Radiation contaminated more than 20,000 square miles and 43 million people in Japan: EU report

naturalnews.com In the three months following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, which occurred back in March 2011, a land area larger than 20,000 square miles (mi²) became contaminated with high levels of radionuclides of both cesium and iodine, says a new European Commission report. Using the most realistic estimates in a mathematical model, scientists determined that as many as 43 million Japanese people, and perhaps even more, were exposed during that time to high levels of the two contaminants, which are still being spewed from the shuttered plant to this very day. As explained in a Science for Environment Policy News Alert, the study calculated the atmospheric deposition of the two radionuclides using a widely respected circulation model and focused specifically on emissions in gaseous form. The study also took into account factors that might affect radionuclide concentrations upon dispersion, including precipitation, wind patterns, particle sedimentation and radioactive decay. After crunching the numbers using relatively conservative estimates, the research team postulated that a land area measuring 34,000 square kilometers (km²), or about 13,000 mi², was effectively contaminated with more than 40 kilobecquerels per square meter of the two radioactive substances. This level is considered by the International Atomic Energy Agency to be the threshold for what is considered to be "contamination." Based on this assessment, nearly 10 million people living within this land area were also affected by the radiation, including many people living in Tokyo, the nation's capital. While the bulk of radioactive cesium, some 80 percent, was blown eastward over the Pacific Ocean following the disaster, most of the radioactive iodine released was deposited locally in Japan due to its physical properties and the way that it is carried by the wind. to read more:naturalnews.com