全国の水道の放射能濃度

MEXT is recording radiation measurements at 3 hour intervals in the region 20 km and greater from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. In addition to Japanese,   reports are issued in English version, Chinese version and Korean version. The latest maximum readings reported April 17 and also the prior day, April 16, occur ar reading posts [32] and [83].

[32] Futaba county Namie town Akougi Teshichiro (About30km northwest)

- 23.1  μSv/h at 10:52  April 17     |        25.3 μSv/h at 10:13  April 16

[83] Futaba county Namie town Akougi Kunugidaira (About20km northwest)

- 39.4 μSv/h at 10:24  April 17   |   43.8 μSv/h at 11:15  April 16

For reference, previous readings:

- 38.0 μSv/h March 31 at reading post [32]

- 55.6 μSv/h March 31 at reading post [83]

- 87.0 μSv/h March 27 at reading post [83] 

This is a notice to inform you that the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) will be implementing support for international students relating to the Great East Japan Earthquake as given below.
We will also be continuing to consider further detailed measures in accordance with the circumstances of the international students.

Radiation factors hard to gauge; experts say rely on official data
Bloomberg, April 16th

Geiger counters are probably ineffective for consumers in detecting hazardous levels of radiation in food and water at home, scientists, professors and device makers said. Large samples should be tested in laboratory-like settings to obtain results, said Joseph Rotunda, who heads the radiation measurement division at toolmaker Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. Determining whether food, water or milk is safe also requires expert knowledge and more sophisticated equipment than the typical devices sold online, said Atsushi Katayama, a member of the Japan Society for Analytical Chemistry.

"Just pointing a measuring device at your food before dinner is pretty much meaningless," said Katayama, who has a doctorate in analytical chemistry from Hokkaido University. "Tap water and fish, for example, require special handling, isolation and concentration to get meaningful readings."

The assessment of technical and subject matter experts across United States Government agencies is that while the situation at the Fukushima Daiichi plant remains serious and dynamic, the health and safety risks to areas beyond the 50 mile evacuation zone, and particularly to Tokyo, Nagoya (Aichi Prefecture), Yokohama (Kanagawa Prefecture) nearby U.S. military facilities and the prefectures of  Akita, Aomori, Chiba, Gunma, Iwate, Nagano, Niigata, Saitama, Shizuoka, Tochigi, and Yamanashi, and those portions of Fukushima, Ibaraki, Miyagi and Yamagata prefectures which are outside a 50 mile radius of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant are low and do not pose significant risks to U.S. citizens. 

This analysis takes into consideration both various age groups and the classification of the severity of the situation at Fukushima Daiichi as a Level 7 event by the Government of Japan, which reflects what has transpired since the initial incident and the potential long-term effects in the area surrounding the plant.

By Suvendrini Kakuchi
Source: IPS Online

TOKYO, Apr 13, 2011 (IPS) - April has traditionally been the time for ‘hanami’, or cherry blossom festivals, when millions of Japanese hold parties under the pink flowering trees in parks and streets lit up gaily by lanterns.

But, one month after the earthquake and tsunami of Mar. 11 which left almost 30,000 people dead or missing, a widespread donation drive has supplanted the festive hanami spirit in Tokyo and other major cities.

"The terrible Tohoku disaster has galvanised the nation to launch a nation- wide charity movement," Kyoichi Kobayashi, a social critic and author here, told IPS. "The drive is an entirely new experience for the people who have gotten used to an affluent lifestyle that marks Japan’s post-war economic might."

Indeed, from Hokkaido, Japan’s north island, to Okinawa, the southern tip in the archipelago, hundreds of local volunteer groups, companies and organisations have launched frantic aid projects or are working as volunteers to help the stricken populations in the disaster zones.

WASHINGTON ---- Japan's nuclear emergency highlights a big medical gap: Few treatments exist to help people exposed to large amounts of radiation.

But some possibilities are in the pipeline ---- development of drugs to treat radiation poisoning, and the first rapid tests to tell who in a panicked crowd would really need them.

The U.S. calls these potential products "countermeasures," and they're part of the nation's preparations against a terrorist attack, such as a dirty bomb. But if they work, they could be useful in any kind of radiation emergency.

"Thinking of terrorist events is what drives us. Mother Nature can be much of a terror, too," says Dr. Robin Robinson, who heads the federal Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, that funds late-stage research of products the government deems most likely to pan out.

BARDA has invested $164 million for research into anti-radiation treatment candidates since 2008, and $44 million for radiation testing ---- in hopes of adding such products to the nation's emergency medical stockpile soon. That's in addition to research dollars from the National Institutes of Health and the Defense Department.

Robert J. Geller, at the Department of Earth and Planetary Science, Graduate School of Science, University of Tokyo, Japan, writes in the recent issue of Nature:
"It is time to tell the public frankly that earthquakes cannot be predicted, to scrap the Tokai prediction system and to repeal the LECA. All of Japan is at risk from earthquakes, and the present state of seismological science does not allow us to reliably differentiate the risk level in particular geographic areas. We should instead tell the public and the government to 'prepare for the unexpected' and do our best to communicate both what we know and what we do not. And future basic research in seismology must be soundly based on physics, impartially reviewed, and be led by Japan's top scientists rather than by faceless bureaucrats."

Summary

- The Japanese government should admit to the public that earthquakes cannot be reliably predicted.

- Use of the misleading term 'Tokai earthquake' should cease. The 1978 Large-Scale Earthquake Countermeasures Act should be repealed.

Another earthquake rocked Japan on Monday, one of nearly 500 aftershocks that have hit the country in the month since a 9.0 magnitude quake and the tsunami it caused devastated many areas.

"When the stress exceeds the friction at that fault, you'll have an earthquake," seismologist Paul Earle said.

In the last 24 hours, the United States Geological Survey's National Earthquake Information Center in Golden has kept tabs on seven different 5.0 or stronger earthquakes in the area around Japan.

"We had a 6.6 this morning. That's enough to seriously shake things up," Earle said. "This is a very large earthquake, and that's why we're seeing this very robust aftershock sequence."

Just last week, there was a 7.1 quake. And it appears the aftershocks may not be letting up any time soon.

"This can go on for several more months," Earle said.

He says it can even go on into next year. While the aftershocks have not caused the damage the original earthquake did (13,000 dead, more than 13,000 missing), they make life in the area very difficult.

Read more...

Residency status and property rights are among the legal issues causing concern for foreign nationals directly affected by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, lawyers assisting them with their inquiries said Tuesday.

The Japan Federation of Bar Associations and a local lawyers’ group in Tokyo launched a toll-free telephone consultation service for foreign nationals in late March in the wake of the quake and ensuing tsunami. It received nearly 50 inquiries during the first two weeks, according to Masako Suzuki, a Tokyo-based lawyer.

‘‘In cases where callers lost their Japanese spouses, they wanted to know if they could continue staying in Japan or if they could inherit properties,’’ Suzuki said.

In one case, a woman asked if she could stay in Japan until her late husband, who was buried without cremation, most likely due to a lack of crematorium capacity and shortage of fuel, could be cremated.

The telephone consultation service operates weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon and can be accessed by calling 03-3591-2291.

While it was initially launched in English, Chinese, Portuguese, Tagalog and Japanese, available languages have increased to 10, including Korean. Consulters are required to pay call charges, but they may be able to use phones for free at local international exchange associations in the disaster-hit areas, Suzuki said.

The Japanese government's nuclear safety agency has decided to raise the crisis level of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant accident from 5 to 7, the worst on the international scale.

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency made the decision on Monday. It says the damaged facilities have been releasing a massive amount of radioactive substances, which are posing a threat to human health and the environment over a wide area.

The agency used the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale, or INES, to gauge the level. The scale was designed by an international group of experts to indicate the significance of nuclear events with ratings of 0 to 7.

On March 18th, one week after the massive quake, the agency declared the Fukushima trouble a level 5 incident, the same as the accident at Three Mile Island in the United States in 1979.

Level 7 has formerly only been applied to the Chernobyl accident in the former Soviet Union in 1986 when hundreds of thousands of terabecquerels of radioactive iodine-131 were released into the air. One terabecquerel is one trillion becquerels.

News Release - Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) - INES rating assessed as Level 7 - April 12, 2011

(see link below - a 3 page .pdf report)

As reported in The Yomiuri Shimbun

The crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant has released a large amount of radioactive substances into the air and water, raising serious concerns over possible health risks.

The government and plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. have repeatedly said there will be no major health impact "for the time being" and that there will be no "immediate" effects.

But what consequences will the radiation fallout actually have?

The following will examine the impact of radioactive substances on people's daily lives, and look at how much radioactive fallout has occurred, possible health effects and how to prevent exposure.

How much radioactive material has so far been released into the atmosphere due to the Fukushima accident?

Let's compare the radioactive contamination caused by the current crisis to past nuclear accidents.

Fallout of cesium-137 has been monitored for every 24-hour period since March 18 at observation points in each prefecture, except quake-hit Fukushima and Miyagi. Cesium-137 is an international indicator for radioactive contamination.