Free Republic

While the Japanese tsunami of March 2011 was devastating in its own right, the long term health consequences because of the damage to the nuclear reactor at Fukushima Daiichi are also of serious concern.There are a number of factors that have to be considered when assessing the health effects of radiation exposure: for example land decontamination efforts, size of evacuation area, shielding by buildings and terrain and consumption of contaminated food.Jan Beyea, from the US expert consulting service Consulting in the Public Interest, together with fellow colleagues has been analysing previous calculations of the subsequent nuclear accident in Japan, and...

A fishing boat lost in the massive Japanese tsunami a year ago has turned up off Canada's west coast... The 65-meter (210-foot) vessel was spotted Tuesday by a Canadian Forces aircraft on a routine surveillance patrol, and its Japanese owner has been notified, said Transport Canada. A military photo shows the ship, streaked with rust but intact, floating 278 kilometers (150 nautical miles) off the southern coast of Haida Gwaii islands, some 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) north of Vancouver. "The vessel is considered an obstruction to navigation," ... Near Midway Atoll in the deep Pacific, a Russian ship spotted an...

Japanese citizens have shown incredible honesty in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami that brought the country to its knees. It emerged yesterday that the Japanese returned almost $78million in cash found in the quake rubble. In the five months since the disaster struck, people have turned in thousands of wallets and purses found in the debris, containing nearly $30 million in cash. More than 5,700 safes that washed ashore along the coastline have also been hauled to police stations by volunteers and rescue crews. Inside the safes officials found about $30million in cash. In one safe alone, there...