- Deaths are rising as evacuees fall victim to lack of medical support in Japan.
- Milk in the Pacific Northwest was found contaminated with miniscule amounts of iodine-131, providing the same radiation exposure as watching television.
A first-aid room of an evacuation center in the coastal city of Minami Sanriku, Miyagi prefecture, Japan. Click to enlarge this image.
DAI KUROKAWA/epa/Corbis
A "minuscule" amount of radiation from iodine-131 was detected in a sample of milk that was tested from the US northwest, US authorities said Wednesday.
"These findings are a minuscule amount compared to what people experience every day. For example, a person would be exposed to low levels of radiation on a round trip cross country flight, watching television, and even from construction materials," said Patricia Hansen, an senior scientist at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
She was referring to results from a cow's milk sample taken March 25 from Spokane, Washington; it found 0.8 pCi/L of iodine-131, "which is more than 5,000 times lower than the Derived Intervention Level set by the US Food and Drug Administration," an FDA statement said.
Meanwhile, many Fukushima refugees evacuated to large facilities, such as the Saitama Super Arena -- an indoor stadium just north of Tokyo, where up to 2,000 people were living at one point -- continue to seek help and medical attention.
Public health professionals have warned of flu outbreaks in the congested shelters -- often little more than school gyms with no heating or running water.
Elevated fears of radiation transfer are also compounding the situation. News reports today tell of hospitals that are turning away hundreds of patients if they do not provide a certificate showing they are free of radiation exposure.
One hospital reportedly turned away an 8-year-old girl despite an obvious skin rash that needed attention. The girl's family had abandoned their home in Minamisoma, which is 18 miles from the nuclear plant.
Such ostracism is being seen as a fear-based reaction similar to what survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki experienced in 1945.
Currently the mandatory evacuation zone around the power plant covers a radius of 12 miles (20 km), and the government has recommended that people living within 19 miles (30 km) also leave.
Greenpeace yesterday recommended expanding the mandatory evacuation zone, citing uneven variations in contamination levels.
According to Greenpeace, which has conducted surveys of radioactivity, contamination is not evenly distributed. They found that some areas over 25 miles from the plant pose more danger to human health than others located inside the current evacuation zone.
Tags: Disaster Preparedness, Disaster Recovery, Man-Made Disasters and Accidents, Natural Disasters, Nuclear Accidents
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