Fukushima nuclear disaster could cause 1300 radiation-related deaths globally

Washington, July 18 (ANI): Radiation from Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster may eventually cause about 15 to 1,300 deaths and result in some 24 to 2,500 cases of cancer, mostly in Japan, University of Stanford researchers have calculated.

The numbers are in addition to the roughly 600 deaths caused by the evacuation of the area surrounding the nuclear plant directly after the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami and meltdown.

Recent PhD graduate John Ten Hoeve and Stanford civil engineering Professor Mark Z. Jacobson, a senior fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy and the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, published their findings on July 17 in the journal Energy and Environmental Science.

The Fukushima Daiichi meltdown was the most extensive nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

Radiation release critically contaminated a "dead zone" of several hundred square kilometers around the plant, and low levels of radioactive material were found as far as North America and Europe.

But most of the radioactivity was dumped in the Pacific Ocean, only 19 percent of the released material was deposited over land, keeping the exposed population relatively small.

"There are groups of people who have said there would be no effects," Jacobson said.

A month after the disaster, the head of the United Nations Science Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, for example, predicted that there would be no serious public health consequences resulting from the radiation.

Evaluating the claim, Ten Hoeve and Jacobson used a 3-D global atmospheric model, developed over 20 years of research, to predict the transport of radioactive material. A standard health-effects model was used to estimate human exposure to radioactivity.

Because of inherent uncertainties in the emissions and the health-effects model, the researchers found a range of possible death tolls, with a best estimate of 130.

Those affected according to the model were overwhelmingly in Japan, with extremely small effects noticeable in mainland Asia and North America. (ANI)