nuclear-news

Fukushima radioactive fallout circling around the world’s oceans

Fukushima nuclear fallout spread through oceans, researchers say, :Herald Sun, AFP, November 17, 2011 MOST of the radioactive fallout from the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant dropped into the ocean and began circling the planet, Japanese researchers say.
Up to 80 per cent of the caesium released by the Fukushima Daiichi power plant after the March 11 disaster landed in the Pacific and made its way into other oceans around the world, scientists at the Meteorological Research Institute said.

“The rest has fallen on land” in and around Fukushima, said Hiroshi Takahashi, a researcher at the institute in Ibaraki, northeast of Tokyo.

“The results mean the ocean was more contaminated than land, although recent data have shown that ocean pollution resulting from the accident was well below levels affecting humans,” Takahashi said.

Researchers said the radioactive materials, including caesium-137, an isotope with a half-life of more than 30 years, were widely dispersed when they entered the oceans and each particle would measure less than one micrometre – one seventh the size of a human red blood cell.

Using computer simulations, they calculated the material was first blown northeast over eastern Russia and Alaska, before falling into the Pacific and reaching the western coast of mainland US around March 17, Takahashi said.

The materials were believed to have completed their first around-the-globe trip by March 24, he said, adding that the results would be presented to an academic meeting in Nagoya, central Japan…. http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/fukushima-nuclear-fallout-spread-through-oceans/story-e6frf7lf-1226198245902

November 19, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, oceans