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Today, a little more than a year after Japan’s catastrophic earthquake and tsunami, the World Health Organization has released a 120 page preliminary assessment of radiation exposure from the crippled nuclear plants in Fukushima Japan.
Preliminary Dose Estimation from the nuclear accident after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami
Authors:
WHO
Publication details
Number of pages: 120
Publication date: 2012
Languages: English
ISBN: 9789241593662Downloads
- English
pdf, 1.85MbOverview
The earthquake and tsunami in Japan on 11 March 2011 led to releases of radioactive material into the environment from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear site. This report describes a preliminary estimate of radiation doses to the public resulting from this accident. These doses are assessed for different age groups in locations around the world, using assumptions described in the report.
The dose assessment forms one part of the overall health risk assessment being carried out by WHO of the global impact of the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The health risk assessment is the subject of a separate WHO report which will be published in Summer 2012.
Related links
From the FAQ page, we get the bottom line, and for just about everyone living outside of Fukushima and neighboring prefectures, the news is very reassuring.
Q5. What does the report conclude?
It can be concluded that the estimated effective doses outside Japan from the Fukushima Daiichi NPP accident are below (and often far below) dose levels regarded as being very small by the international radiological protection community. Low effective doses are also estimated in much of Japan.
In the Fukushima prefecture and in neighbouring prefectures the effective doses are estimated to be below 10 mSv, which can be considered within the order of magnitude of the natural radiation background, except in two locations. In these two locations in the most affected part of Fukushima prefecture, the effective doses were estimated to be within a dose band of 10–50 mSv. Please see table 3 for more data on effective doses, and table 8 for comparative effective dose levels in different contexts.
This report focuses on effective dose as an appropriate measure given that it takes into account both internal and external exposures. In addition, the report includes information about thyroid doses because of this organ’s capacity for iodine concentration.
It is important to note that effective doses and thyroid doses are two different quantities that cannot be compared. Thyroid doses are organ-specific equivalent doses. See table 4 for data on specific exposure to thyroid doses.
As far as the short and long term health-risk due to exposure to radioactivity, a report is expected from the WHO later this summer.
