Radioactivity & winds

[French jurist]

Not to sound alarmist but when Chernobyl occured, the winds brought the radioactive particles all over Western Europe (Germany, East of France, Corsica, etc...). The French authorities at that time were minoring the risks (there was then a French joke : "the winds stopped at the frontier because they had no passport") but later on, cancers and especially thyroid problems were multiplied by a very big factor.

Mushrooms, wild boars and so on got all contaminated. Still today, it remains a slight issue in Germany at least (anyone to confirm ?).

I don't know where the winds will take the particles to, but there's no doubt that there will be consequences on the long term.

We can already admire the courage of the Japaneses engineers working on site : they are screwing their own health and they know it.

 

[DCfam]

Could be as big as Chernobyl, but that is still pretty unlikely. (Here). And of course, the alternative is fossil fuels, which is directly dangerous as well (think Gulf of Mexico) and contributes directly to global warming, and kills an untold number of people through particulates in the air.

 

[Saturnine]

I don't think anyone can put your mind at ease if you're falling into the "alarmist" trap... In the two decades since Chernobyl, much has been spoken and only very little has been proven beyond doubt. Yes, they have measured the radiation levels falling all over Europe, but the long-term effects on people are tougher to prove.
I was a child when the reactor exploded at Chernobyl and understood next to nothing about it. However, I remember how they fed us iodine pills at school for years. Not because of the proximity issue (being some 600 km from Chernobyl) - but because the contamination had hit the soil and there were higher radioactive levels in the vegetables and eggs for years...
They made studies - incidence of leukemias and thyroid cancer, but since they occur after a long time, the only way to do it is by comparing the number of diseases and gene mutations to previous periods. It's not 100% accurate and no country has tested every single case of cancer to see if it's related to ionizing radiation, have they?
You'd better hope those experts are right when saying Fukushima will not go beyond the level 6 alert it has right now and will not cause effects comparing to Chernobyl. Coz if it does, you'll be far enough from the site to even be given the stupid iodine pills - and you'll be left wondering a lot more than you are right now

 

[Bajo_cero2]

Well, there were atomic bombs detonated in the south Pacific for experimental purposes during the 70´s. The winds went straight to the south of Chile and I have many relatives there, all of them had cancer issues. Japan is too north to be an issue here, am I right? Regards

 

[EricM]

The normal winds don't really cross the equator, so not much to worry about here.

There has not yet been much radiation leakage, though they are not out of the woods. Chernobyl did impact millions of people for decades across europe, the increase in cancers is still measurable across virtually all of Northern Europe, so it is something to think about in general. Hopefully Japan will never get nearly that bad, which right now looks likely.

 

[marksoc]

When I was a child the Cold War was still going on. We used to have conversations about which place in the world was best to be if the s*** hit the fan. We were always happy to thin that,of all places, Argentina is the one best suited to survive some nuclear fallout (really far from the North Hemisphere, big expanse of land and low population).