Japan Today: Gov't may expand scope of evacuation order in Fukushima

[Generic Other]

TOKYO —

The government is considering expanding the scope of its evacuation order to include people from certain spots that are emitting high levels of radiation as a result of the nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in March, government officials said Monday.

The government will be discussing with municipalities these so-called ‘‘hot spots’’ suffering from radiation exposure that would exceed the yardstick of 20 millisieverts during the course of a year.

A hot spot refers to an area that has a high level of radiation following rain or as a result of landscape or wind conditions that affect the direction in which radioactive materials travel after being released into the air.

Normally, radiation spreads concentrically but under such conditions, radioactive materials spread randomly to various spots.

http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/govt-may-expand-scope-of-evacuation-order-in-fukushima?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=news_on_twitter

Hard not to question the theory of neat concent4ric spread of radiation. One of the comments on the news story said to think of how ink spreads in water. Not a neat concentric circle at all! That radiation is dripping and falling and spreading in random patterns. Hot spots! Like mud puddles. Where the stuff collects. That's where it goes.

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. They have "expanded" the evacuation zone how many times now???

Essentially the radiation is making large parts of Japan uninhabitable, one hot spot at a time.

[Generic Other]

2. Sad, huh?

Nothing clean about this mess.

[Odin2005]

7. 3rd, I think. UGH!

:(

[Shagbark Hickory]

3. ...

:kick:

[Generic Other]

4. Guess if there was a radioactive "weiner" in the story, more people would be interested?

ACK

[ladjf]

5. I fear that there will be a number of these "expansion" notices over

the next few months. nt

[suffragette]

6. K&R

[Raschel]

8. I would like to know how the people who live in these areas have been affected. I suppose we'll find

that out in years to come.

[AuntPatsy]

9. More fearful for us in USA is the silence, what will we expect from the fall out

[Art_from_Ark]

10. Japan Today's story is a bit sloppy

The original mandatory evacuation zone was in a 20km radius of the reactors, not 30km.

The area between the 30km and 20km radii was originally for voluntary evacuation or for remaining indoors.

In late April, the Japanese government announced new evacuations for some areas outside of the original mandatory evacuation zone ("Planned Evacuation Zones"). It also announced a list of "Emergency Evacuation Preparation Zones" where residents were asked to be prepared to evacuate on a moment's notice. Fukushima Prefecture's own web site (at least as of this writing) has not announced any new evacuation zones beyond what I have just described.

http://wwwcms.pref.fukushima.jp/pcp_portal/PortalServlet?DISPLAY_ID=DIRECT&NEXT_DISPLAY_ID=U000004&CONTENTS_ID=23625

[Delphinus]

11. A Bloomberg story

talks about melt through, instead of meltdown.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-07/melted-fuel-at-fukushima-may-have-leaked-through-yomiuri-says.html

The melted fuel at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power station may have leaked through the pressure vessels of the Nos. 1 to 3 reactors, the Yomiuri newspaper reported.

The Japanese government will submit a report to the International Atomic Energy Agency that raises the possibility the fuel dropped through the bottom of the pressure vessels, a situation described as a “melt through” and considered more serious than a “meltdown,” according to the report, which cited the document.