NUCLEAR CATASTROPHE IN JAPAN

THE DISASTER
The Fukushima nuclear accidents are a series of ongoing equipment failures and releases of
radioactive materials at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, following the 9.0
magnitude Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami on 11 March 2011. The plant comprises six
separate boiling water reactors maintained by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO).
Experts consider it to be the second largest nuclear accident after the Chernobyl disaster, but
more complex as all reactors are involved

At the time of the quake, reactor 4 had been de-fueled while 5 and 6 were in cold shutdown for planned
maintenance. The remaining reactors shut down automatically after the earthquake, and emergency
generators started up to run the control electronics and water pumps needed to cool them. The plant
was protected by a seawall designed to withstand a 5.7 metres (19 ft) tsunami, but not the 14-metre
(46 ft) wave which arrived 15 minutes after the earthquake. The entire plant was flooded; including low-
lying generators and electrical switchgear in reactor basements, and its connection to the electrical grid
was broken. All power for cooling was lost and reactors started to  overheat, despite shutdown, due to
natural decay of the fission products created before shutdown. The flooding and earthquake damage
hindered external assistance.

Evidence soon arose of partial core meltdown in reactors 1, 2, and 3; hydrogen explosions destroyed the
upper cladding of the buildings housing reactors 1, 3, and 4; an explosion damaged the containment
inside reactor 2; and multiple fires broke out at reactor 4. In addition,  spent fuel rods stored in spent
fuel pools of units 1–4 began to overheat as water levels in the pools dropped. Fears of radiation leaks
led to a 20-kilometre (12 mi) radius evacuation around the plant while workers suffered radiation
exposure and were temporarily evacuated at various times. One generator at unit 6 was restarted on 17
March allowing some cooling at units 5 and 6 which were least damaged. Grid power was restored to
parts of the plant from 20 March, but machinery for reactors 1–4 damaged by floods, fires and
explosions remained inoperable. Japanese officials initially assessed the accident as level 4 on
the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES) despite the views of other international agencies that it
should be higher. The INES level was raised successively to 5 and then the maximum 7

Measurements taken by the Japanese science ministry and  education ministry in areas of northern
Japan 30–50 km from the plant showed radioactive caesium levels high enough to cause concern. Food
grown in the area was banned from sale. It was suggested that worldwide measurements of  iodine-
131 and caesium-137 indicate that the releases from Fukushima are of the same order of magnitude as
the releases of those isotopes from the  Chernobyl disaster in 1986. Tokyo officials temporarily
recommended that tap water should not be used to prepare food for infants.  Plutonium contamination
has been detected in the soil at two sites in the plant.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced on 27 March that workers hospitalized as a
precaution on 25 March had been exposed to between 2000 and 6000  mSv of radiation at their ankles
when standing in water in unit 3.  The international reaction to the accidents was also concerned. The
Japanese government and TEPCO have been criticized for poor communication with the public  and
improvised cleanup efforts. Experts have said that a workforce in the hundreds or even thousands would
take years or decades to clean up the area.  On 20 March, the Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio
Edano announced that the plant would be decommissioned once the crisis was over.

ABOUT THE FUKUSHIMA I NUCLEAR POWER PLANT

The Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant consists of six  light water, boiling water reactors (BWR) designed
by General Electric driving electrical generators with a combined power of 4.7 gigawatts, making
Fukushima I one of the 25 largest nuclear power stations in the world. Fukushima I was the first nuclear
plant to be constructed and run entirely by the  Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO).

Unit 1 is a 439 MWe type (BWR3) reactor constructed in July 1967. It commenced commercial electrical
production on 26 March 1971. It was designed for a peak ground acceleration of 0.18 g (1.74 m/s2) and
a response spectrum based on the 1952 Kern County earthquake. Units 2 and 3 are both 784 MWe type
BWR-4 reactors, unit 2 commenced operating in July 1974 and unit 3 in March 1976. The design basis for
all units ranged from 0.42 g (4.12 m/s2) to 0.46 g (4.52 m/s2). All units were inspected after the 1978
Miyagi earthquake when the ground acceleration was 0.125 g (1.22 m/s2) for 30 seconds, but no
damage to the critical parts of the reactor was discovered.

Units 1–5 have a Mark 1 type (light bulb torus) containment structure; unit 6 has Mark 2 type
(over/under) containment structure.  From September 2010, unit 3 has been fueled by  mixed-oxide
(MOX) fuel. At the time of the accident, the units and central storage facility contained the following
numbers of fuel assemblies

Unit Unit Unit Unit

Location Unit 2 Unit 6 Central Storage
1 3 4 5

Reactor Fuel
400 548 548 0 548 764 0
Assemblies

Spent Fuel Assemblies 292 587 514 1331 946 876 6375

New Fuel Assemblies[33] 100 28 52 204 48 64 n/a

COOLING EQUIREMENTS
Cooling is needed to remove decay heat from the reactor core even when a plant has been shut
down. Nuclear fuel releases a small quantity of heat under all conditions, but the chain reaction
when a reactor is operating creates short lived fission products which continue to release heat
despite shutdown. Immediately after shutdown, this decay heat amounts to approximately 6% of
full thermal heat production of the reactor. The decay heat in the reactor core decreases over
several days before reaching cold shutdown levels. Nuclear fuel rods that have reached cold
shutdown temperatures typically require another several years of water cooling in a spent fuel
pool before decay heat production reduces to the point that they can be safely transferred to dry
storage casks.

In order to safely remove this decay heat, reactor operators must continue to circulate cooling
water over fuel rods in the reactor core and spent fuel pond. In the reactor core, circulation is
accomplished by use of high pressure systems that pump water through the reactor pressure
vessel and into heat exchangers. These systems transfer heat to a secondary heat exchanger
via the essential service water system, taking away the heat which is pumped out to the sea or
site cooling towers.

To ensure that cooling water can continue to be circulated, reactors typically have redundant
electrical supplies to operate pumps when the reactor is shut down, including electric
generators, electrical supplies from the grid, and batteries. In addition, boiling water
reactors have steam-turbine driven emergency core cooling systems that can be directly
operated by steam still being produced after a reactor shutdown, which can inject water directly
into the reactor. Steam turbines results in less dependence on emergency generators, but
steam turbines only operate so long as the reactor is producing steam, and some electrical
power is still needed to operate the valves and monitoring systems.

If the water in the unit 4 spent fuel pool had been heated to boiling temperature, the decay heat
has the capacity to boil off about 70 tonnes of water per day (12 gallons per minute), which puts
the requirement for cooling water in context. On 16 April 2011, TEPCO declared that reactors 1-
4's cooling systems were beyond repair and would have to be replaced.

WHAT EXACTLY HAPPENED? A Day-to-Day account.

Crisis Timeline
April 20 The government is considering establishing a “caution zone” around the
Fukushima Daiichi power plant with a radius of 12 miles, one that would be legally
enforceable, in contrast with the current evacuation, which is technically voluntary.

April 19 In a sign of the difficulties facing engineers trying to stabilize the Fukushima
Daiichi nuclear reactors, a pair of robots sent to explore inside their buildings came back
with disheartening news: Radiation levels are far too high for repair crews to go inside.
Technicians began the difficult task of pumping highly radioactive water out of the
basement of a turbine building at a damaged nuclear power plant in Japan, but officials
cautioned that the work would be slow and difficult.

April 18 The Tokyo Electric Power Company laid out an ambitious plan for bringing the
reactors at its hobbled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into a stable state known as
cold shutdown within the next nine months and for trying to reduce the levels of
radioactive materials being released in the meantime.

April 15 The leader of Japan’s largest opposition party called for Prime Minister Naoto
Kan to resign, abruptly ending an uneasy political truce forged after the devastating
earthquake and tsunami.

April 12 Japan has raised its assessment of the accident at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi
nuclear power plant from 5 to 7, the worst rating on an international scale, putting the
disaster on par with the 1986 Chernobyl explosion, in an acknowledgement that the human
and environmental consequences of the nuclear crisis could be dire and long-lasting. While
the amount of radioactive materials released so far from Fukushima Daiichi so far has
equaled about 10 percent of that released at Chernobyl, officials said that the radiation
release from Fukushima could, in time, surpass levels seen in 1986.

April 11 A strong aftershock off Japan’s Pacific coast briefly set off a tsunami warning and
knocked out cooling at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant for almost an
hour, underscoring the vulnerability of the plant’s reactors to continuing seismic activity
along the coast a month after the devastating March 11 earthquake and tsunami. Before the
shock, the Japanese government had said that it was preparing to expand the evacuation
zone around the nuclear facility to address concerns over long-term exposure to radiation

April 8 More than 900,000 households remained without electricity after the strongest

aftershock to hit since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan rocked a wide
section of the country’s northeast. Two deaths were reported, as authorities warned of
more aftershocks to come.

April 7 The police mounted a search for the 4,200 people listed as missing in the
evacuation zone around the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant as a powerful
aftershock struck off the east coast, with a preliminary magnitude of 7.4. There were
tsunami warnings, but no large waves were expected.
April 6 The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission said that some of the core of a
stricken Japanese reactor had probably leaked from its steel pressure vessel into the
bottom of the containment structure, implying that the damage was even worse than
previously thought. The operator of the disabled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant 
was preparing to inject nitrogen into a reactor containment vessel there as it continued to
try to bring the plant under control. The move was aimed at preventing the possibility of
stored-up hydrogen from exploding at the plant’s No. 1 reactor.

April 5 United States government engineers sent to help with the crisis in Japan
are warning that the troubled nuclear plant there is facing a wide array of fresh threats that
could persist indefinitely, and that in some cases are expected to increase as a result of the
very measures being taken to keep the plant stable, according to a confidential assessment
prepared by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

April 4 Power company officials said they would release almost 11,500 tons of
water contaminated with low levels of radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant
into the Pacific Ocean. The water is being dumped to make room in storage tanks for more
highly radioactive water from Reactor Number 2. Workers meanwhile resorted to
desperate measures — including using sawdust and shredded newspaper — in an effort to
stem a direct leak of an estimated seven tons an hour of radioactive water escaping from a
pit near the reactor.

April 3 Four years ago, officials in the sleepy town of Futuba lobbied for an expansion of
the nearby Fukushima nuclear plant. Now town officials are consumed with the evacuation
of Futaba’s 6,900 residents, shepherding a group of about 1,300 people from one makeshift
sleeping place to the next. It is a tragic tale of an entire community evacuated in the wake of
the world’s largest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

April 1 In the largest rescue mission ever carried out in Japan, 18,000 Japanese and 7,000
American personnel will scour a vast coastal area for 16,000 still listed as missing. Workers
made incremental progress at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant,
but disturbingly high radiation readings there as well as miles away continued to reinforce
fears that Japan’s crisis was far from over.

March 31 A long-lasting radioactive element, cesium 137, has been measured at levels that
pose a long-term danger at one spot 25 miles from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear
power plant, raising questions about whether Japan’s evacuation zone should be expanded
and whether the land might need to be abandoned. Emails, blog posts and interviews give a
glimpse into the struggle carried on by the largely anonymous workers trying to prevent
the world’s second-worst nuclear calamity from becoming even more dire, painting a
picture of mixed panic, heroism and frustration. Tests of milk samples taken last week in
Spokane, Wash., indicate the presence of radioactive iodine from the troubled Fukushima
Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan, but at levels far below those at which action would have to
be taken, the Environmental Protection Agency said.
March 30 The recent flow of bad news from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power
Station has undermined the drumbeat of optimistic statements by government and
company officials who have at times tried to reassure a nervous public that significant
progress is at hand — only to come up short. A deluge of contaminated water, plutonium
traces in the soil and an increasingly hazardous environment for workers at the plant have
forced government officials to confront the reality that the emergency measures they have
taken to keep nuclear fuel cool are producing increasingly dangerous side effects. And the
prospect of restoring automatic cooling systems anytime soon is fading.

March 29 Workers at Japan’s crippled nuclear plant piled up sandbags and readied
emergency storage tanks to stop a fresh leak of highly contaminated water from reaching
the ocean, opening up another front in the battle to contain the world’s worst nuclear
accident in decades. The Japanese government said the discovery of plutonium in the soil
near the plant provided new evidence that the fuel in at least one of the plant’s reactors had
experienced a partial meltdown. A full meltdown of the fuel rods could release huge
amounts of radiation into the environment.

March 28 Highly contaminated water  is escaping a damaged reactor at the crippled

nuclear power plant and could soon leak into the ocean, the country’s nuclear regulator
warned. The discovery raises the danger of further radiation leaks at the Fukushima Daiichi
Nuclear Power Station and is a further setback to efforts to contain the nuclear crisis as
workers find themselves in increasingly hazardous conditions.

March 26 In the country that gave the world the word tsunami, the Japanese nuclear
establishment largely disregarded the potentially destructive force of the walls of
water. The word did not even appear in government guidelines until 2006, decades after
plants — including the Fukushima Daiichi facility that firefighters are still struggling to get
under control — began dotting the Japanese coastline. As a result, protections were based
on outdated science.

March 25 Japanese officials began quietly encouraging people to evacuate a larger swath of
territory around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, a sign that they hold little hope that
the crippled facility will soon be brought under control. The authorities said they would
now assist people who want to leave the area from 12 to 19 miles outside the crippled
plant and said they were now encouraging “voluntary evacuation” from the area. Those
people had been advised on March 15 to remain indoors, while those within a 12-mile
radius of the plant had been ordered to evacuate. The effort to contain the crisis at the plant
suffered a setback when unexpected radiation injuries to workers suggested that the
reactor vessel of the No. 3 unit may have been breached. That could release radiation from
the mox fuel in the reactor — a combination of uranium and plutonium that is more toxic
than the fuel in the other reactors.

March 24 The Japanese authorities are considering a plan to import bottled water from
overseas after spreading contamination from a crippled nuclear plant led to a panicked
rush to buy water in Tokyo. At the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, nuclear
engineers say some of the most difficult and dangerous tasks are still ahead — and time is
not necessarily on the side of the repair teams.

March 23 Radioactive iodine detected in Tokyo’s water supply spurred a warning for
infants and the government issued a stark new estimate about the costs of rebuilding from
the earthquake and tsunami. The water announcement added to the growing anxiety about
public safety posed by the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. 

March 22 Workers at Japan’s ravaged nuclear power plant renewed a bid to bring its
command centers back online and restore electricity to vital cooling systems but an
overheating spent fuel pool hampered efforts and raised the threat of further radiation
leaks. Workers have now connected power cables to all six reactors at the plant though
some of the machinery, including the water pumps that cool the reactors, might be
damaged, officials said, requiring more repair work.  It was revealed that just a month
before a powerful earthquake and tsunami crippled the Fukushima Daiichi plant at the
center of Japan’s nuclear crisis, government regulators approved a 10-year extension for
the oldest of the six reactors at the power station despite warnings about its safety. Several
weeks after the extension was granted, the company admitted that it had failed to
inspect 33 pieces of equipment related to the cooling systems, including water pumps and
diesel generators, at the power station’s six reactors.

March 21 Efforts to stabilize the hobbled nuclear power plant in Fukushima hit a

snag when engineers found that crucial machinery at one reactor requires repair, a process
that will take two to three days, government officials said. Another team of workers trying
to repair another reactor was evacuated in the afternoon after gray smoke rose from
Reactor No. 3. In the wake of Japan’s cascading disasters, signs of economic loss can be
found in many corners of the globe, raising questions about the effect on the still-weak
economic recovery in the United States, Europe and Japan.

March 20

It has become clear that the earthquake and the resulting nuclear crisis, will change this
nation. The open question is how, and how much. Will it be a final marker of an irreversible
decline? Or will it be an opportunity to draw on the resilience of a people repeatedly tested
by calamity to reshape Japan — in the mold of either the left or the right? This disaster, like
the 1923 Tokyo earthquake and the 1995 Kobe earthquake, could well signal a new era.

March 19

A week after an earthquake and tsunami devastated their communities and set off the
worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, the plight of the thousands still stranded in areas
near the stricken reactors — many too old or infirm to move — has underscored what
residents say is a striking lack of help from the national government to assist with the
evacuation of danger zones or the ferrying of supplies to those it has urged to stay inside.

March 18
Japanese engineers battled to cool spent fuel rods and restore electric power to pumps at
the stricken Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station as new challenges seemed to
accumulate by the hour, with steam billowing from one reactor and damage at another
apparently making it difficult to lower temperatures. The steam, probably carrying
radioactive particles, was also seen on Friday rising from Reactor No. 2., which was hit by
an explosion on March 15. Additionally, a senior Western nuclear industry executive said
that there also appeared to be damage to the floor or sides of the spent fuel pool at Reactor
No. 4, and that this was making it extremely hard to refill the pool with water.

The region around the nuclear reactor has seen a swelling exodus — almost 10,000
residents, according to the national broadcaster NHK — of residents who have been
spurred to leave by a spreading panic caused in part by distrust that the government is
telling the full truth about the nuclear accidents and how widespread the danger is. Also,
the United States and other major industrial nations will join Japan in a highly unusual
effort to stabilize the value of the yen by intervening in currency markets, the Group of
7 nations announced.

March 17

Authorities reached for ever more desperate and unconventional methods to cool stricken
reactors, deploying helicopters and water cannons in a race to prevent perilous
overheating, but were hampered by high radiation levels. The Japanese decision to focus
their efforts on the No. 3 reactor appeared to suggest that officials believe it is a greater
threat, since it is the only one at the site loaded with a mixed fuel known as mox, for mixed
oxide, which includes reclaimed plutonium, which could produce a more dangerous
radioactive plume if released.

A United Nations forecast of the possible movement of the radioactive plume coming from
crippled Japanese reactors shows it churning across the Pacific, and touching the Aleutian
Islands  before hitting Southern California late on March 18. Health and nuclear experts
emphasize that radiation in the plume will be diluted as it travels and, at worst, would have
extremely minor health consequences in the United States, even if hints of it are ultimately
detectable.

March 16

Japanese authorities announced that a second reactor unit at the stricken Fukushima
Daiichi plant in northeastern Japan may have ruptured and appeared to be releasing
radioactive steam. The break, at the No. 3 reactor unit, worsened the already perilous
conditions at the plant, following reports that the containment vessel in the No. 2 reactor
had also cracked.

Emperor Akihito, in an unprecedented television address to the nation, said that he was

“deeply worried” about the ongoing nuclear crisis at several stricken reactors and asked for
people to act with compassion “to overcome these difficult times.” The death toll climbed
inexorably. More than 3,600 people were confirmed dead and more than 7,800 remained
unaccounted for by Wednesday afternoon. The authorities say the number of dead is likely
to exceed 10,000. Aftershocks kept people across northern Japan on edge.

March 15

Workers struggled to reassert control over badly damaged nuclear reactors and avert

calamity after the situation at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi plant appeared to verge
towards catastrophe. Radiation levels shot up at the plant after a new explosion and a fire
caused by the overheating of spent fuel rods in a pool at the plant's No. 4 reactor, which
had been shut before the quake.  But by late afternoon, there were signs that workers had,
at least for the moment, contained some of the danger:  The escalated radiation levels of
earlier in the day — possibly from a fire in the No. 4 reactor — stabilized and then declined
towards evening, according to Japanese authorities. But some experts warned that the
pools holding spent fuel rods could continue to pose a great danger.

The National Police Agency said that 2,722 people had died, and many thousands were still
missing. Bodies continued to wash ashore at various spots along the coast after having
been pulled out to sea by the tsunami’s retreat. Some 400,000 people were living in
makeshift shelters or evacuation centers, officials said. Bitterly cold and windy weather
that was pushing into northern Japan was compounding the misery as the region struggled
with shortages of food, fuel and water.

The prospect of a nuclear catastrophe led to heavy selling on global markets, driving the
benchmark index in Tokyo down more than 10 percent, while Frankfurt tumbled over 4
percent in early European trading. And the disaster in Japan has immediately affected the
supply of all sorts of components used in myriad consumer electronics and other products.

Also: For the elderly, the destruction echoed memories of World War II. Germany said it
will temporarily shut down seven German nuclear power plants that began operations
before the end of 1980 as officials begin a three-month safety review of all of the country’s
17 plants.

March 14

An explosion was reported at a second nuclear reactor, as it became clear that radioactive

releases of steam from the two crippled plants could go on for weeks or even months. The
emergency flooding of two stricken reactors with seawater and the resulting steam
releases are a desperate step intended to avoid a much bigger problem: a full meltdown of
the nuclear cores in two reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.

As search-and-rescue teams reached the stricken areas, the death toll continued to climb,
inexorably so, as officials uncovered more bodies. The official toll stood at more than 1,800
confirmed dead and 2,300 missing. Police officials, however, said it was certain that more
than 10,000 had died. Police teams, for example, found about 700 bodies that had washed
ashore on a scenic peninsula in Miyagi Prefecture, close to the epicenter of the quake that
unleashed the tsunami. The bodies washed out as the tsunami retreated. Now they are
washing back in.

A fragile bipartisan consensus on nuclear power’s promise for the United States may have
been dissolved by the crisis at plants in Japan.

The Japanese central bank raced to shield the country’s economy and plunging financial
markets from the impact of the devastating earthquake and tsunami by pumping liquidity
into the financial system and easing monetary policy further through an expansion of asset
purchases.

March 13

Japan faced mounting humanitarian and nuclear emergencies as partial meltdowns

occurred at two crippled plants and cooling problems struck four more reactors. Military
units and civilian search-and-rescue teams continued their grim and grinding work in the
aftermath of the massive quake and tsunami that struck the nation’s northern Pacific coast.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan told a press conference: “I think that the earthquake, tsunami
and the situation at our nuclear reactors makes up the worst crisis in the 65 years since the
war. If the nation works together, we will overcome.” The government ordered 100,000
troops into relief roles in the field — nearly half the country’s active military force and the
largest mobilization in postwar Japan. An American naval strike group led by the nuclear-
powered aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan also arrived off Japan on Sunday to help with
refueling, supply and rescue duties.

March 12

While nuclear experts were grappling with possible meltdowns at two reactors after the
devastating earthquake and ensuing tsunami in northern Japan, the country was
mobilizing a nationwide rescue effort to pluck survivors from collapsed buildings and rush
food and water to hundreds of thousands of people without water, electricity, heat or
telephone service. Entire villages in parts of Japan’s northern Pacific coast have vanished
under a wall of water, and many communities are cut off, leaving the country trying to
absorb the scale of the destruction even as fears grew over the unfolding nuclear
emergency. Tens of thousands were evacuated from the vicinity of two plants

March 11

Rescuers struggled to reach survivors as Japan reeled after an earthquake and a tsunami

struck in deadly tandem. The 8.9-magnitude earthquake set off a devastating tsunami that
sent walls of water washing over coastal cities in the north. Concerns mounted over
possible radiation leaks from two nuclear plants near the earthquake zone. The death toll
from the tsunami and earthquake, the strongest ever recorded in Japan, was in the
hundreds, but Japanese news media quoted government officials as saying that it would
almost certainly rise to more than 1,000. About 200 to 300 bodies were found along the
waterline in Sendai, a port city in northeastern Japan and the closest major city to the
epicenter.

RADIATION LEVEL AND RADIOACTIVE CONTAMINATION

Using Japanese Nuclear Safety Commission numbers, Asahi Shimbun reported that by 24
March the accident might have emitted 30,000 to 110,000 TBq of iodine-131. The highest
reported radiation dose rate outside was 1000 mSv/h on 16 March. On 29 March, at times near
unit 2, radiation monitoring was hampered by a belief that some radiation levels may be higher
than 1000 mSv/h, but that "1,000 millisieverts is the upper limit of their measuring devices." The
maximum permissible dose for Japanese nuclear workers was increased to 250 mSv/year, for
emergency situations after the accidents. TEPCO has been criticized in providing safety
equipment for its workers, including accusations of a lack of monitoring equipment and giving
the most dangerous work to subcontractors.

The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare announced that levels of radioactivity
exceeding legal limits had been detected in milk produced in the Fukushima area and in certain
vegetables in Ibaraki. On 23 March, Tokyo drinking water exceeded the safe level for infants,
prompting the government to distribute bottled water to families with infants. Seawater near the
discharge of the plant elevated levels of iodine-131 were found on 22 March, which had
increased to 3,355 times the legal limit on 29 March. Also concentrations far beyond the legal
limit were measured for caesium-134 and caesium-137 were more than 100 times above the
limit.

RADIATION IN OTHER COUNTRIES

The Fukushima accident has led to "trace" amounts of radiation, including iodine-
131 and caesium-134/137, being observed around the world (New York State, Alaska, Hawaii,
Oregon, California, Montreal, and Austria). A widely cited Austrian Meteorological Service report
estimated the total amount of I-131 radiation released as of 19 March based on extrapolating
data from several days of ideal observation at a handful of worldwide CTBTO radionuclide
measuring facilities (Freiburg, Germany; Stockholm, Sweden; Takasaki, Japan and
Sacramento, USA) during the first 10 days of the accident. The report's estimates of total I-131
emissions based on these worldwide measuring stations ranged from 10 PBq to 700 PBq.  This
estimate was 1% to 40% of the 1760 PBq of I-131 estimated to be release at Chernobyl. This
report may not have been updated, but for comparison, a 12 April NISA report estimated the
total I-131 release (based upon Japanese measurement equipment) at 130 to 150 PBq total
release for the longer period of time. This would be approximately 7% to 9% of the I-131
Chernobyl release. An UC Berkeley professor of nuclear engineering who is measuring
radionuclide detected in California, but not estimating the total release, asserted "that the fallout
poses no significant health threat."  The expert who prepared the Austrian Meteorological
Service report asserted that the "Chernobyl accident emitted much more radioactivity and a
wider diversity of radioactive elements than Fukushima Daiichi has so far, but it was iodine and
caesium that caused most of the health risk – especially outside the immediate area of the
Chernobyl plant."