Japan Firm ‘Told Workers to Lie’ About Radiation Dose

[Art_from_Ark]

16. I'm not sure what you mean, but...

As someone who is living just 100 miles or so south of the reactors, I was a little annoyed at the completely unfounded rumors that were being spread on this board in the days and months immediately following the nuclear explosions.

For example, there were rumors that ordinary American citizens were being forcibly evacuated from Japan (US citizens who weren't government employees were NOT being forcibly evacuated, they were just being advised to stay well away from the disaster area), that there would no longer be any "hanami" cherry tree parties (I myself attended one just a few weeks after the explosions, and another DUer who also lives in Japan posted pictures of his hanami party), and that half of Japan would become uninhabitable (I'm still here, 100 miles south of the site, and I have traveled to areas much closer to the site where life still goes on pretty much as it did before the disaster).

What's more, the airborne radiation levels here (which are monitored by multiple government and academic organizations) are now near normal, after having temporarily increased to 10 times normal immediately after the explosions, and hovering around 2 times normal for several months after that. There are a few "hot spots" in this area where the radiation levels in the soil are still higher than normal, and a lot of dirt was removed from playgrounds and school yards as a precautionary measure in those areas, but with the exceptions of the 12-mile exclusion zone (parts of which have now been blocked off to road traffic) and a few places beyond (particularly to the NW of the reactors), it is nowhere near as bad as the direst predictions were painting it to be.