UPDATE 10.50 CST – Video taken in Tokyo of a blinding blue light witnessed on the horizon at the time of the quake is causing a stir. Sky News reports that the light could be a phenomenon thought to occur due to intense electromagnetic activity with the movement of tectonic plates.
UPDATE 10.22 CST – No damage, casualties in Miyagi Pref. as of 11:55 Thurs.: police
UPDATE 10.20 CST – The quake has been revised down to a mag 7.1.
UPDATE 10.19 CST – Japanes Weather agency sees Miyagi quake as aftershock of March 11 temblor.
Japan was rattled by a strong aftershock Thursday night nearly a month after a devastating earthquake and tsunami flattened the northeastern coast.
The Japan meteorological agency initially issued a tsunami warning for a wave of up to one metre, but that was later lifted.
The warning was issued for a coastal area already torn apart by last month’s tsunami, which is believed to have killed some 25,000 people and has sparked an ongoing crisis at a nuclear power plant.
Announcers on Japan’s public broadcaster NHK told coastal residents to run to higher ground and away from the shore. Residents along the northeast coast were being evacuated.
The U.S. Geological Survey said Thursday’s quake was a 7.1-magnitude and hit 40 kilometres under the water and off the coast of Miyagi prefecture. The quake that preceded last month’s tsunami was a 9.0-magnitude.
Given that the ICRP predicted excess cancers will probably appear in the next10 years, they will not be measurable above the normal rate unless they are rarecancers. Examples are leukaemia in children or thyroid cancer.The ECRR absolute risk method cannot be formally used unless we know theindividual radionuclide exposures. However it can be used if we approximate that 1/3of the dose is internal and that 1/3 of the internal dose carries a weighting of 300(which was the overall weighting factor obtained form the weapons test falloutspectrum of radionuclides epidemiology). Then the annual internal dose is 5.6mSvand 1/3 of this is 1.9mSv which we weight at 300. The total ECRR dose is thus575mSvECRR. The collective dose is then 3,338,900 x 575 x 10
-3
to give 1,919,867person Sieverts and a lifetime (50 year) cancer yield of 191,986 extra cancersassuming the ECRR risk factor of 0.1 per Sievert ECRR. Given the different timeframes, these numbers obtained from the Tondel et al 2004 regression and the ECRRabsolute model based on the atmospheric test cancer yields in Wales and England arein reasonable agreement.The three predictions are given in Table 5
Table 5
. The predicted cancer increases in the 100km zone near the Fukushima site
Model Cancer yield Note, assumptions
ICRP 2838 In 50 years, based on collective doses atexposure of 2
µ
Sv/h for one yearECRR Tondel 103,329 In ten years following the catastrophe, based onsurface contamination onlyECRR absolute 191,986 In 50 years, based on collective doses atexposure of 2
µ
Sv/h for one year; probably halfof these expressed in the first ten years.
Cancer excess in 200km annulus population
The methods employed above may be extended to the 200km annulus if thecontamination levels are known. Presently no data is available of contamination inthese areas although dose rates are available. NOAAComputer modelling carried outby us and published on the internet (www.llrc.org) and elsewhere suggest that theplumes from the catastrophe have travelled south over the highly populated areasshown in Fig4. Dose rates have been published for these areas and from these doserates it can be assumed that significant exposures have occurred. From Table 4 andFig 3 we can assume that the exposures are of the order of 1
µ
Sv/h with associatedcontamination levels. Therefore the methods employed for the 100km area may beextended to the 200km area. The population is, however much greater at 7,874,600.The results
(HigginsBlog) – Despite countless reassurances that no harmful levels of radiation from the Japan nuclear fallout would hit the US from the EPA, the University of Berkley in California is now reporting that rainwater in San Francisco water has now been detected at levels 18,100% above federal drinking water standards.
Again, with just about all other news of the radiation hitting the US, the news is once again reported to the public over a week after it was first detected.
Although a dose of just 25 rems causes some detectable changes in blood, doses to near 100 rems usually have no immediate harmful effects. Doses above 100 rems cause the first signs of radiation sickness including:
Doses of 300 rems or more cause temporary hair loss, but also more significant internal harm, including damage to nerve cells and the cells that line the digestive tract. Severe loss of white blood cells, which are the body’s main defense against infection, makes radiation victims highly vulnerable to disease. Radiation also reduces production of blood platelets, which aid blood clotting, so victims of radiation sickness are also vulnerable to hemorrhaging. Half of all people exposed to 450 rems die, and doses of 800 rems or more are always fatal. Besides the symptoms mentioned above, these people also suffer from fever and diarrhea. As of yet, there is no effective treatment–so death occurs within two to fourteen days.
In time, for survivors, diseases such as leukemia (cancer of the blood), lung cancer, thyroid cancer, breast cancer, and cancers of other organs can appear due to the radiation received
Bottom line is no body is sure how the radio active waste shall affect marine Life and Environment.
They just make a general assertion that the effects will be minimal with out any supporting evidence and no one has determined what the ‘Safety Limits’of radioactive materials dumped in the ocean are.
Japan, with no other options in sight is forced to dump Nuclear waste into the sea, treaties notwithstanding.
The Effects to So Sea water and the effect it will have on ground water level nobody knows.
We have created the Nuclear Monster,let us suffer from it.
Story:
Tokyo Electric Power Co. on Monday began releasing 10,000 tons of low-level radioactive water from the Fukushima No. 1 power plant into the Pacific Ocean on Monday evening to help accelerate the process of bringing the crippled complex under control.
The radical step was taken to make room for the more radioactive water that is being pumped out of the No. 2 reactor’s turbine building.
The utility also said it plans to release 1,500 tons of radioactive water being stored under the No. 5 and No. 6 reactors, which have been safely shut down.
The government said dumping the water will pose “no major health risk” and is inevitable in order to rescue the plant.
Tepco will try to minimize the environmental impact of the dump by setting up an underwater silt fence similar to an oil fence outside the seawater intake near the damaged No. 2 reactor, where toxic water is already leaking into the sea from a cracked storage pit.
Greenpeace first encountered a vessel routinely and deliberately dumping radioactive
waste at sea, approximately 400 miles South West of Cornwall in July 1978. The area
had been specified by the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), an off-shoot of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), as the designated
dumpsite of the western European nuclear industry. The Greenpeace ship Rainbow
Warrior found the Gem, a vessel chartered annually by the UK Atomic Energy Authority
(UKAEA) to dump so-called low- and intermediate-level radioactive wastes from
medical and military establishments and nuclear power plants.
Since its early days, in the late 1940s, the nuclear industry had chosen the oceans as a
convenient place to dispose of its inconvenient wastes. The USA, the then USSR, France,
the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden and other states used the sea as a radioactive
dump, both in the Pacific and the Atlantic, and they were determined to continue.
The Oslo Convention was the first regional treaty to regulate the dumping of wastes at
sea – it was negotiated in 1972 by the countries bordering the North-East Atlantic. The
nuclear industry successfully blocked efforts to include radioactive wastes within the
auspices of the convention. Consequently, while the Convention regulated the dumping
of sewage sludge, dredging spoils, and organohalogen compounds (amongst others) for
almost twenty five years, the signatory nations had no right to even comment on the
dumping of radioactive wastes. Yet, paradoxically, the OECD/NEA designated dumpsite
for radioactive wastes was inside the area covered by the Convention.
A few months later in 1972 the negotiations on the London Dumping Convention were
concluded. This was the first global treaty to regulate the dumping of wastes at sea. This
time the negotiations were less dominated by the Western European nuclear states, and,
as a result, the dumping of so-called high-level radioactive wastes was banned.
The first reported sea disposal operation of radioactive waste was carried out by the USA in 1946 in the North-East Pacific Ocean and the latest was carried out by the Russian Federation in 1993 in the Japan Sea/East Sea. During the 48 year history of sea disposal, 14 countries have used more than 80 sites to dispose of approximately 85 PBq (1 PBq = 1015 Bq) of radioactive waste (Fig. 10).
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