Thursday, September 29, 2011

#Radiation Map by Ministry of Education: Chiba and Saitama, and Closing in on Tokyo...

Light-blue areas of elevated air radiation in western part of Saitama Prefecture and western part of Chiba Prefecture look set to come in to Tokyo.

From the Ministry of Education's aerial radiation monitoring (using helicopters) maps released on September 29:

Air radiation (microsievert/hour, 1 meter off the ground):


Cesium-134 and -137 deposition (becquerels/square meter):


And again, for reference, Professor Hayakawa's map (version 4), which by the way does not show much contamination in the western part of Saitama:


13 comments:

kintaman said...

The uncertainty and secrecy about this spreading disaster is what is most terrifying. People are in denial about what his happening and this is exactly what the government and TEPCO (including the nuclear industry) want. If a panic spreads in Tokyo it will become the end for Japan's economy. The government is well aware of this but there is nothing anyone can do to prevent the spread of contamination now. TEPCO was too proud to accept help at the critical early stages and instead opted to lie and deny. There must be full accountability for this but alas nothing can repay the crimes that have been committed against Japan, the people of Japan and the world.

Anonymous said...

If these maps are correct, then why green tea in Shizuoka pref. was found to be radioactive?

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

@Alex75, it's because Shizuoka hasn't been measured yet by the Ministry.

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Anonymous said...

@arevamirpal::laprimavera

So by extending this argumentation, also Uji tea can be radioactive to some extent, right?

Anonymous said...

P.S.: I've removed two posts because of typos.

Anonymous said...

People are not in denial about what is happening. Thanks to the very many resources available, people know what the situation is regarding contamination. What they do not know, or agree on, is the likelihood of negative health effects of, say, 30k becquerels of cesium per square meter. Some would have people believe that this is a death sentence, while others believe it is nothing to worry about.

tony said...

These maps are meaning less as the minimum level is 10,000 Bq/m2 (for Ce134, Ce137) ! I would like to see the nuances between 0 and 10,000 Bq/m2.

Yosaku said...

I just wanted to say thank you to EX-SKF for his outstanding work on this incredible resource. I just happened upon it today and am already finding it invaluable. Keep up the good work!

Yosaku said...

@Alex75

I'm sure the tea from Uji is radioactive to some extent. Virtually everything in the universe is radioactive to some extent, including you and me (and not just because I live in Tokyo ;-). I think the better question, as with all environmental pollutants, is to what extent is it radioactive? I'm sure the tea from Uji also contains cyanide, heavy metals, and a lot of other nasty stuff that in the wrong proportions could kill you.

Anonymous said...

The contaminated tea in shizuoka was the result of fallout falling directly on the plants that were growing at the moment. Even some hundreds Bq/m2 of Cesium would have been enough for the dry leaves (which apparently concentrate 5 times more contamination per kilo compared to fresh leaves) to go over the 500 Bq/kg limit.
Anything under 10,000 Bq/m2 is mashed together in this map, so either they fly the helicopters again to take more accurate readings or they won't detect anything in most of Shizuoka.

To compare with Europe Cesium-137 contamination some years after Chernobyl: http://www.progettohumus.it/include/chernobyl/mappe/europa/PLATE01.PDF

Anonymous said...

I just realized that the map of Europe I linked mashes everything between 185,000-1,480,000 Bq/m2 together. Kind of useless for a comparison. There are more maps here for each country which have more detail: http://www.progettohumus.it/chernobyl.php?name=mappe2

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