Useful authoritative site updated daily: Fukushima Nuclear Accident Update Log
This is It has been some time since the accident and a wiki responsenumber of comprehensive studies have been performed. I think it is worthwhile to start with one of the question:most authoritative articles by the Journal Nature, Is the Japan nuclear disaster as dangerous to human health as Chernobyl (both locally and around the world)?Fukushima’s doses tallied — Studies indicate minimal health risks from radiation in the aftermath of Japan’s nuclear disaster.:
Few people will develop cancer as a consequence of being exposed to the radioactive material that spewed from Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant last year — and those who do will never know for sure what caused their disease. These conclusions are based on two comprehensive, independent assessments of the radiation doses received by Japanese citizens, as well as by the thousands of workers who battled to bring the shattered nuclear reactors under control.
The first report, seen exclusively by Nature, was produced by a subcommittee of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) in Vienna, and covers a wide swathe of issues related to all aspects of the accident. The second, a draft of which has been seen by Nature, comes from the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland, and estimates doses received by the general public in the first year after the accident. Both reports will be discussed at UNSCEAR’s annual meeting in Vienna this week.
The Chernobyl incident is now well documented, see e.g. Wikipedia's article "Chernobyl Disaster". For the moment references to Fukushima will be tohas only just begun being studied, and much of the information still derives from contemporaneous news articles (to which this article links to many).
- The amount of radiation released by Fukushima is a fraction of Chernobyl;
- The spread of the radiation from Fukushima is unlikely to hit highly populated areas like Chernobyl's radiation did;
- The types of isotopes released by Fukushima are not as dangerous as those released by Chernobyl; and
- The reported effects of Fukushima are significantly less than Chernobyl's reported effectseffects;
- Comprehensive studies indicate that the amount of cancer will be virtually minimal.
The impact of Fukushima could be substantially greater in one area compared to Chernobyl: post traumatic stress disorder. From the Nature article noted above:
A far greater health risk may come from the psychological stress created by the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster. After Chernobyl, evacuees were more likely to experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than the population as a whole, according to Evelyn Bromet, a psychiatric epidemiologist at the State University of New York, Stony Brook. The risk may be even greater at Fukushima. “I’ve never seen PTSD questionnaires like this,” she says of a survey being conducted by Fukushima Medical University. People are “utterly fearful and deeply angry. There’s nobody that they trust any more for information.”
There remains the possibility for Fukushima to become a significantly worse disaster if an earthquake occurs, as per noted scientist and host of the Nature of Things, David Suzuki:
"Three out of the four plants were destroyed in the earthquake and in the tsunami. The fourth one has been so badly damaged that the fear is, if there's another earthquake of a seven or above that, that building will go and then all hell breaks loose.
"And the probability of a seven or above earthquake in the next three years is over 95 per cent."
... "I have seen a paper which says that if in fact the fourth plant goes under in an earthquake and those rods are exposed, it's bye bye Japan and everybody on the west coast of North America should evacuate," he said.
It is not clear what paper Dr. Suzuki is referring to.
Strontium 90
Strontium 90 has been noted to be seeping into the bedrock near Fukushima, by the BBC and NBC. The latter states:
Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), ..., said nearly 30 times the permitted level of the radioactive isotope was discovered in a well dug last month outside the turbine hall of Reactor No.2.
The company said it had not detected any rise in the levels of Strontium-90 in sea water, and that it believed the substance was trapped during the initial 2011 nuclear fallout.
It seems that not a great deal of analysis has been done on amount and effect of the Strontium.
The article True facts about Ocean Radiation and the Fukushima Disaster notes:
The leaking groundwater contains strontium and tritium which are more problematic than Cesium-137. But it sounds like strontium accumulates in bones and is only problem if you eat small fish with the bones in, like sardines (and it will only affect sardines caught near Japan since they don’t travel far).
There were reports of [Caesium in baby milk]:
... tests found up to 30.8 becquerels of caesium per kilo of Meiji Step powdered milk.
The milk was recalled; there was no indication of the amount of distribution before the discovery. The distribution is noted to be limited to Japan only.
Around 70 sailors aboard the USS Reagan are making a claim for compensation for exposure to radiation.
Update — January 2014
A number of other recent resources have cropped up, including:
