Okay, somebody shool me ....???
Oh, this is easy. (In chicken little voice) - The world is ending, everyone in California is going to die, and even if they don't, nobody will buy their wine anymore.
It sounds like they’re talking about actual radiant energy which is a whole different animal than fallout. Basically if you aren’t standing there looking at the reactor you’re fine.
Sunlight is a good example of radiant energy.
seems like a pretty comprehensive report
includes discussion of measurement terms (millisieverts)
and effects of radiation exposure
the people most in danger are those still working at the plants- they are real heroes
Okay, so now we have what appears to be a containment breach.
Now it is time to wonder what to do.
I received 300 rems or more for 4 hours from radioactive objects on the ground, got skin and bone cancer on my left side leg but survived.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_poisoning
400 mS (milliSievert = 1/1000Sievert) per hour. What is often left out is the necessity of specifying the time interval needed for this amount to accumulate. They sometimes use microS where micro = 1/1000 of a milli.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sievert
Sometimes they misspeak as to the radiation amount by a factor of 1000 or 1,000,000.
The type of radiation is also a major factor in addition to rate of exposure over a specific interval.
OK, most likely it's 400 milli-Sieverts per hour, at least that's what the Christian Science Monitor reports (although they talk about micro-Sieverts.
400 mSv/hr is a big deal. Above 100 mSv/year you run risks of cancer. When you get more than 250 mSv in a day,you start getting symptoms of radiation poisoning, with over 3,000 mSv (7.5 hours exposure) being a lethal dose.
http://altjapan.typepad.com/my_weblog/2011/03/should-i-stay-or-should-i-go.html
“...The peak releas at the plant of 400 milliseiverts (400,000 microseverts) was recorded in a single instant right next to the reactor.
The theory (corroborated by government sopkesperson Edano in his press conference) is that this reading came from a portion of the concrete outer building of the reactor that blew out from the explosion - it likely absorbed a much larger amount than anywhere else.
Fact remains that at MAX peak (approx 9:30 AM) the reading at the gate of the plant was 12 milliseverts (12,000 microseverts) at a location just tens of meters away from the reactor. These levels soon decreased (see Tepco graph http://c0013684.cdn1.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/x2_50402b0).
...
link shows the readings at the front gate of the plant, tens of meters from the reactor.
As we can see, the reading has dropped to 489.8 microseiverts/h (0.4898 milliseiverts/h) by 4:30 PM. [local time]
Even at these readings, you would have to stand in front of the plant for 14 hours to absorb enough radiation to equal 1 chest CT scan.”
Ok, I tapped into hourly press releases from Tokyo Electric, and here is what it states. Wtf?
Same message for all 4 plants.
Stable power, stable water levels, maintained temp at 100c, no coolant leakage.
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/11031507-e.html
“Four reactors at the plant have now exploded. “
No reactors have exploded.