The Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011 still concerns various media outlets. Understandable, as there is great fear of another catastrophe of this kind.

But there are also sites that use the topic for one thing above all: scaremongering. We have an example here:

Screenshot mimikama.org
Screenshot mimikama.org

The website “ Our Planet ” writes that “ almost a third of the globe has been contaminated by the Fukushima nuclear disaster and the resulting leak of radioactive material into the world's oceans .” The whole thing is garnished with a picture that appears to show radioactive currents emanating from Fukushima.

Part 1: The Source

The article was first published and completely copied from there on the “ The Guardian ” page in March 2018.

Screenshot mimikama.org
Screenshot mimikama.org

That site also doesn't cite a source for the claims, but also boasts other articles like " US Government Recovers UFO Parts " and " Lemons and Baking Soda Destroy Cancer Cells ."
According to the company's own information, the page is "censored" by Facebook (more likely that the articles were often labeled as fake news) and therefore has a second domain. This site is not a trustworthy source.

Part 2: The picture

Let's take a closer look at the picture, which appears in the articles without a description, but in connection with the topic gives the impression that it is about the distribution of radioactive radiation.

Screenshot mimikama.org
Screenshot mimikama.org

It is new to us that radioactive radiation is measured in centimeters (cm). And in fact, the image does not show radioactivity, but rather the maximum height of the waves from the 2011 tsunami, as can be seen on the NOAA Center for Tsunami Research .

Source: NOAA
Source: NOAA

So when it comes to the picture, we have a gross misdirection on the part of the sites.

Part 3: The allegations

In order to understand the following statements, let's briefly look at chemistry:
Radioactive substances are by nature rather unstable and lose concentration. That concentration is measured in the so-called half-life. The radioactive cesium-137, for example, has a half-life of 30 years. In other words: After 30 years, cesium-137 still emits half the radiation as it did at the beginning, making it a potentially dangerous material. Iodine-131, on the other hand, only has a half-life of eight days, so it breaks down quite quickly and is no longer detectable after a few months.

The article writes: “ These materials, primarily two isotopes of cesium, appeared only recently in the eastern Pacific. “Fortunately, we know a little more precisely what materials are involved. According to the “ Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution ,” the three radioactive materials that entered the ocean in large quantities were:
– Iodine-131, half-life: 8 days
– Cesium-137, half-life: 30 years
– Cesium-134, half-life: 2 years

So now, more than seven years after the catastrophe, only cesium-137 is really dangerous, but small traces of cesium-134 are also likely to still be found.
In addition, one should not forget that water is still seeping into the sea from the over 1,000 tanks; a total of 760,000 liters have already flowed into the sea, as CBS reported .

That sounds like a lot. In a sense it is, but now we also have to take the size of the oceans into account to get a realistic picture.

The Pacific is the largest ocean on earth. Its area, excluding the tributary seas (for example, Bering Sea, Gulf of Alaska, Gulf of California, Sea of ​​Japan, Coral Sea etc.), is 166.24 million km² with tributary seas 181.34 million km² and a water volume of around 696.19 million km³ without and 714.41 million km³ with secondary seas.

A total of 760,000 liters, i.e. 760 m³, is spread over 696.19 million km³ or 696,190,000,000,000 m³ (excluding tributary seas). Let's compare the numbers again for clarity:

Amount of water released so far:
0.00000076 km³
Amount of water in the Pacific:
696,000,000 km³

The proportion of radioactively contaminated water is therefore a negligible fraction, and we only used the amount of water in the Pacific above, not all of the world's oceans. The degree of dilution is so low that water from the Pacific could almost be sold as a homeopathic remedy.

The fish

Of course, none of us drink sea water, but there is another source of danger: fish. In fact, the fish in the fishing areas are exposed to increased radiation, which is why various sources often warn against fish from the area around Fukushima. But that warning doesn't do much good because fishing near the site of the accident has been stopped for years.

In August 2011, the radioactive levels of fish around Fukushima were measured. At that time the values ​​were already just 3% above the values ​​of natural background radiation. 3% is quite negligible. The dose you get on an airplane, or even more graphically: the dose you get from a person when you sleep next to them due to the natural radioactivity of humans, are about the same.

Conclusion

In this article we do not want to gloss over the dangers posed by radioactivity.
However, we want to warn against unnecessary scaremongering! The world's oceans are naturally all connected, so it is logical that water from the Fukushima area will sooner or later appear everywhere in the world's oceans. With precise measurements, it will actually be possible to detect increased amounts of radioactivity in water all over the world. However, these amounts are so small that a health risk can almost be ruled out. Articles like the ones mentioned above that aim to educate only do one thing: make you panic by combining false images with inaccurate claims.


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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )