Saturday, January 14, 2012

#Radioactive Apartment in Nihonmatsu City, Fukushima, Measuring 1.2 Microsievert/Hr Inside

It looks the glass badge worn by a student who lives in the apartment helped identify the "hot" concrete.

A kind of perverse way to find out about radiation contamination...

From Fukushima TV News (1/15/2012):

二本松市のマンションのコンクリートから比較的高い放射線が確認され環境省ではコンクリートに放射性物質が混入したまま工事が行われたと見て調べています。

Relatively high levels of radiation have been detected from the concrete in an apartment building in Nihonmatsu City [in Fukushima Prefecture]. The Ministry of the Environment suspects that radioactive materials were in the concrete, and is investigating.

問題が発覚したのは二本松市で去年9月に建設されたマンションです。環境省などによりますと先月27日、マンションに住む生徒が身につけていた積算線量計が3ヶ月で1・5ミリシーベルトと高い値を示したことから二本松市が周辺の調査を行いました。

The apartment was built in September last year in Nihonmatsu City. According to the Ministry of the Environment, the glass badge worn by a student who lives in the apartment registered 3-month cumulative radiation exposure of 1.5 millisievert on December 27, prompting the city to survey the surrounding area.

その結果マンションの基礎部分のコンクリートから毎時1・4マイクロシーベルト前後、室内からも1・2マイクロシーベルト前後が確認されたと言うことです。環境省ではコンクリート内に放射性物質が混入したまま工事が行われたと見て施工業者から事情を聞くなど確認を進めています。

The survey found 1.4 microsievert/hour from the concrete foundation of the apartment, and 1.2 microsievert/hour inside the apartment. The Ministry of the Environment thinks the apartment was built using concrete with radioactive materials, and is asking the building contractor for details.

I wonder if it is just concrete.

If you recall, 446,000 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium was detected from the sewage sludge in Fukushima City on May 8, 2011. The sludge had been sold to cement companies until the detection at Koriyama City on April 30, when 26,400 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium was detected from their sewage sludge. In the case of Koriyama City, over 900 tonnes of this radioactive sludge had been sold to one cement company (Sumitomo Osaka Cement) alone.

If the surface radiation level of the concrete is 1.4 microsievert/hour, I believe the concrete has at least 100,000 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium in it, if the radiation measurements of sludge and rooftop sediment are any indication.

(UPDATE: I tweeted this news and the information about the radioactive sludge from last year as above in Japanese, and judging by the number of retweets, many Japanese weren't even aware of the highly radioactive sewage sludge was being sold until April 30. Retweets exceeded 100 in probably less than 15 minutes. The news was in the major newspapers then, but I remember people were still sleepwalking, in a way, back then.)

18 comments:

Apolline said...

Hi Ultraman,
Please, read this article :
http://peacephilosophy.blogspot.com/2012/01/edr-michel-fernex-warns-health.html

Doyu Shonin said...

For what it's worth:

I live near Eugene, Oregon. All week I have been getting readings on the SOEKS of .12 - .16 mcSv, inside and out. Over the last six months I've seen nothing higher than .28, averaged.

Today it began raining. Inside, for a baseline, I found the usual .12 mcSv 10 min. avg at 1 meter from the floor. Outside, bagged, I placed the gadget in the gutter:

.97, .88, 1.13, 1.28, .77, 1.40 (red zone), 1.17, 1.21 averaging 1.1+ I did not have the heart to remain out there longer.

Here is a badly focused attempt to show you the 1.40. Notice the red screen.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-FJdgXZnrdn4/TxIgskr_ePI/AAAAAAAAEvQ/OX9le3Dexms/s640/DSCN0309.JPG

With shaking hands, I adjusted the camera and got this:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-7E9au3rt2q0/TxIgwfYxidI/AAAAAAAAEvU/G1ALeq2qVkA/s640/DSCN0310.JPG

Back inside, I got .12 again. I cannot imagine what it would be like to live in an apartment with full-time readings comparable to these.

thank you for your efforts.

Chibaguy said...

This once again proves that the government has done nothing to address anything. They let farmers farm, let all of Japan just walk around while radiocnuclides were (are) falling on us, report results after the fact. After you posted Hayakawa-san's fallout map I immediately was in awe. Why in the hell are they constructing so many buildings during a fallout? All of the evac centers in Koriyama were built during this period. I wonder if anyone has bothered to measure inside? I am sad for Japan.

If anyone knows how to walk away from a mortgage in Japan please contact me at swifthankuk@yahoo.com

Thank you for the reporting @arevamirpal::laprimavera

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

@risa, that's inside the gutter with dead leaves? When was the last time you cleaned out the gutter?

Chibaguy said...

@risa, you are desribing an environment just like the Kanto area. Let's continue to get out the truth! I measured around my house and came up with readings in the yard about 0.3 to 0.5 uSv/hr while inside the house was about 0.09 to 0.15 uSv/hr. When I went to the drains at ground level the ranges where between 0.58 and 4.30. I can understand why you did not want to measure more. The drains where installed in December of 2010.

Thank you for your reporting.

William Milberry said...

I just saw this story on the news (here in Japan.) They said similar information to what was above (I didn't catch all of it.) I was pleasantly surprised to see such news on TV. Maybe the Japanese are starting to wake up and be informed ...

Then the next story ... it was about a strawberry business in Fukushima that was washed away in the tsunami, it's back now. They showed lots of children eating Fukushima strawberries. They then showed a document "proving" they were safe. It showed that cesium was "not detected" with a detection threshold of 7.9 bq/kg.

"Not detected" doesn't mean "not present", they could have easily had 7.8 bq/kg.

The hint of faith I got from seeing the first story was washed away by now much they kept showing children eating the Fukushima strawberries. Reminds of a picture of Edano eating a strawberry (maybe it was a tomato) from earlier last year.

Sigh ...

-Will

Anonymous said...

Would this be one of the badges distributed to the children, which provides no information to the individual wearing it, but is submitted to the Ministry on their timetable for statistical analysis?
Evacuate the children yet?
No
Talk with the building contractor, have children submit badges again in another 3 months?
Yes

Anonymous said...

Is it a Neutron source?

Atomfritz said...

It is probably not only the cement that is radioactive.

The sand needed for making concrete is taken from open pits, which in turn are sort of natural gutters.

If there is no thorough examination of construction sand mining sites, the dotting of Japan with radioactive buildings will get even worse.

A big science-fiction nightmare has become reality...

Anonymous said...

I see the ruling party have not yet grasped that their situation is one of everyone must die to save our face and that everyone apart from them know such a position to be untenable.

They should be publically passing the little dagger to those sorts.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for (re-)reporting this also for the Japanese community. Another nail in the coffin of "what radiation problem?". Until major supermarket chains or the big mansion developers don't have an incentive to care, nothing will happen. I'd love to see the face of the CEO when he is told that people cannot live in those condos. Then the blame game will start. It's sad, but the system has to die from within first.

@risa: I have seen a lot of strange readings from Soeks devices, I am no longer trusting them. COuld it be that they are sensitive to some sort of interference?

Doyu Shonin said...

Thanks, it's a good question. And, LOL, the spot at the bottom of the drain pipe, has bee "hot" after every rain, that's why I checked there, to see what it was up to. I was expecting about .25, and what I found almost gave me a heart attack!

I've been checking the little thing with a smoke detector and with some crockery that may have trace uranium in the glazes, and I think it's pretty well behaved. That said ... things calmed down the next day and my readings have been averaging about .15 indoors and .19 outside since then. Here is the 18th, and things have been settling down.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-tuXiZe8yu6I/TxceuHqlXSI/AAAAAAAAEyk/QK7YC8j4x1o/s512/house1.gif

So I tend to think a cloud of something passed through, and there's no reason not to think some hot particles are lurking about. But I have no proof. I hunted along the low places on the concrete apron to see if whatever that was had been washed further along, but no luck. Could there be such a thing as a cluster of radon?

I built a greenhouse after 3/11, and vegs are growing in there, and they consistently read .10 or less, which seems encouraging -- always lower than the house!

Unknown said...

Heya ¡­my very first comment on your site. ,I have been reading your blog for a while and thought
I would completely pop in and drop a friendly note. . It is great stuff indeed.
I also wanted to ask..is there a way to subscribe to your site via email?


Single Bedroom Apartment

Unknown said...

The resolution is also a little anticlimactic compared to the riotous climax. Might just be me, but I felt that the method used to establish the primary resolution was introduced a little late in the book. serviced apartments london

sattaking2018 said...

satta king desawar

satta king online

satta king chart

satta king gali

https://sattaking2018.co/

satta king in

satta king 2018

satta king2018

srikanthsri said...


tutuapp downloads
tutuapp
tutuapp download
tutuapp free
If you don’t have the tutuapp downloaded on your phone.

Unknown said...

Finance box is one stop solution where you can find all the registering of net banking debit / credit card online status and apply online for debit / credit card, netbanking can also be done in finance box the most services for you and moreover, pan card apply online it provides you all types banking services.

shiva said...


download SHAREit For Windows PC
I definately enjoy every little bit of it and I have you bookmarked to check out new stuff of your blog a must read blog!

Post a Comment