soil, to determine whether the evacuation is necessary. The Commission still believed it was appropriate to designate 20-kilometer radius as "evacuation zone" and 20 to 30-kilometer radius as "stay indoors zone", and reiterated that there was no need to alter that.

一方、日本の原子力安全委員会は３１日、国内では土壌でなく空間放射線量を指標にしていると説明。原発から半径２０キロを「避難」、２０～３０キロを「屋内退避」とした設定は妥当で、避難区域の設定の見直しは必要ないとの考えをあらためて示していた。

Japan does things their way. Much like the snow that falls in Japan is different, as foreign ski makers were often told.

And still no one in the national government openly talks about "wind direction". Not even the commissioners in Nuclear Safety Commission, who are researchers and professors at prominent institutions and should know better than politicians and bureaucrats.

What's more curious to me is that there is no reporter in Japan who asks, "What about wind directions?" Or, "Why wouldn't you take the soil radiation into consideration particularly when the villagers make a living in agriculture?"

"Extend and pretend" continues in Japan, approaching "idiocracy".

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