TOKYO - A Japanese journalist ventured into a radiation-contaminated town near an earthquake- and tsunami-damaged nuclear power plant two days after the disaster and found his Geiger counter going off the scale.
Naomi Toyoda, an independent photojournalist, drove with other photographers into Futaba, the town 250 kilometres north-east of Tokyo where the plant is located.
The town was already evacuated when the photographers arrived.
Naomi Toyoda, an independent photojournalist, drove with other photographers into Futaba, the town 250 kilometres north-east of Tokyo where the plant is located.
The town was already evacuated when the photographers arrived.
They witnessed the extent of the damage caused by the March 11 magnitude-9 quake and tsunami, such as a collapsed railroad bridge and sagging roads, but Toyoda soon found that some of the damage caused by the disaster was invisible.
Their car stopped in front of a local hospital, 3 kilometres from the nuclear power plant, and Toyoda, who has covered depleted uranium exposure in Iraq, measured the ambient radiation with his Geiger counter.
"It went off the scale," which goes up to 1,000 microsieverts per hour, Toyoda recalled. "I thought out loud, 'Unbelievable. It's frightening.'"
The normal recommended maximum safe exposure limit per year is 1,000 microsieverts, and prolonged exposure to levels of 1,000 microsieverts per hour can cause health problems.
Toyoda said he had never seen such high readings, even in deserted houses near the Chernobyl nuclear plant or Iraqi armoured vehicles destroyed by depleted uranium shells. Although he has had no immediate symptoms, he said he has been worried about the effects on his health ever since.
The quake and tsunami knocked out power at the plant, causing its cooling systems to fail and leading to the overheating of its six reactors, explosions, fires and releases of radioactive materials.
Toyoda learned after his initial reading that the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), had vented radioactive gas at one of the troubled reactors one hour before his measurement. He said he believed that pushed the figure up.
In fact, when he went back to the same spot March 22, the reading was 150 microsieverts per hour.
Toyodo also took other readings nearby. On March 14, three day after the earthquake, Toyoda detected 20 microsieverts per hour at Soma Port, 43 kilometres north of the plant, and 40 microsieverts per hour in Minami Soma City, 27 kilometres north of Futaba.
While 20 microsieverts is far less than Toyoda's initial reading in Futaba, it was still hundreds of times over normal levels, which are 0.1 microsieverts per hour in nature.
Evacuations were ordered in a 20-kilometre radius of the plant.
Their car stopped in front of a local hospital, 3 kilometres from the nuclear power plant, and Toyoda, who has covered depleted uranium exposure in Iraq, measured the ambient radiation with his Geiger counter.
"It went off the scale," which goes up to 1,000 microsieverts per hour, Toyoda recalled. "I thought out loud, 'Unbelievable. It's frightening.'"
The normal recommended maximum safe exposure limit per year is 1,000 microsieverts, and prolonged exposure to levels of 1,000 microsieverts per hour can cause health problems.
Toyoda said he had never seen such high readings, even in deserted houses near the Chernobyl nuclear plant or Iraqi armoured vehicles destroyed by depleted uranium shells. Although he has had no immediate symptoms, he said he has been worried about the effects on his health ever since.
The quake and tsunami knocked out power at the plant, causing its cooling systems to fail and leading to the overheating of its six reactors, explosions, fires and releases of radioactive materials.
Toyoda learned after his initial reading that the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), had vented radioactive gas at one of the troubled reactors one hour before his measurement. He said he believed that pushed the figure up.
In fact, when he went back to the same spot March 22, the reading was 150 microsieverts per hour.
Toyodo also took other readings nearby. On March 14, three day after the earthquake, Toyoda detected 20 microsieverts per hour at Soma Port, 43 kilometres north of the plant, and 40 microsieverts per hour in Minami Soma City, 27 kilometres north of Futaba.
While 20 microsieverts is far less than Toyoda's initial reading in Futaba, it was still hundreds of times over normal levels, which are 0.1 microsieverts per hour in nature.
Evacuations were ordered in a 20-kilometre radius of the plant.
But on Friday, the government asked residents living 20 to 30 kilometres away to voluntarily leave the area,suggesting a lengthy struggle for TEPCO as it tries to prevent meltdowns at the plant. The residents living in the farther zone had previously been told to stay indoors.
Toyoda said he believes the government should expand the evacuation zone because the crisis was expected to continue.
Because radiation levels clearly varied outside the current evacuation zone, the government "needs to decide on an evacuation zone very carefully, taking the direction of the wind into
consideration, for example," instead of just drawing a circle from the stricken plant, he said.
He has been far from the only critic of the government's response to the nuclear crisis.
"The Japanese government is so irresponsible," Miwako Ogiso, an anti-nuclear activist in Fukui, a city on the western coast of central Japan, said, referring to the voluntary evacuation.
"That means the government won't help them," she said. "They have to get out of the town by themselves after having to stay indoors so long. The government is now telling them to find a place to stay by themselves."
Ogiso said she believes the government was reluctant to admit it had underestimated the scale of the crisis.
The quake and tsunami left more than 10,000 people confirmed dead and about 16,000 unaccounted for, according to the National Police Agency. But the death toll was expected to climb significantly.
In Minami Soma, when Toyoda was surveying the city three days after the quake, one elderly woman approached the journalist and asked him what he was doing.
Toyoda told her the readings from his Geiger counter, but he said, like many members of the public, she did not appear to understand what they meant.
"So I asked her to go inside the house and take a shower. Then she said, 'How can I do that without electricity and water?' Her words made me speechless. But that was the reality of the disaster-stricken area."
(DPA)
Toyoda said he believes the government should expand the evacuation zone because the crisis was expected to continue.
Because radiation levels clearly varied outside the current evacuation zone, the government "needs to decide on an evacuation zone very carefully, taking the direction of the wind into
consideration, for example," instead of just drawing a circle from the stricken plant, he said.
He has been far from the only critic of the government's response to the nuclear crisis.
"The Japanese government is so irresponsible," Miwako Ogiso, an anti-nuclear activist in Fukui, a city on the western coast of central Japan, said, referring to the voluntary evacuation.
"That means the government won't help them," she said. "They have to get out of the town by themselves after having to stay indoors so long. The government is now telling them to find a place to stay by themselves."
Ogiso said she believes the government was reluctant to admit it had underestimated the scale of the crisis.
The quake and tsunami left more than 10,000 people confirmed dead and about 16,000 unaccounted for, according to the National Police Agency. But the death toll was expected to climb significantly.
In Minami Soma, when Toyoda was surveying the city three days after the quake, one elderly woman approached the journalist and asked him what he was doing.
Toyoda told her the readings from his Geiger counter, but he said, like many members of the public, she did not appear to understand what they meant.
"So I asked her to go inside the house and take a shower. Then she said, 'How can I do that without electricity and water?' Her words made me speechless. But that was the reality of the disaster-stricken area."
(DPA)
