Tag Archives: microsieverts

Fukushima

Pale Green Horse & Corporate & Government Incompetence: New Japanese apartment building is radioactive, residents contaminated with Cesium!

I looked and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him.  They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.

In Fukushima Prefecture, a newly built apartment building has proven to be highly radioactive.  In fact, local Nihonmatsu City officials say the building emits more radiation on the inside, than on the outside!

Construction of the three story building was finished in July, 2011, almost four months after the beginning of the on going nuclear disaster at Fukushima Daiichi.  People are already living in the apartments!

Officials found that the inside of the building, on the first floor, is emitting 1.24 microsieverts per hour of cesium.  It looks as if the foundation of the building is the source of radiation, because radiation levels decrease as you go to the upper levels.

Turns out the construction company got its foundation material from inside the 20km no go evacuation zone around the nuclear plant!  But why did Nihonmatsu City officials wait until the end of December to inspect the building for radiation, after people had moved in? Apparently no one thought about it, until children living in the building turned out to have more cesium contamination than other children in the city! Can you say incompetence?

Fukushima

Micro vs Milli Sievert

A Japanese doctor, who specializes in radiation sickness, says microsievert is OK (in general).  Millisievert is bad, because it is 1,000 times more than microsievert.

Japanese officials have given radiation levels in both sieverts, sometimes correcting each other during the press conferences. This is causing confusion, and adding to people’s mistrust of officials.

One official reading was in 400 millisievert, which is 400,000 microsievert. Apparently the 400 millisievert report is correct.  However, some people thought they meant 400 microsievert, which would have been a much safer reading.

The way officials are scrambling to keep the reactors, and spent fuel rods,  from melting down, indicates that radiation readings, from around the plant, are probably in the millisievert range.  One report said that readings around the plant are 1.4 millisievert per hour (that’s 1,400 microsievert).