Lethal Levels of Radiation at Fukushima: What Are the Implications?

Gundersen: “Two days ago Tokyo Electric announced some really high radiation levels on the Fukushima site, and I wanted to put that into perspective [and]  let you know what I think is happening.

First off, Tokyo Electric discovered very, very high radiation in a stack which is used to vent radiation out of the plant and up into the air.  The quantity of that radiation was really, really high exposure.  It was 10 sieverts, and to convert that over into rems, which I’m used to, is a thousand rem.  Now what does that mean?  A thousand rem — or more, because the instrument went off scale — a thousand rems, if you were there for less than half an hour, would mean death within a couple days.  Those kinds of exposures cause extensive neurological breakdowns that can’t be reversed medically, so basically to be near that for any amount of time beyond a couple minutes would be a death sentence.

Now, what that means is really interesting.  This site has been extensively mapped.  There’s a map that’s current that shows many, many hot spots.  This hot spot was not discovered until just a couple days ago.  Now that could mean a couple of things …”