573 deaths certified as nuclear-crisis-related in Japan

[kristopher]

573 deaths certified as nuclear-crisis-related in Japan
The Yomiuri Shimbun
Published: Saturday, Feb. 4, 2012 - 12:00 am

TOKYO -- A total of 573 deaths in Japan have been certified as "disaster-related" by 13 municipalities affected by the crisis at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, according to a Yomiuri Shimbun survey.

This number could rise because certification for 29 people remains pending while further checks are conducted.

The 13 municipalities are three cities - Minami-Soma, Tamura and Iwaki - eight towns and villages in Futaba County -Namie, Futaba, Okuma, Tomioka, Naraha, Hirono, Katsurao and Kawauchi - and Kawamata and Iitate, all in Fukushima Prefecture.

These municipalities are in the no-entry, emergency evacuation preparation or expanded evacuation zones...

http://www.sacbee.com/2012/02/04/4239345/573-deaths-certified-as-nuclear.html

[jpak]

1. K&R

and bookmarked

[caraher]

2. An evacuation of this kind is undoubtedly a wrenching event...

A disaster-related death certificate is issued when a death is not directly caused by a tragedy, but by fatigue or the aggravation of a chronic disease due to the disaster. If a municipality certifies the cause of death is directly associated to a disaster, a condolence grant is paid to the victim's family. If the person was a breadwinner, 5 million yen (US$65,625) is paid.

I do wonder how many of those people would have died during the relevant time span independent of the disaster. I imagine these panels would certify a death anytime a good case can be made that Fukushima was a major stressor - I certainly would were I charged with making the determinations. But as a measure of the actual harm done, the number of certifications probably overestimates the short term impact.

On the other side, some people, especially those permanently relocated, seem likely to suffer in a long-term way that can't, in individual cases, be traced so directly to the event. In a way, then, one can regard an estimate based on the certifications as a lower-limit in the long run.

I'm also curious where the compensation money is coming from. Also, is there anything similar happening for the far greater number of people affected by the tsunami who do not live near Fukushima?

[kristopher]

3. Considering the impediment the meltdowns presented to relief efforts...

I think it is safe to say that this effort presents us with a very low baseline for nuclear-crisis related mortality. Compared to the response to previous large disasters in Japan like the Kobe quake in 1995, there was effectively no help provided in the Tohoku region during the critical early days post disaster.

[Dead_Parrot]

5. You're seriously comparing a mag 9 to mag 6.8?

No, never mind. Stupid question.

[kristopher]

22. It is entirely reasonable to look at the response to both events.

Are you making the absurd assertion that the prolonged efforts to deal with the multiple Fukushima nuclear plant meltdowns did NOT negatively impact disaster relief and response to the region?

[FBaggins]

23. Are you making the absurd assertion...

...that "negatively impacted" and "effectively no help" are the same thing?

[Dead_Parrot]

27. Entirely reasonable, kris.

The fact that one of them was 2,000 times bigger and came with a tsumani that hit people 6 miles inland makes them perfect to compare. You carry on, I'm all ears.

[kristopher]

28. You are allergic to anything that reflects negatively on nuclear, aren't you?

The force of the earthquake and the accompanying tsunami did nothing to stop people from providing relief, but the ongoing nuclear meltdowns kept people out of the region when their efforts were most essential.

And it could have been worse. If the earthquake had happened 24 hours later the 4200 temporary workers that were on site at Fukushima #1 would have been gone for the weekend, meaning the emergency seawater cooling measures that depended on that labor would not have possible.

A chance wind that blew most of the fallout out to sea instead of towards the Kanto Plains and a fortuitous accident of timing are all that prevented the disaster from being much worse.

[Dead_Parrot]

30. No, I'm allergic to people with no sense of scale. nt

[FBaggins]

4. "Disaster related" and "nuclear crisis related" aren't the same thing.

I'm sure you probably just forgot... but there was another, much larger, crisis going on at the same time.

[PamW]

7. Not radiation related

Regardless of who certifies what; radiation can NOT be the cause of any deaths due to Fukushima at present.

Radiation takes YEARS before its effects are seen.

So even if you believe that Fukushima will cause deaths due to radiation; you won't see them now less than one year after the event.

PamW

[caraher]

10. No, this is incorrect

Radiation exposure kills people by the total measurement of radiation, not the time. If you get 8 sieverts in 5 minutes you're going to die. If you get 8 sieverts in one year you're going to die.

There are two very distinct ways that radiation kills, and they have very different timescales. If you're exposed to intense radiation over a short period of time, you can get acute radiation sickness, basically caused by cell death. The worst exposures at Fukushima (unlike Chernobyl) did result in local burns, but nothing reported was remotely high enough to cause whole-body acute radiation sickness. Yes, an 8 Sv dose over the course of several hours is pretty certain to kill anyone.

But if that 8 Sv is spread out over, say, a year, the picture is very different. Large-scale cell death does not occur, and cells do have repair mechanisms. The problem with the long term exposure is mainly cancer risk - surviving cells turning malignant - and the process is random. Every radiation-induced ionization is like a roll of a die and carried a small chance of inducing cancer. For the general population assuming the linear hypothesis, an exposure of the order 1000 person-rem of exposure results in a fatal cancer - that's 10 person-Sv. Leaving aside the controversy over exactly what happens at very low dose rates, in one way this is closer to what you were saying in that looking at lifetime cancer risk, in that we don't really need to know the exact time course of the exposure to get a rough estimate of risk. But on the other hand, it's far from deterministic; some people might receive 10 Sv and not get cancer, some people might receive a dose 1/1000 that level and die. (There are substantial uncertainties in the exact risk - note the uncertainties reported in the table), but the order of magnitude is well-established.)

8 Sv over, say, a year is going to jack up the odds of cancer substantially, but it's not an automatic death sentence. And it will take years for cancer victims to develop symptoms, so at this stage no current cancer cases can reasonably be attributed to Fukushima exposure. That's something we'll see down the road, beginning with the fastest-developing tumors. This will happen to at least some people, even though it's essentially certain (barring some truly stupendous screwup) that no individuals will receive 8 Sv from Fukushima radiation.

None of which is germane to the simple fact that the deaths discussed in the OP are explicitly not directly caused by radiation itself, but by the disruption associated with actions taken to reduce radiation exposure. That doesn't mean they aren't part of the calculus of estimating the risks of nuclear energy - plainly they should be. But it's worth knowing that it DOES matter, very much, over what span of time a given radiation dose is absorbed - you can die of cancer from a dose much smaller than one that would kill you in a brief exposure, and you can also survive unharmed a long-term dose well in excess of one that would, if delivered over a few hours, certainly result in death. For this disaster, the relevant kind of exposure is far, far, less than 8 Sv to any individual, but that isn't the right way to think about it - the problem is that far smaller exposures will kill some small percentage of those exposed, but we're exposing millions of people so those small numbers add up to a serious concern.

[PamW]

17. Dose and half-lives.

For one thing, cesium 137 and strontium 90, two of the most common forms of radiation found, have a 30 year half life. If you're getting exposed over a year, the internal exposure isn't lessening a lot in a year. It's culmulative exposure, in that short a time it's not really dissipating much.
============================================================

This is where you are really showing your misunderstanding of radiation exposure. When someone quotes the "dose" in Sieverts for an internal exposure to a radionuclide, that is the total dose due to the radionuclide over the time it takes to decay. If the radionuclide is I-131 with an 8-day half-life, the time it takes the I-131 to "totally" decay ( it's really an exponential ) is usually taken to be about 20 half-lives or in the case of I-131, about 160 days.

When the dose is due to Cesium-137 or Stontium-90; which have half-lives of 30 years and 29 years, respectively, the total dose is delivered over a MUCH longer time, and hence the current dose rate is thereby REDUCED for the long lived isotope as opposed to the same total dose with a short lived isotope.

As pointed out, with the reduced instantaneous dose rate due to the longer lived radioisotope, there is a better chance for the body's own radiation-induced DNA damage repair mechanisms to work. That's why people who spend a lot of time flying or living at high altitudes such as Denver don't have a higher cancer rate in spite of the increased exposure.

PamW

[PamW]

16. Reading comprehension problem

Evidently you are misinterpreting the "time" that I'm talking about. The time to which I'm referring is not the time of exposure to the radiation. I'm referring to the time between exposure and the onset of somatic effects.

As another poster points out; there are TWO ways that radiation can kill. One way is due to very intense radiation as victims of nuclear weapons encounter, as in Hiroshima. There the intensity of the radiation is so acute that it can interfere with the nervous system, and also kills off the bacteria in our digestive systems that we need. Victims of such intense radiation exposure show somatic signs very quickly, and die in short order. The Fukushima accident didn't expose people to radiation levels high enough to cause these acute effects.

The second mechanism by which radiation can kill is by damaging DNA and creating cancers. If there are any deaths due to Fukushima, it will be by this second method, damaged DNA leading to a cancer. However, this second mechanism is SLOWER than the first. You don't get the radiation exposure on Monday, develop the cancer on Wednesday, and die on Friday. The course of this mechanism is slow.

The slowness of this second mechanism is such that it would not have had enough time to kill anyone yet. This second mechanism takes YEARS to run its course, not months.

Therefore, even if you expect to see deaths from Fukushima, it is TOO SOON to have any actual casualties.

PamW

[Dead_Parrot]

9. "Radiation takes YEARS before its effects are seen."

Last edited Sun Feb 5, 2012, 12:18 PM - Edit history (1)

Except, of course, when it doesn't.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_Kelley_criticality_accident

[caraher]

11. That link didn't work for me

But based on the terms "criticality accident" this was obviously a case of a prompt exposure (seconds), which has a very different hazard profile from the long-term (days, weeks, months, years) low-level exposure the Japanese population faces. In Japan the worry is cancer death, not acute effects of exposure (except for the radiation burns some cleanup workers received), and that does take years to develop. Acute radiation poisoning, by contrast, does happen on a shorter timescale.

This does remind me that in another thread I was accused of having a naive understanding of the concept of critical mass while being told that a solid sphere of up to 32 kg of plutonium was perfectly safe. That would be a hard sell to the friends, families and colleagues of Louis Slotin, working with a 6.2 kg sample of plutonium.

[Dead_Parrot]

13. fixed: a spurious '.'

...but Kelley, like Slotin, was a Los Alamos worker. Whilst it's probably a safe bet that nobody at Fukushima grabbed a face full of neutrons à la Slotin and Kelley, "Radiation takes years before its effects are seen." is the sort of sweeping inaccuracy that makes me itch.

Not familiar with the criticality thread, but anyone claiming x amount of material is safe without consideration of other factors is the one being naive.

[PamW]

20. ACTUALLY...

Not familiar with the criticality thread, but anyone claiming x amount of material is safe without consideration of other factors is the one being naive.
====================================

Actually it is the reverse of what you are saying above.

Anyone that is claiming that X amount of material is dangerous without considering other factors
is the one being naive.

Criticality and whether you get a prompt burst of neutrons is more complex than just how much material one has.

I think you would agree with me; multiple factors need to be taken into account. It's not just the mass of material, but the isotopic mix of materials. Isotopes of the same element have different nuclear properties which either contribute or inhibit a nuclear chain reaction. One also has to be aware of the geometry. A mass of material that is critical in one geometry will be sub-critical in another geometry. In fact, that's how some nuclear weapons work. The device has to be sub-critical before it is used, but has to be critical at the moment of detonation. Some nuclear weapons alter the geometry of the material to take it from a sub-critical geometry into one that is super-prompt-critical.

One has to take into account the temperature. Nuclear absorption and fission resonances in the cross-sections of the materials are temperature dependent due to the effect of "Doppler broadening" of resonances in the cross section.

Finally, a critical assembly has to have a source of neutrons to amplify. Without a source of neutrons, a critical assembly is like an amplifier cranked to "11", but without a source component plugged into the amp's input. The amplifier is ready to amplify; but if there's no input, there is nothing to amplify.

PamW

[Dead_Parrot]

21. So you can tell me if it's safe, but not if it's unsafe?

mad logic skillz, bro.

[PamW]

18. But you were WRONG in that discussion!

This does remind me that in another thread I was accused of having a naive understanding of the concept of critical mass while being told that a solid sphere of up to 32 kg of plutonium was perfectly safe. That would be a hard sell to the friends, families and colleagues of Louis Slotin, working with a 6.2 kg sample of plutonium.
======================

You were accused of being WRONG - because you flat out WERE WRONG!!!

Whether you have a critical assembly or not is MUCH more than how much mass you have.

You have to take into account the isotopic mix of materials in the assembly because differing nuclides have differing properties when it comes to contributing to criticality or inhibiting criticality. You also have to take into account the density of material. You also have to take into account the temperature, because the nuclear properties of absorption and fission resonances are temperature dependent.

Finally, there has to be a source of neutrons that the assembly can multiply. If you don't have a source of neutrons, you don't have a problem even if you have a multiplying medium. It's like having your stereo amplifier cranked up to "11", but no source component is connect to the amp's input. You are not going to blow out your ears with a amplifier that doesn't have an input, even if the amp is cranked to "11".

The Slotin case is very different that what we were discussing before. Slotin was experimenting with an actual nuclear bomb core. He had "weapons grade" material that was over 90% fissile, vs the 7% fissile MOX that we were discussing. He was dealing with an actual weapons geometry. Additionally, Slotin had a neutron source present because his whole experiment was measuring the "sub-critical multiplication" of the source neutrons by the assembly in an experiment called "Tickling the Dragon's Tail". Very different circumstances relative to those postulated in our previous discussion.

Just face it; you are NOT professionally trained in the field of neutronics and nuclear criticality; whereas I am.

PamW

[caraher]

40. Yes, I know all the technical details

In the previous discussion, all those things were stipulated: isotopically pure Pu-239 in a solid spherical geometry, neutrons generated by the sample itself. Room temperature implicit in the way you phrased the situation. Apply your professional training in "neutronics and nuclear criticality" to that case. You can compare notes to results reported by people you will no doubt next denounce as "science-ignorant, antinukes" at Westinghouse, NRC and Purdue University. In a paper on critical mass estimates for Pu-238, they list results of several calculations for Pu-239 bare metal (no neutron reflectors) critical mass (see Table 1). They don't get a figure much more than 10 kg in any of their calculations for Pu-239.

Given that this is the internet, I'll thank you not to make declarations regarding my own training in contrast to yours when neither of us can do much more than take the other's word for it. I know what my training is and its limits, and freely admit that I am not "professionally trained in the field of neutronics and nuclear criticality" (and have never trained to be). I've even refrained from claiming that you are not. I have, however, pointed out mistakes on your part - many of which my Physics and Society students could correct - and will continue to do so as they arise.

[FBaggins]

41. Hmmm... how many neutrons does a pure sample of Pu-239 create?

10Bq/kg?

[PamW]

43. CORRECT!!

I was just about to post to point that out to caraher.

As I've stated before, a critical assembly is akin to a stereo amplifier cranked to "11". Even though the amplifier is cranked up, if there is no input into the amp's input; there's no sound. A critical assembly needs a source to start it off.

One of the types of source can be the material itself, IF it spontaneously fissions. Plutonium-240 and Plutonium-242 have fairly hefty spontaneous fission rates, and can be responsible for pre-detonantion FIZZLES of nuclear weapons.

However, caraher specified we have isotopically pure Pu-239, the spontaneous fission rate is low. The figure of 10 Bq/kg is correct.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium-239

Pure Pu-239 also has a reasonably low rate of neutron emission due to spontaneous fission (10 fission/s-kg), making it feasible to assemble a mass that is highly supercritical before a detonation chain reaction begins.

That's why they have to put a device called an "initiator" in a nuclear weapon to get it started.

PamW

[PamW]

42. WRONG WRONG WRONG!!!

I have, however, pointed out mistakes on your part - many of which my Physics and Society students could correct - and will continue to do so as they arise.
=======================

Any "mistakes" that you "think" you've pointed out in the Physics are merely DELUSIONS on your part.

From what you say, I can tell that you are NOT trained in Physics, and in spite of what you've read; you evidently DO NOT UNDERSTAND IT due to the lack of training / study of Physics.

Your whole "understanding" of "critical mass" is WRONG. You evidently "think" that all it takes to determine whether something is critical or not is the mass. THAT IS WRONG!!.

Think about a nuclear weapon. Before it is used, it has to be sub-critical. You don't want the thing blowing up in your storage depot, so it has to be sub-critical and not generating energy. However, at the moment of detonation, it has to be critical - actually super-prompt-critical.

However, did the mass change? NO!! It is the SAME MASS; and one instant it is sub-critical, and in another instant it is critical.

The MANIFEST ERROR that you have to get out of your head is that criticality is determined only by mass. It is NOT!!

I pointed out other factors from geometry, to temperature.....that all go into the determination of criticality.

I know that it is the popular fiction that "critical mass" is what determines "criticality" but that is WRONG!!

A nuclear weapon can have a "critical mass" in it - but that does NOT mean it is critical as I point out above.

"Critical mass" and being "critical" are two separate concepts that you've confused into one.

PamW

[waddirum]

12. simply incorrect

Radiation can have both ACUTE and CHRONIC effects. Scientists have known about both effects of radiation, ever since Madame Currie cooked herself with her experiments.

Your statement: "radiation can NOT be the cause of any deaths due to Fukushima at present" has absolutely no basis. You are not God and cannot say with any certainty what the effects of this accident are or the timeline of expected symptoms. Your "one year" declaration also has no basis?

[PamW]

19. More misunderstanding

You misunderstand. There may be people who have been exposed that are doomed.

But even though they may be doomed; they aren't dying right now, and shouldn't be dying right now.

The type of radiation effects that Fukushima could produce won't have fast acting consequences.

It will take a long time before we see any dead bodies that could be attributed to radiation exposure.

It's not a question of whether or not they are exposed; but how long before they succumb to the radiation exposure. The radiation exposures due to Fukushima were not large enough to be fast acting.

PamW

[kristopher]

24. In post 16 you challenge another DUer's reading comprehension

Perhaps you should worry as much about your own.

The OP is not focused on mortality brought on by exposure to radiation, it is about the local deaths that have been officially determined to be attributable to the other manifestations of the multiple meltdowns.

[AtheistCrusader]

25. I would disagree with that.

If people died because search and rescue was constrained due to the radiation, one could fairly attribute that to the plant, just as one could any industrial accident that prevented access to an area following an earthquake. (Like a large ammonia or phosgene release)

If it prevents access, it is at least partially responsible for the deaths. That's not an unfair way to calculate it.

But to say the people who died in the plant itself, crushed by equipment is a 'nuclear-related death' would be stretching credibility.

[FBaggins]

26. This isn't even that.

If you're an old man and get evacuated from your home to live in a school 50 miles away (obviously a stressful situation) and die two months later... your family might claim that the stress from the situation is what really did you in.

No way to prove one way or the other in most cases. It's really just an example of compassion on the part of the government (which is what those funds are for anyway). No doubt survivors of the flood who die in a relief center scores of miles from home also get the same respect. It's a perfectly reasonable response on the part of the government.

What isn't reasonable is a dishonest attempt to "score" those deaths as caused by failed reactors. So far nobody appears to have died (or even been seriously impacted) by radiation released from the accident... and some of the "100,000-400,000 will die!" nuts are really getting desperate.

[kristopher]

29. The classification in the OP is clear and accurate

"nuclear-crisis-related"

[AtheistCrusader]

32. Not really.

Slightly better if you read the entire article, but even that isn't completely clear.

[kristopher]

34. Yes, really.

It is only unclear to nuclear proponents who are being deliberately obtuse.

[AtheistCrusader]

35. I think it would be highly interesting to conduct an 'exit poll' on non-involved parties reading the

op.

I suspect the common impression would not be what you are attempting to downplay now.

[kristopher]

36. And I suspect...

you are yet again mindlessly defending the indefensible.

[AtheistCrusader]

37. I actually specifically supported your claim upthread.

And likened it to other industrial accidents that prevented access to injured people from other causes, thereby making the accident responsible for those casualties.

It IS a valid concept, and you are right to share it.

[FBaggins]

38. Maybe that's what he meant...

...by defending the indefensible?

[Dead_Parrot]

39. ...

[Dead_Parrot]

33. Interesting choice of words

Is that "clear and accurate" as in 'that's what the official designation is', or is that "clear and accurate" as in 'that's what I think it should be'?

[DCKit]

31. K&R in honor of the usual suspects. nt