radiation around Fukushima plant is nearing the level where humans vomit uncontrollably

[Fledermaus]

Experts were frantically trying to cool No3 reactor in a last-ditch attempt to prevent deadly uranium fuel pellets melting. Authorities admitted for the first time that radiation around Fukushima plant is nearing the level where humans vomit uncontrollably, hair can be stripped from the body - and cancer rates soar.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3465322/Tokyo-nuke-cloud-crisis-after-Japan-earthquake.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aE2G-KE93bM&feature=related

Now, dear children, pay attention
I am the voice from the pillow
I have brought you something
I ripped it from my chest
With this heart I have the power
to blackmail the eyelids
I sing until the day awakes
a bright light on the heavens
my heart burns!

They come to you in the night
demons, ghosts, black fairies
they creep out of the cellar shaft
and will look under your bedding
Now, dear children, pay attention
I am the voice from the pillow
I have brought you something
a bright light on the heavens
my heart burns!

They come to you in the night
and steal your small hot tears
they wait until the moon awakes
and put them in my cold veins
Now, dear children, pay attention
I am the voice from the pillow
I sing until the day awakes
a bright light on the heavens
my heart burns!
My heart burns!

[northoftheborder]

1. Ouch. Yikes.

[MichiganVote]

2. What a mess for those people.

[Peace Patriot]

6. "Those people"? Yes, I understand what you're saying but...

There are six nuke plants in trouble in Japan, two of them critical and all with failing cooling systems. This situation could turn Japan into a waste land and could also possibly gravely affect the Pacific Ocean and other Pacific Rim countries, all the way to the west coast of the U.S.

By the way, the failing plant in the worst shape at the moment was sold to the Japan by the U.S.

This is a very dire situation and we are all part of it. I am in sympathy with "those people," too--especially the officials and workers who are desperately trying to contain these meltdowns. I can't imagine the burden they must feel--and the conditions they are working under must be very difficult as well--exhaustion, stress, worry about family and friends (hundreds of thousands evac'ed from the nuke plant areas, at least ten thousand probably dead from the earthquake/tsunami), so much infrastructure down in Japan (roads, communications, electricity). It must be a living hell for those trying to stave off further disaster. The situation holds the potential of the further disaster being armageddon-like. Very bad situation.

Are you familiar with the movie "K19 the Widowmaker" (with Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson)? --true story of nuke meltdown aboard Russia's flagship nuke sub during the 1960s--a story that couldn't be told until decades later. There were incredible heroes in that situation--a situation that held potential for starting a nuke war with the U.S. But it is tragic and they suffered terribly. This OP makes me think of it--the suffering that nuke power gone awry can cause.

Japan was the best prepared for this--yet the earthquake and tsunami were so big they blew away most of the safety mechanisms in two plants and damaged others. The crew of K19 was totally unprepared--and the ignorance about nuke power was enormous back then--but they end up in the pretty much the same plight, dealing with an extraordinarily lethal substance that humankind cannot really control, no matter how smart we are or how well-prepared.

Anyway, the best scenario, at present, is a humongous "mess," as you say, and will be for decades to come. But the "worst case scenario" has not yet been averted.

We should all be thinking "I am Japanese" today and praying for the courage and strength of the heroes who are looking this potential horror in the face.

[peacetalksforall]

8. How beautiful! "We should all be thinking "I am Japanese" today and praying for the courage and

,,,strength of the heroes who are looking this potential horror in the face."

... plus their stoic composure.

We are learning many varied lessons in these last few months - the Middle East, Wisconsin, Japan.

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[LiberalEsto]

25. I'm so sorry - I hope they are okay

I can't imagine what you must be going through.

:hug:

[Tumbulu]

16. Exactly how I feel- thanks for your post

I am praying non stop for all of us- especially those of us in Japan.

[DeSwiss]

3. K&R

Not good.

http://squall.sfsu.edu/scripts/nhemjetstream_model.html

[TheCowsCameHome]

4. Awful.

Absolutely horrible.

[FourScore]

5. Here is a further explanation of the problem

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x636511

k/r

[jpak]

7. This The Sun - I hope they are wrong

n/t

[Fledermaus]

14. Me too

[WheelWalker]

15. What should I know

about this source? Is the Sun a non-credible fish-wrap?

[NNadir]

9. Bull.

[WheelWalker]

10. Please expand.

I would learn.

[FBaggins]

17. I'll take a shot at it.

I don't know whether the reported level is correct or not, but let's just take that as a given.

There's a difference between activity and exposure... and a further difference between exposure and dose (and we'll just ignore body mass, etc).

If you were standing there, most of the radiation would not result in an equivalent dose, because it doesn't get through your clothing. It has to be absorbed in your body. The end result is a far lower absorbed dose.

Then we re-enter the real world and remember that the only people there right now have been wearing appropriate protective equipment and know the appropriate decon procedures. They aren't going to end up with much of anything at all in that environment. Activity levels would obviously be lower if farther away and the area has been evacuated.

[WheelWalker]

18. Thank you. I wasn't sure what part was the bull. So you're not saying

people could be dosed so that uncontrollable vomiting occurs; just that we haven't had reports of exposures that would predicate uncontrollable vomiting? In any event, it wouldn't be like walking into a room and suddenly getting a gag reflex and puking your guts out, right away, would it? Or is there exposure that might make it nearly instantaneous like that? I'm trying to get a short course on radiation poisoning, I guess. Do you have a reference link I could go to? Thanks again for trying. Blessings.

[FBaggins]

19. I don't have an easy link

In any event, it wouldn't be like walking into a room and suddenly getting a gag reflex and puking your guts out, right away, would it? Or is there exposure that might make it nearly instantaneous like that?

There most certainly is such a thing as an exposure that would essentially make you a dead DUer walking in seconds. I don't know about "gag reflex" quick... I think that you would die first at that level... but you can show significant reaction pretty quickly at very high levels.

[WheelWalker]

20. O.K. Thanks again. I will study up.

Blessings.

[WheelWalker]

21. Is this about what we've been told by Japanese sources....

According to an article in the New York Times, the US aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan, which is sailing in the Pacific, passed through a radioactive cloud from Japan's stricken reactors on Sunday. Crew members received a month's worth of radiation in about an hour, government officials were quoted as saying.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/14/world/asia/14plume.html?_r=1&ref=asia

[FBaggins]

22. Seems reasonable.

Keep in mind that a "month's worth of radiation" sounds like a big deal, but you get that every month (obviously). Have you noticed any ill effect?

You would get about that much on a round-trip flight from Japan to the West Coast... maybe more.

[WheelWalker]

23. It does sound like a lot, especially in 30 minutes; but then, many forget

we're exposed to a ginormous, unshielded fusion reactor every day.

[wtmusic]

26. Depends on what kind of radiation it is.

Cesium-137 is a strong gamma admitter, your clothes do nothing to stop gamma.

The peak level on Saturday was enough to kill you in 15 minutes. If the peak was higher after this explosion the sustained level is going to be very harmful to anyone who isn't shielded, and this assessment isn't too far off the mark.

[jpak]

11. Please enlighten us

:D

[Javaman]

24. Don't hold your breath.

that poster kneels before the god of nuclear power. All other things pale in comparison.

I remember once upon a time he used to call people who were either against nuke power or questioned it: Fundies.

then the mods had a little chat with the poster and has since toned it down...per say. Just using different verbal now.

[DeSwiss]

13. I suppose.....

...you needn't bother with explanations and/or justifications for your opinions to those of us among the http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=278636&mesg_id=278738">"uneducated anti-nuke set", eh?

- Right.

[wtmusic]

27. I suspect levels reported by the media are off by a factor of 1,000.

Saturday's maximum reported level in the media was 1,017 mSv/hr (millisieverts/hour).

Levels just reported by workers at Fukushima were 50μSv/hr (microsieverts/hour), or about 1/20,000 what they were on Saturday.

Not adding up. :shrug:

[FBaggins]

28. Why not 10,000?

If we're just going to make it up as we go along... why not pick a really big number?

I'm not saying that there isn't an historical reason to distrust corporate/government press releases in a time of trouble, but wouldn't that argument support making ANY claim? We could say "I think that they're lying and all of the reactors have melted down and exploded leaving nothing by a crater... they're running tape from prior recordings just to keep people from a panic."

Not adding up

No... it makes sense. One was a level taken very close to a pressure realease (close in both time and distance), or even right after one of the explosions. The other is quite some time later, so the release has had time to spread, and to a small extent decay away (depending on what was in the release). Obviously, the stuff that traveled all the way to a US carrier many miles out to sea is no longer where that maximum reading was recorded.

[wtmusic]

29. The media's grasp of units is about the level of a smart third grader.

I trust Fukushima is not making things up, but I think it's very possible that the media is confusing micro- with milli-.

As far as not adding up, it's anybody's guess. I'm basing mine on the assumptions:

- the measurements were both made at the same place at the plant
- it's someplace reasonably removed from the reactor itself, otherwise measurements would be too variable to be useful

Given those assumptions, a radiation peak of x20 seems far more likely than a peak of x20,000.