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The level of radioactivity in the middle of Genken Road, which runs next to the contaminated plant at a distance of 30 meters (98 feet), registered at 0.54 micro sieverts per hour, five times background levels of 0.1. Measurements taken today recorded a level of 0.4 micro sieverts per hour. At a distance of 100 meters (328 feet) from the plant, radiation levels as measured on Sunday were up to two-and- a half times background levels and fell to background levels at 200 meters (656 feet). 

Following the accident, which released large amounts of radiation, every resident within approximately 350 meters (one-quarter mile) of the plant was evacuated. On Saturday the government lifted the exclusion order after Chief Secretary to the Cabinet, Hiromu Nonaka stated: We have confirmed that the radiation levels, even in the area 350 metres from the plant have returned to normal.

The high level of radioactivity we measured on Sunday was in the middle of Genken road, which had been reopened to the public by Japanese authorities some 24 hours earlier,î said Greenpeace team leader Diederik Samsom, a nuclear engineer and qualified radiation protection officer from Holland. The Japanese government needs to close this road to the public while radiation levels remain significantly higher than background levels. If this had been a public road in Holland or Germany it would have been closed off to the public.

Greenpeace is concerned about the progress being made in removing the remaining radioactive material as very little is known about the clean-up strategy. Greenpeace is demanding full disclosure by the Japanese authorities of its clean-up plans. The fallout from this accident is far from over,î said Damon Moglen, Greenpeace Nuclear Specialist. The public is still at risk, the environmental damage is unclear, and we still don't know exactly what happened. What we do know is that the safety culture of the government and industry have failed again to protect the workers and the general public.

Greenpeace has been running a long-standing campaign against Japan's plutonium program based on its risks to the environment, public health and nuclear non-proliferation. On the same day as the Tokai accident, not only did a first-time shipment of weapons-useable plutonium fuel arrive in Japan under a cloud of intense opposition and shadowed by the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise but Greenpeace also released documents disclosing that the Japanese government and the U.S. State Department violated the U.S.-Japan Nuclear Cooperation Agreement in allowing the shipments. The documents also revealed that the State Department misled Congress about the security arrangements made for plutonium.

 
 

In a letter to the JAPAN TIMES on Sunday 10 October 1999 , a reader familiar with Nuclear Radiation charged that the wrong meters were used (as observed in TV reports).  Apparantly there are Gamma and Alpha meters.  But as the officials in charge were using the wrong ones when examining people, he questions whether the officials were UNKNOWINGLY misreading the amount of radiation that people were emiting (which would register 0 on the wrong meters) or INTENTIONALLY misreading the radition so as not to alarm them or incite protests.

IF EITHER IS TRUE, SOMEONE SHOULD ALERT THE PEOPLE OF THAT TOWN.  THIS SOUNDS LIKE ANOTHER MINAMATA!!

paul arenson