Friday, April 8, 2011

#Fukushima I Nuke Plant: Video Footage of Inside the Evacuation Zone

On April 3, a fearless Japanese duo drove inside the 30-kilometer radius "stay indoors" zone, then the 20-kilometer radius evacuation zone, all the way up to 1.5 kilometers from the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant with two pocket dosimeters - one to measure alpha, beta, and gamma rays, the other to measure the gamma rays.

On the way, a totally deserted landscape with occasional cars and trucks with people with full protection suits, a pack of dogs (they fed one bulldog with a sausage), a pack of cows, overgrown vegetables, tilted telephone poles and broken signals and broken roads (houses withstood the quake/tsunami pretty well), while all the time the dosimeters are beeping, sometimes frantically.

No one there to stop them. No roadblocks.

The video was at Zero Hedge, made by Videonews.com, a Japanese Internet-only news station. The site runs on monthly subscriptions from the subscribers, but they are making this video available for free.

This has to be the first-ever look into the evacuation zone by any media. As the Japanese government is extremely keen on suppressing information that doesn't fit their (and their pet scholars and researchers') narrative that "everything is fine, everything is safe, everything is under control", I wonder how long it will take for the police to show up at the houses of these reporters and the site taken down.

I guess they can just say "100 micro-sievert/hr is totally safe, nothing to worry about."



Slightly after driving into the 30-kilometer radius: 1.1 micro-sievert/hr (total radiation level);

A pack of dogs at 21 kilometers to the plant;

At about the 20-kilometer radius: 1.25 micro-sievert/hr;

At 17 kilometers to the plant, several trucks with men with protective suits;

At 15 kilometers to the plant: 6.47 micro-sievert/hr; the road is badly damaged near the Fukushima II Nuclear Power Plant and they have to make a detour;

Cows eating grass;

At 10 kilometers to the plant, an increasing number of abandoned cars and trucks;

In Tomioka-cho, 8.5 kilometers from the Fukushima I plant: 5.0 micro-sievert/hr;

At 8 kilometers to the plant, they encounter a civilian in a car, with mask and raincoat to protect himself;

Their car cannot go any further because of debris, so they walk;

At 3 kilometers to the plant on the road: 3.64 micro-sievert/hr;

At 3 kilometers to the plant by the ocean: 1.20 micro-sievert/hr;

Back to the car, at 2.5 kilometers to the plant: 7.85 micro-sievert/hr;

At 2 kilometers to the plant, they feed a sausage to a bulldog, and tell the dog to hang in there;

At 1.8 kilometers to the plant, they encounter a pack of cows; 11.1 micro-sievert/hr;

From there, they walk up to the coast to see the Fukushima I plant;

94.2 (you hear one of them saying "no sh-t..."), 106, 108, 109, 112 micro-sievert/hr when they finally saw the plant in 1.5 kilometer distance.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are doing an excellent job and providing unique information. Thank you.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the translation highlights. We had no idea what we here looking at other than the readings.

Anonymous said...

WOW! You gotta respect the determination of the people who made this impromptu survey. The roving bands of wild animals weren't a problem in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. They became so contaminated because of their fur (hair is a radiation magnet) they all had to be shot. The higher reading they found on the road was also found in Chernobyl and the multiple Mayak disaster. Asphalt seems to hold onto radiation better that most soils. Eventually they paved over the problem on the main roads. In the Mayak disaster area there are signs forbidding people to stop or get out of their cars in certain area. The cars of the region were also limited to travel only in the exclusion zone.

Here's a little known documentary on the subject there is nothing like watching people using geiger counter to monitor their cooking with.

CHELYABINSK :
The Most Contaminated Spot on the Planet

For forty-five years, Chelyabinsk province of Russia was closed to all foreigners.Only in January of 1992 did President Boris Yeltsin sign a decree changing that.Shortly afterwards, I made my first trip to this region, which later Western scientists declared to be the most polluted spot on earth.

http://www.logtv.com/films/chelyabinsk/

M. Simon said...

The International dose limit is 2.3 uSv per hour for year around occupation. You might want to add that to your post for comparison. The American average is 0.34 uSv per hour.

Please Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood.

Anonymous said...

@Robbie, No, asphalt does not "hold" radiation better than soil. In fact it is the opposite. Radioactive particles do not adhere to asphalt and tend to get washed off. Soil (dirt) and fungus and moss retain radioactive particles better than asphalt. It is the same in Chernobyl and Pripyat today. Stay on the roads and your are safe, yet venture into the forest and you are likely to become contaminated.
The "wild" animals in the video were domesticated dogs (abandoned pets) and domesticated farm animals.
The situation is dramatic enough. No need to dramatize it above and beyond the catastrophe that it is.

Anonymous said...

I now appreciate the sacrifice the plant workers are making. 100 microSeiverts PER YEAR is where the health risks begin. Anyone at the plant is probably getting a fatal dose after 40 hours of exposure.

Here's a good radiation chart: http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/radiation.png

Anonymous said...

No, no, no: 100 microSieverts per year is absolutely fine and is well BELOW what the average person (anywhere in the world) receives as part of background radiation. You are confusing microSieverts with milliSieverts (it is a common mistake during this crisis).

Anonymous said...

@ aonoymous you said "No, asphalt does not "hold" radiation better than soil. In fact it is the opposite. Radioactive particles do not adhere to asphalt and tend to get washed off."

If that’s true why didn’t they just wash off the asphalt in this story?

SOUTH OXON REMOVES 400 TONNES OF RADIOACTIVE ASPHALT

http://www.lgcplus.com/lgc-news/south-oxon-removes-400-tonnes-of-radioactive-asphalt/1409523.article

If you are relying on Elena Filatova’s made up motorcycle ride through the Chernobyl exclusion zone for your facts then you might as well just listen to TEPCO. The main roads around Chernobyl were re-paved after the accident.

Roads re-paved:

http://books.google.com/books?id=C5cPb3p2UBwC&pg=PA24&lpg=PA24&dq=roads+were+repaved+around+chernobyl&source=bl&ots=gYHnSBMEQ7&sig=wSEYlo6pw_xOK4BeR0nPIYfOc_8&hl=en&ei=8CiiTZH7E6-B0QHLs7n7BA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

Radiation on asphalt:

“Three decontamination techniques were attempted: fire hosing, addition of potassium fertilizer and vacuuming. Only fire hosing appeared to be reasonably successful, with a 50 per cent removal efficiency if attempted within 14 days of the initial contamination. However this was reduced to < 10 per cent if left for 40 days. Jacob et al. (1987, 1990) measured the reduction in dose above paved areas in Munich, Germany following the Chernobyl accident, and fitted a regression model describing the exponential decay in activity”.

http://www.icsu-scope.org/downloadpubs/scope50/chapter06.html#t6.4

Anonymous said...

@Anonymous,

As for the dogs without owners they revert back to feral animals pretty quickly and the more desperate the conditions the faster they turn. Do you think the dogs will be all rounded up and taken to the pound when they can't even service the humans in the exclusion zone? Who is feeding these animals and what is going to happen if this goes on for a few more months?

These were peoples starving pets and they managed to kill someone.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Bites from a relentless pack of dogs killed a 55-year-old man with a history of seizures who was found lying unconscious along the side of a road while the animals mauled him, a medical examiner's report said.

McKinley County deputies had to chase the dogs away so emergency medical technicians could help Larry Armstrong, who was found lying on the ground Dec. 8 in the small community of Sundance, on Navajo Nation land near Gallup.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/30/man-killed-by-pack-of-dogs_n_842839.html

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