Radiation in Tokyo linked to old bottles, not Fukushima

[Bonobo]

To me, this story shows how closely citizens groups are monitoring the radiation levels. It is a good thing.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/2011/oct/13/fukushima-radiation-tokyo-contamination-reading?CMP=twt_gu

Radiation level on Tokyo street was 17 times recommended limit but came from radium kept under house floorboards

Concerns that contamination from the Fukushima Daiichi plant had spread to Tokyo subsided on Friday after high levels of radiation recorded along a street in the city were linked to old bottles of radium stored beneath the floorboards of a nearby house.

An investigation traced the contamination to several bottles that had been stored in a cardboard box beneath an empty house. The bottles recorded radiation levels in excess of those measurable on a low-dose radiation counter, said Setegaya's mayor, Nobuto Hosaka.

Science ministry officials believed the bottles contained radium-226, a radioactive material used in fluorescent paint on watch faces and in medical devices, the Yomiuri Shimbun said. Radiation levels inside the house dropped significantly after the bottles were placed inside a lead container, reports said.

The hourly reading in the Setagaya hotspot, located close to a nursery school, was equivalent to 17.6 millisieverts (mSv) a year, according to science ministry calculations, just below the 20mSv a year required to trigger an evacuation and more than 17 times the internationally recommended level for the general public.

[TheWraith]

1. Hah! I win twenty bucks.

I had suggested earlier that these were probably bottles of old radium paint. That stuff remains potent for a VERY long time; I remember reading a story about someone with a Geiger counter discovering an old vial that had been left inside a grandfather clock at least 70 years previously, that was still active enough to be detected at a good distance.

That said, the radiation level still isn't harmful, but it can't hurt to remove these things.

[Art_from_Ark]

6. I think the radiation level inside the house was quite harmful

18 microsieverts per hour-- that is 200X the norm for where I live, 100 miles away from Fukushima Daiichi, and higher than most of the readings that were taken within the 12-mile exclusion zone in April.

[TheWraith]

14. It's only a little more than you get, say, on board an airliner.

Assuming they were getting the 18 microsieverts every hour, 16 hours a day, 365 days a year, it would still only add up to around 100 millisieverts per year. The most cautious and lowest estimate of radiation hazards suggests that this would translate to an added 1% lifetime risk of cancer.

[EdMaven]

2. Interesting. Those had probably been there for years, if not decades.

What is that "empty house"? It looks like a shack -- in Tokyo?

[Bonobo]

3. You'd be surprised at some of the old residential neighborhoods.

Tokyo isn't all one big concrete jungle. Lots of small neighborhoods.

[EdMaven]

4. But across the street doesn't look like an old residential neighborhood. Just wondering.

I thought most of Tokyo is 50s or older?

[Bonobo]

5. You're right...

What I should have said is that it is not unusual to see the old mixed with the new.

Old houses standing next door to newly paved streets and modern buildings.

[Art_from_Ark]

7. I see that all the time in Tokyo

especially in places like Taito-ku (Ueno area).

[Bonobo]

8. Yeah, I used to live near there in Arakawa-ku.

I lived in Machiya, near Nishi-Nippori, etc. Real Shitamachi type area with a nice chin-chin densha and shotengai.

I liked the feel of shitamachi --not at all like a big city. More like a small neighborhood.

[Art_from_Ark]

9. When did you live in Machiya?

I have a feeling you might not recognize it now.

[Bonobo]

10. 1993-1995...

I lived on a cute little street called Ishimon Doori. It was a charming Shotengai (open market) with the trolley-train nearby.

What has happened to it??

[Art_from_Ark]

11. Maybe you don't want to hear

I can't remember exactly when, but probably in the late '90s there was a program on one of the local Tokyo stations about the "redevelopment" of that area that would be carried out that summer. They interviewed a bunch of shotengai owners and the general tone was one of great sadness at the end of an era. If I get a chance, I'll go to Ishimon Dori and check it out, but I'm pretty sure that was the area that was discussed in the program-- Nishi Nippori, open market area.

[Bonobo]

12. Oh no, that's terrible!

I have to look into that! send me a link if you find one.

Sad...

[Bonobo]

13. Here's a link

Looks like maybe it is still ok...

http://tokyo-syoutengai.seesaa.net/article/35703838.html

[Art_from_Ark]

15. On the other hand, there's this:

http://www.city.arakawa.tokyo.jp/kurashi/sumai/saikaihatsu/arakawaku/saikaihatsu.html

I really hope the area is still as you remember it, because it sounds like it was/is a special place.

[Bonobo]

16. Pretty hard to tell from the what may have happened.

It seems to suggest that it needed to be fixed to improve its resistance to earthquakes, etc.

It was a special place and my bet is that it still is.

Have you ever lived in Shitamachi? Those people are hard core Edo-ites and they are pretty resistant to change... Areas like Nippori, Iriya, Uguisu-dani... Reminds me of the rest of Japan (unlike other parts of Tokyo like near Rppongi where all the gaijin live --I can't even recognize Japan in those places.