Is it safe for me to visit Japan?
- Short answer: Most likely.
- Long answer: Depending on where in Japan you are planning to visit, radiation levels are no higher and sometimes lower than any other major city around the world. From our own measurements we can tell you that Tokyo and Los Angeles have similar radiation readings and the levels in Hong Kong are even higher than Tokyo. One explanation for this is that Japan may have had a lower average background radiation level than many other places before March 11, 2011 so even if overall levels increased, they may still be within the scope of what is average. It’s also worth noting that air travel, especially transcontinental flights subject passengers to elevated radiation, sometimes 20x as much as one might experience on the ground so it’s very likely that a person will be exposed to more radiation on the flight to Japan than the entire time they are on the ground there.
- One caveat: Food measurements are still largely misunderstood and we can not yet make any claims to contamination levels of food within, our outside of Japan.
- Short answer: Yes.
- Long answer: Traces of particles released by the event at Fukushima Daiichi have been found in every corner of the earth where they have been looked for. The world is one giant ecosystem and when a major contamination event takes place evidence of it can be found everywhere. It’s worth noting that there are also global traces of previous nuclear events such as Chernobyl, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, widespread nuclear testing from the 1950′s – so much so that there is actually a market for iron and concrete produced prior to WWII for the purpose of shielding environments for isotope identification, as all materials produced after WWII are contaminated and have a higher background radiation level.
- One caveat: According to the research we’ve found, it seems 80% of the contamination went into ocean, 18% into Japan, and 2% globally.
- Short answer: No
- Long answer: While occasionally news of a “new hotspot” is being reported in the media, the reality is that these hotspots have existed (at least) since the 3/11 event but just haven’t been measured. Since 3/11 people have become much more aware of radiation and their immediate surroundings and are doing more measurements on their own, because of this much more granular data is being gathered and so hotspots which previously may have gone unnoticed are being discovered more regularly. The major contamination from Fukushima Daiichi is Cs137 which has a 30 year half-life, so it will be quite a while until effected areas see a radiation level decrease. Cs134 is also prevalent and has a 2 year half-life so this will be noticeable sometime in 2013
- One caveat: Just because levels haven’t changed doesn’t mean they can’t. A new event involving a release of further radiation from any of the reactors at Fukushima Daiichi could result in new contamination. Additionally, a number of environmental factors may be involved in moving the existing contamination around to some extent.
- Short answer: No
- Long answer: All reports suggest that efforts to contain the contamination from the plant are ongoing, however access to the 20K exclusion zone around the plant is restricted and very difficult for anyone to research so independent confirmation of published reports is difficult to obtain.
- One caveat: Information coming from the plant is fragmented and from various sources so it’s difficult to have a very clear idea of the exact situation inside the Fukushima Daiichi plant.
