radiation levels these one and a half months in Tokyo

date	Environmental radiation levels	Radioactive material level in tap water			Radioactive material level of fallout			Remarks
	μGy/h	131I Bq/kg	134Cs Bq/kg	137Cs Bq/kg	131I Bq/m2	134Cs Bq/m2	137Cs Bq/m2
04-29	0.0677	0.22	ND	ND	ND	ND	ND
04-28	0.0688	0.14	ND	ND	ND	ND	ND
04-27	0.0693	0.29	ND	ND	ND	ND	39	rain
04-26	0.0694	ND	ND	ND	ND	5.4	6.6
04-25	0.0697	0.24	0.32	ND	ND	ND	5.5	rain
04-24	0.0701	0.36	ND	ND	ND	5.0	5.4
04-23	0.0714	0.30	0.20	ND	ND	ND	ND	rain
04-22	0.0722	0.36	0.20	0.21	ND	ND	ND	rain
04-21	0.0723	0.26	ND	ND	ND	4.2	5.8
04-20	0.0728	0.19	ND	ND	20	19	21	rain
04-19	0.0754	0.29	0.21	ND	ND	26	30	rain
04-18	0.0752	0.22	0.21	ND	56	ND	ND	rain
04-17	0.0753	0.20	ND	ND	ND	13	15
04-16	0.0761	0.30	ND	ND	ND	4.3	6.3
04-15	0.0767	0.30	ND	ND	ND	5.1	4.8
04-14	0.0776	0.41	ND	ND	ND	ND	ND
04-13	0.0777	0.41	ND	0.26	ND	ND	ND
04-12	0.0777	0.57	ND	ND	ND	ND	4.0
04-11	0.0837	0.60	ND	0.27	100	160	170	rain
04-10	0.0827	0.71	ND	ND	3.0	4.1	5.2
04-09	0.0839	1.0	ND	0.26	19	4.5	7.9	rain
04-08	0.0848	0.89	0.24	0.24	8.9	10	12
04-07	0.0861	1.4	0.32	0.24	5.3	ND	ND
04-06	0.0873	1.6	0.29	0.21	6.2	9.9	10
04-05	0.0884	2.6	0.32	0.32	8.2	7.0	5.6
04-04	0.0895	3.8	0.32	0.27	17	5.2	5.9
04-03	0.0908	2.9	0.21	0.29	20	18	18
04-02	0.0947	2.0	ND	0.45	ND	4.0	8.0
04-01	0.0971	2.1	ND	0.45	ND	9.1	15
03-31	0.100	3.4	0.35	0.53	38	19	26
03-30	0.104	5.1	0.26	0.64	50	66	68
03-29	0.107	5.6	ND	0.51	21	ND	5.4
03-28	0.111	9.8	0.26	0.56	37	10	18
03-27	0.116	20	0.47	0.73	46	ND	5.5
03-26	0.122	37	0.78	1.0	100	31	36
03-25	0.130	32	0.92	1.2	220	13	12
03-24	0.137	26	1.0	1.4	170	34	37
03-23	0.146	26	0.62	0.87	13000	130	160	rain
03-22	0.137	19	0.34	0.31	36000	330	330	rain
03-21	0.0969	5.3	0.23	0.22	32000	5300	5300	rain
03-20	0.0457	2.9	ND	ND	2900	550	560	rain
03-19	0.0467	2.9	0.15	0.21	40	ND	ND
03-18	0.0484	1.5	ND	ND	51	ND	ND
03-17	0.0511
03-16	0.0719
03-15	0.109 (max 0.809)	the first wind from the exploded nuclear plant to Tokyo
03-14	0.0341
03-13	0.0343
03-12 (explosion)	0.0342
03-11	0.0341
03-10	0.0338
03-09	0.0343
03-08	0.0343
03-07	0.0366
03-06	0.0343
03-05	0.0339
03-04	0.0339
03-03	0.0340
03-02	0.0344
03-01	0.0368

clean my room operation. wipe, wash, scrub

The fallout has reduced. A professional said it a time to clean the fallout. I am going to clean my room, with opening the window. Let's wipe Wall, floor, louver and everything one by one.

I am afraid that invisible cake of radioactive dust stick on the shoes.
I need new hight top sneakers :)

monju

Monju is a reactor under suspension because of accident.
It is an asset of Japan Atomic Energy Agency(http://www.jaea.go.jp/), which is a special government agency; independent administrative institution.

Monju is a experimental reactor. It is a Fast Breeder Reactor(FBR) and its coolant is Na. I don't know what it means.

One device (3.3t) in the reactor fell at August 26th 2010, still no way has been found to fix it. This reactor's maintenance cost is said 55,000,000 yen per day (460,000 $/day). I do know what it means.

tomodachi operation

I am writing this because my American friends did not know about tomodachi operation. I just wanted to say thank you.

This operation is not for the nuclear problem. It is for devastating tunami. Tomodachi operation by American marine started shortly after the disaster by tunami was found. The tunami was too fatal, too ruinous to know what happened because disaster victims had lost their communications. Japanese government don't know how many ppl are killed still now. The ships came to devastating coastal area quickly, and flied helicopters, found isolated villages and sent food and water. After that, marine rebuilt the wrecked air port by tunami only a few days, make the school ground available, and wipe away the tons of rubble.
I don't know a detail about tomodachi operation. But I am impressed by what highly skilled and well disciplined organization with advanced technology has done.

This operation was completed and they left the coast.
I saw a school boy asked marines their autographs on TV news.

Their activity was done more than 80km away from Fukushima nuclear plants.
Many Japanese are living within 30km area because Japanese government announced that evacuation was on a voluntary basis. But Japanese government changed their policy recently and is planning to have residents in highly contaminated area evacuate within one month.

internal exposure

When radioactive foods are eaten, they emit radiation inside our body, it is called internal exposure.
Interim guideline about radioactive materials on food was announced 17th March.
http://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/houdou/2r9852000001558e-img/2r98520000015av4.pdf

Each limit value varies depending on radioactive material type and food type. For example, limit of radioactive iodine on vegetable is 2000Bq/kg, limit of "Alpha-emitting nuclides of plutonium and transuranic elements" on infant foods is 1Bq/kg. (lol plutonium guideline on infant foods.)

To say the truth I was at loss because I did not understand how dangerous or how safe these numbers were.
As I knew too little, I ate much banana, because all banana in Japan is imported form clean countries. And I read banana abounds radioactive thing just now. haha.

http://www.who.int/foodsafety/fs_management/INFOSAN_note_Radionuclides_and_food_300311.pdf

Banana is one of the potassium rich produce, like milk, and 0.0117% of all potassium in natural is potassium-40 which is radioactive. Banana is said to have several hundreds Bq/kg. As human body includes a lot of potassium also, human itself has 6000-7000Bq.

Unit "becquerel(Bq)" is kind of amount of radiation, unit "sievert (Sv)" shows how much human being is effected. Above WHO document shows how to calculate unit becquerel to sievert. When someone eat 300g vegetable which contain 2000Bq/kg iodine-131 and 500Bq/kg cesium every day, total amount of internal exposure after one year is (these are maximum value of interim guideline):

iodine-131
0.3(kg) * 2000(Bq/kg) * 0.00018(mSv/Bq) * 356 = 38.448 (mSv)

cesium
0.3(kg) * 500(Bq/kg) * 0.000013(mSv/Bq) * 356 = 0.6942 (mSv)

I agree that as the interim guideline is a interim thing, one year might be unexpected term.
But I eat not only vegetable but also grain, fruit, egg etc. I drink water too.
I will struggle to find lower radioactive foods for a while. I hope it will be a "for a while" problem.


Please confer above number to following dose limits:
http://www.euronuclear.org/info/encyclopedia/r/radiation-exposure-dose-limit.htm

today's environmental radiation level

These day's environmental radiation level in Tokyo is the same of that of Beijing

Beijing 78.4 nGy/h (average 2011/04/14 9:00-15:00)
Tokyo 77.6 nGy/h (average 2011/04/14)

No iodine-131 or cesium-137 in fallout was detected at 14th April.
Radioactive material level in tap water is acceptable level according to WHO guideline.
I was happy to know these data this morning.


Beijing's data url:
http://haq.mep.gov.cn/gzdt/201104/t20110415_209246.htm

Tokyo's data url:
http://ftp.jaist.ac.jp/pub/emergency/monitoring.tokyo-eiken.go.jp/monitoring/hourly_data.html
http://ftp.jaist.ac.jp/pub/emergency/monitoring.tokyo-eiken.go.jp/monitoring/w-past_data.html
http://ftp.jaist.ac.jp/pub/emergency/monitoring.tokyo-eiken.go.jp/monitoring/f-past_data.html


But it does never mean tokyo become free from radioactive contamination.
For example, The measuring device which is used to measure above tokyo data looks equipped on the roof of the building according to the photos. It is said that radioactive materials are fallen on the ground gradually. I hear some data which are sampled near ground shows higher number than above number. This means small children or dogs would be effected much more than adult.

And it was not only iodine-131 and cesium-137 that leaked from Fukushima nuclear plant.

By the way, when the fist testing result of fallout on the nuclear plant ground was announced, I heard very curious words. "Plutonium was detected in 2 samples, they were thought to be from the accident, other 3 samples included the plutonium too, these were average level for ground." Common quantity level of plutonium? Plutonium is one of the most feared isotope to Japanese. A few days after this announce, I heard that they were legacy of '60, cold war encourage nuclear development and nuclear bomb test. Half-life of Plutonium-239 is 24,000 yeas.

Half-life of iodine-131 is 8.1 days. So if Fukushima nuclear plant stop leaking, iodine-131 will disappear soon. But even if Fukushima nuclear plant stop all of nuclear leaking asap, many long half-life radioactive things will remain and spread to the food.

so many aftershocks... really aftershock?

these several days, relatively small magnitude earthquakes has been occurring over and over. The epicenters are near the nuclear plant.

Seismologists on TV explain about aftershocks. But I wonder who simply accept their talk; these are natural aftershocks of 3.11 earthquake.

epicenters and brave nation

Today, one article are posted on Nature.com

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature10105.html

Robert J. Geller calls on Japan to stop using flawed methods for long-term forecasts and to scrap its system for trying to predict the 'Tokai earthquake'. (by nature)

I read this news on Japanese news site.

By the way, you can find a map showing the area where strong earthquake are expected (by flawed way) in the article. Please look at the map. And please look at this nuclear plants map.

source url:
http://www.rist.or.jp/atomica/data/pict/02/02020101/05.gif

blue square : running reactor
pink square : reactor under construction
yellow square : preparation step

You will find some nuclear plants are built on the expected epicenters.
Wow, what a brave nation.......

aftershock

As of today(13th April), an aftershock occurred at midnight of 7th Aril was the biggest one.

This magnitude 7.1 aftershock made two different nuclear plant's cooling system stop for a while.

One is Onagawa nuclear plant.
http://www.tohoku-epco.co.jp/genshi/onagawa/index.html
This facility has 3 reactors

The other is a Higasidohri nuclea plant.
http://www.tohoku-epco.co.jp/genshi/higashi/index.html
This facility has 1 reactor.

All of them are under suspension after devastating 311 earthquake. Some of them are under suspension before the earthquake because of maintenance.

By the way, I have learned this, it is just a little complicated.
Reactors have to be kept cool when they are under suspension. In order to run the cooling system, electric power which is independent from the nuclear power plants is must.

Fukushima nuclear plant accident was triggered by the lack of electric power for cooling system. Earthquake destroyed the electric cable which bring external electric to the nuclear plant, Tunami carried diesel fuel tanks for power generator.

The reason of stopping of cooling system at Higasidohri nuclear plant is reported that one part of generator's pump was assembled in the wrong way.

There are a lot of committee, foundation, etc. etc. which declare they are founded for nuclear safety and they are receiving substantial money. Even if the committee and foundation know very well about highbrow nuclear plants, they look not to be interested in last hope generator.

eating show

Spinach and milk were announced in which radioactive materials were found at 19th March, one week after the accident.

We Japanese had new guideline about radioactive food two days before this announce. The new interim guideline is very different  from that of WHO.

Currently radioactive things are found in many food already. Some values are lower than interim guideline, that mean these food are safe, according to the government. If I were 70 years old, I would happily eat these discounted delicious food. Because effect of radioactive food is told to appear 20 years after or so. But it seems many consumer don't want to purchase such a "safe" food, especially mothers of young children and babies.

To encourage consumer, diet members make us watch they are eating these food often. Both members of ruling party and opposition party are equally similarly eating eating eating.....

TEPCO's ad is back on TV screen

TEPCO is a only company that provide electric power in Tokyo. In spite of no business rival,  TEPCO was spending a lot of money to ad. It has been told that as TEPCO is a big client for TV company, TV persons don't accuse  TEPCO.  Many celebrities were saying nuclear was safe, clear and necessary in the ad before.

I saw TEPCO's ad yesterday first after Fukushima nuclear power plant accident. No celebrities. only narration and text in the screen says sorry for this anxious, inconvenience, etc..

It seemed to be very very clear that TEPCO will have to pay huge compensatory payment to numerous people. I don't understand how they are spending money only to say sorry for this inconvenience.....

help-wanted ad $85 per hour, no experience required

According to the zakzak, which is a sort of gossip paper, a temporary staff service was looking for 10 workers. That job is payed 10,000 yen per hour (about $85 per hour). No qualification, no experience required. Duty station is Fukushima prefecture, job description is cleaning in the nuclear power plant. The ad was posted end of March and the temporary staff service could happily find 10 works already.

http://www.zakzak.co.jp/society/domestic/news/20110412/dms1104121609016-n1.htm

I am looking for a bottled water

A month after the earthquake, tap-water in Tokyo shows much radioactive materials level than that of drinkable water suggested by WHO.

Unfortunately I could not find bottled water today in the shops. After earthquake I could purchase only one  2-litter bottled-water. It is not easy to find bottled-water which is seemed to free from radioactive things. As I don't want to drink tap water,  I have been purchasing small amount bottoed-water, which is about 3 times higher price than gas. I could not even find it today.

By the way, I have heard that one of the reason of this water shortage is, bottled water packs are sending to refuges. it is priority of course.  some area don't have tap water still now,  one month after the earthquake.
Secondly, the earthquake destroyed many plants, besides shortage of electric power, many plants can not run as usual. Especially one maker of lid part of plastic bottle has been affected badly. That become a literally bottle neck.

radioactive fallout

Air, water and  "fallout" are reported every day in Japan.

Radiation is emitted from radioactive materials. Radioactive materials originated from nuclear plant explosions are ... sort of very small dust. I think... They are carried by wind and fall on the ground, roof, vegetable... anywhere.
Tokyo is more 200km away from Fukushima nuclear plants, the wind was flowing toward to the sea when plants exploded, so radioactive materials seemed to take a few days from Fukushima to Tokyo.

When we had rain, lots of dust in the higher place in the air fell with rain.
So after rain, radioactive material levels showed higher number.

Unfortunately we can not get away from these dust. We can breath  radioactive materials in the air and and keep them in lung, we can drink the water containing radioactive materials, we can eat vegetable on which radioactive materials stick. So do livestock. So do fish. Thus creature of top of food chain can ingest condensed radioactive food.

By the way, I purchased a lot of mask before earthquake as a preparation of hay fever season. I have pollen allergy like typical Japanese. I heard radioactive materials are bigger than virus and smaller than pollen. (I am looking for technical trustable data about this.). So mask for virus will be helpful to reduce inhalation of radioactive materials.
My masks don't work for reducing radioactive materials, but pollen allergy people know how to reduce the effect of fallout. I heard following way are effective, at least they would bring better result than do nothing. Radiation is invisible and it will show their aftermath after 10 years, 20 yeas ...... But pollen allergy people detect immediately pollen existence by one's snotty nose,  eye itch,  etc. etc....

  don't open wind too much
  clean up the dust on coat before coming into the house
  take shower
  wear appropriate mask
  wear appropriate glasses


Radioactive material level of fallout in Tokyo / day
Shinjuku, Tokyo

Sampling date	Iodine-131  (131I) Bq/m2	Cesium-137 （137Cs) Bq/m2	Remarks
2011/04/03 9:00 - 2011/04/04 9:00	20.0	17.5
2011/04/02 9:00 - 2011/04/03 9:00	(ND)	8.03
2011/04/01 9:00 - 2011/04/02 9:00	(ND)	14.5
2011/03/31 9:00 - 2011/04/01 9:00	37.6	26.1
2011/03/30 9:00 - 2011/03/31 9:00	50.1	68.4
2011/03/29 9:00 - 2011/03/30 9:00	21.3	5.35
2011/03/28 9:00 - 2011/03/29 9:00	36.9	18.1
2011/03/27 9:00 - 2011/03/28 9:00	45.5	5.52
2011/03/26 9:00 - 2011/03/27 9:00	101	35.9
2011/03/25 9:00 - 2011/03/26 9:00	217	12.2
2011/03/24 9:00 - 2011/03/25 9:00	173	36.9
2011/03/23 9:00 - 2011/03/24 9:00	12790	155	rain
2011/03/22 9:00 - 2011/03/23 9:00	35700	335	rain
2011/03/21 9:00 - 2011/03/22 9:00	32300	5300	rain
2011/03/20 9:00 - 2011/03/21 9:00	2880	561	rain
2011/03/19 9:00 - 2011/03/20 9:00	39.8	(ND)
2011/03/18 9:00 - 2011/03/19 9:00	51.4	(ND)

contaminated water

Tap water in Tokyo includes radioactive material.
As of April 4th, their values are better than WHO guidance level under bad condition,  and worse than WHO guideline for desired condition.

Radioactive materials in tap water was detected 3/16,   near place to the Fukushima nuclear plant.
(earthquake 3/11, the first explosion of reactorNo1 was 3/12, reactorNo3 explosion was 3/14, explosion of  reactorNo2 and reactorNo4 was 3/15)

So, purification plant in Tokyo started reporting radioactive material revel 3/17.

According to this pdf document;
http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/GDW9rev1and2.pdf
 (page 203), WHO guidance level are:

Iodine-131      10Bq/litre
Cesium-134    10Bq/litre
Cesium-137    10Bq/litre


According to this page by purification plant in Tokyo;
http://www.metro.tokyo.jp/INET/OSHIRASE/2011/03/20l3i200.htm)
WHO has another much strict guidance level;

alpha-radioactivity 0.5Bq/litre

beta radioactivity 1Bq/litre

The purification plant says they had been keeping good level last 20 years before 3/17 also.

Current Japanese guicance level which was issued  3/17 are 30time higher than WHO's value:
http://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/houdou/2r9852000001558e-img/2r9852000001559v.pdf

Iodine-131     300Bq/Kg
Radiocesium  200Bq/Kg


As Japanese have new guideline, almost all water is SAFE in Japan, Japanese government don't have to notice how much water is contaminated.

Japanese had the same guidance level as WHO before, maybe.
http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2004/9241546387_jpn.pdf
(page 203-204)



Shinjuku Tokyo

Radioactive material level in tap water in Tokyo / day

Sampling date	Iodine-131  (131I) Bq/kg	Radiocesium
		Cesium-134 （134Cs) Bq/kg	Cesium-137 （137Cs) Bq/kg
2011/04/03	2.93	0.21	0.28
2011/04/02	1.96	(ND)	0.45
2011/04/01	2.06	(ND)	0.45
2011/03/31	3.39	0.35	0.52
2011/03/30	5.09	0.25	0.63
2011/03/29	5.63	(ND)	0.51
2011/03/28	9.82	0.25	0.56
2011/03/27	19.7	0.47	0.72
2011/03/26	37.2	0.78	1.01
2011/03/25	31.8	0.92	1.22
2011/03/24	25.6	1.01	1.43
2011/03/23	25.8	0.62	0.87
2011/03/22	18.7	0.34	0.31
2011/03/21	5.25	0.23	0.22
2011/03/20	2.93	(ND)	(ND)
2011/03/19	2.85	0.15	0.21
2011/03/18	1.47	(ND)	(ND)
Japanese guideline	300Bq/kg	200Bq/kg
WHO Guidance level	10Bq/litre	10Bq/litre	10Bq/litre
WHO Guideline for water to drink	whole sum of radioactivity alpha-radioactivity 0.5Bq/litre beta radioactivity 1Bq/litre