Inside Fukushima Evacuation Zone: Cows, Dogs, and Geiger Beeps

WSJ ^ | 04/07/11 | Yoree Koh

[TigerLikesRooster]

April 7, 2011, 9:10 PM JST.

Inside Fukushima Evacuation Zone: Cows, Dogs, and Geiger Beeps

By Yoree Koh

The 20 kilometers of land that circles the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has become a mysterious place ever since the government drew a border ringing the plant soon after the March 11 disaster, marking it as a must-leave, no-go exclusion zone nearly a month ago. Japanese police, Self-Defense Force troops and U.S. military started searching for bodies with the 10 km radius for the first time Thursday.

/snip

But now a visible document of what lies within the 20 kilometer zone, shot by a pair of Japanese online TV journalists, has been uploaded on YouTube (see above).

Tetsuo Jimbo, founder of Video News Network, a TV broadcasting website, and a colleague ventured into the area on Sunday. Before setting out, Mr. Jimbo consulted a radiation expert, who advised he spend a maximum of two hours in the zone. The 49-year-old journalist stayed for two and a half. A face mask – the kind worn to fend off hay fever – was his only protective gear. He admits he and his colleague got “kind of scared” when a host of large dump trucks drove by and the drivers were covered in what looked like “full radiation-proof suits” and gas masks.

[TigerLikesRooster]

P!

[pnh102]

Tetsuo Jimbo, founder of Video News Network, a TV broadcasting website, and a colleague ventured into the area on Sunday. Before setting out, Mr. Jimbo consulted a radiation expert, who advised he spend a maximum of two hours in the zone. The 49-year-old journalist stayed for two and a half. A face mask – the kind worn to fend off hay fever – was his only protective gear.

What's that story about stupid people doing dumb things with hazardous materials again?

[Brilliant]

According to the anti-nuclear activists, this accident will make the area uninhabitable for 10,000 years. Of course, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are both bustling metropolises today. In fact, there were people living there throughout. And there are people living in Chernobyl as well.

[bitterohiogunclinger]

“this accident will make the area uninhabitable for 10,000 years.”
You mean like DemonRAT politicians made Detroit?

[yldstrk]

When I watched it the dogs I saw looked healthy........

[null and void]

Don’t go there.

[Tolsti2]

I have one of those geigers like that and if it was going off like at the beginning of the video even I’d be freaking out and they’re really far away from it and out in the middle of nowhere.

The contamination level is incredible.

[Georgia Girl 2]

That guy is insane.

[JadeEmperor]

"And there are people living in Chernobyl as well."

Mostly the elderly and middle-aged, who had nowhere to go. Better to die in your own home than in a gov't refugee camp or an "old folks home". How many healthy, functional families with children live there? Just because they are surviving there, doesn't mean their quality of life is something to be desired or accepted.

[DUMBGRUNT]

Little boy used about 64 kilograms of 80% enriched uranium.
The Fukushima site holds approximately 1500 TONS of ~4% enriched uranium.

[DTogo]

Saw this the other day. Hard to comprehend the consequences of abandoning such a large are of inhabited farmland in Japan, perhaps for many years to come.

日本　ピング　 (kono risuto ni hairitai ka detai wo shirasete kudasai : let me know if you want on or off this list)

[spetznaz]

According to the anti-nuclear activists, this accident will make the area uninhabitable for 10,000 years. Of course, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are both bustling metropolises today. In fact, there were people living there throughout. And there are people living in Chernobyl as well.

Well, I agree with you on the crazy talk from anti-nuclear activists, and also concur that Hiroshima and Nagasaki bounced back quite well. However, it is a long (a very long) stretch to bring Chernobyl into this. That is a dead zone, with entire areas looking exactly as they did all those many years ago when the people were forced out. Sure, there are a couple of people here and there (most with no choice), but bringing Chernobyl into play does degrade your (otherwise very accurate) post significantly.

[Brilliant]

Well, I’m not going to say you’re wrong, since I don’t know. But here is a webpage that discusses it. Says that each reactor has 144 metric tons of uranium oxide:

http://yeswaterisfuel.com/2011/03/24/amount-of-radioactive-material-at-fukushima/

I am not sure how that converts into U235. I suspect your number is the amount of radioactive water on the site. That’s really a different animal because the lighter radioactive elements like iodine, tritium, strontium, etc. have shorter half-lives (8 days, 12.3 years, and 28 years respectively, I believe).

Irrespective, though, there is a big difference between uranium that is located in a reactor and uranium that is spread over the countryside because an a-bomb went off. Apparently even spreading it over the countryside does not make the land uninhabitable for 10,000 years, as demonstrated by Hiroshima, Nagasaki, as well as all of the nuclear tests that have been done over the years.

[Brilliant]

I think you’re wrong. There is another power plant very close to the old one at Chernobyl, which is currently operating. Obviously, people don’t live on the site of the nuclear disaster, but within a few miles of there, yes.

There is a very interesting youtube video that talks about the “sarcophagus” at Chernobyl. Apparently, people were even moving back into Chernobyl when the video was made back in the early 1990’s. I think they said they started to move back about 6 years after the accident.

Of course, there was a 40% increase in thyroid cancer. I suppose that some people might call that “uninhabitable,” but since the rate of thyroid cancer is not very high in the first place, increasing it by 40% is still probably not very high.

[helpfulresearcher]

Japanese reporters have shown amazing tenacity and daring in both this coverage and covering arms shipments from North Korea. I am convinced they are the most courageous and capable reporters in the world. Without plucky Japanese reporters the major arms shipment from the Norks would have gone almost unnoticed.

Remember people do dangerous things every day for stupid reasons. Doing dangerous things for good reasons is heroic.

[ASOC]

So the reporter drives into a high Rad zone - for 2.5 hours.

Then drives out. What are the Rad levels some distance from the road? Haven't heard anything on that.

How much of the contamination did he bring back with him/spread into otherwise ‘clean’ areas.

Reporting or a stunt for name recognition/15 seconds of 'fame'?

As for the Russkis -- from Jan 20, 2011

http://englishrussia.com/index.php/2011/01/11/chernobyl-today/

[spetznaz]

It is quite possible I am wrong. I will willingly agree to that, particularly since I was basing my statement on a documentary I watched a couple of weeks ago on Chernobyl that was showing ghost towns that are as they were when the evac order was issued. I do not have any hard facts apart from that doc (and I would hardly call it a hard fact), thus it is possible you are correct.

Anyways, as for nuclear energy, it is easily one of the safer energy choices out there. Especially compared to sources like coal. The only problem is that one incident and suddenly calls for banning nuclear power come out. Quite interesting how the human mind simply goes to the most extreme option available, even when logic would entail otherwise. :(

[DUMBGRUNT]

The spent fuel pools are of significant concern, Marvin Resnikoff, a radioactive waste management consultant, said in a Wednesday press briefing organized by the nonprofit organization Physicians for Social Responsibility. Resnikoff noted that the pools at each reactor are thought to have contained the following amounts of spent fuel, according to The Mainichi Daily News:

• Reactor No. 1: 50 tons of nuclear fuel
• Reactor No. 2: 81 tons
• Reactor No. 3: 88 tons
• Reactor No. 4: 135 tons
• Reactor No. 5: 142 tons
• Reactor No. 6: 151 tons
• Also, a separate ground-level fuel pool contains 1,097 tons of fuel; and some 70 tons of nuclear materials are kept on the grounds in dry storage.

The reactor cores themselves contain less than 100 tons of fuel, Resnikoff noted.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=nuclear-fuel-fukushima

[B4Ranch]

>>Quite interesting how the human mind simply goes to the most extreme option available, even when logic would entail otherwise. :( <<

As a species, we are quite easily controlled. That’s been shown over and over again. TV programs, movies, illicit drugs, public education, you name it and a sector of society will follow the path.