Report Fukushima residents exposed to far less radiation than thought

tom_mai78101

The Helper Connoisseur / Ex-MineCraft Host
Staff member
Reaction score
1,632
Citizen science usually isn’t this personal. In 2011, roughly 65,000 Japanese citizens living near the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant started measuring their own radiation exposure in the wake of the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. That’s because no one, not even experts, knew how accurate the traditional method of estimating dosage—taking readings from aircraft hundreds of meters above the ground—really was. Now, in a first-of-its-kind study, scientists analyzing the thousands of citizen readings have come to a surprising conclusion: The airborne observations in this region of Japan overestimated the true radiation level by a factor of four.

“The work [these] researchers are doing is extremely important … [because] it is logistically challenging to sample and monitor every potentially exposed person,” says Kathryn Higley, a certified health physicist at the School of Nuclear Science and Engineering at Oregon State University in Corvallis.

It’s rare to monitor individual radiation exposure after a nuclear power plant accident. In some cases, regions are simply evacuated. In others, the cost and difficulty of handing out personal sensors—called dosimeters—is just too much. The few studies that have gathered individual readings in places like Chernobyl in Ukraine have also suffered limitations. Most target only small populations, and many are conducted far from the disaster site or long after the accident. Using aircraft is often easier, cheaper, and faster.

Read more here. (Science Magazine)
 

FireCat

Oh Shi.. Don't wake the tiger!
Reaction score
530
But still they are/was Exposed by it.
And It doesn't matter if the radiation level was high or low.
 

tom_mai78101

The Helper Connoisseur / Ex-MineCraft Host
Staff member
Reaction score
1,632
The exposure risk isn't as high as we thought it would be.
 
General chit-chat
Help Users
  • No one is chatting at the moment.

      The Helper Discord

      Members online

      No members online now.

      Affiliates

      Hive Workshop NUON Dome World Editor Tutorials

      Network Sponsors

      Apex Steel Pipe - Buys and sells Steel Pipe.
      Top