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Radiation could stay awhile

Some radioactive materials stay that way for days — others for thousands of years.
Soil samples around Fukushima, Japan, found plutonium, which could stay radioactive for more than 24,000 years.
Lifespan of radioactive material
Radiation levels in Japan
100km
Radioactive materials are measured 60 miles
in half-lives, or the time it takes for
radiation to fall by 50% through natural Radiation within normal values
decay. While the passage
Radiation higher than normal
of time sharply reduces radiation
from some isotopes, others stay No data
radioactive almost indefinitely.
Days Fukushima
Minamisoma
Iodine 131: Eight days 3.4
Produced by fission of uranium atoms. 65.0 1.2
Blamed for high incidence of thyroid cancer 106.0
among children exposed to fallout from 1986 2.0
Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
Tamura
Fukushima Sea of Japan
Daiichi
plant (East Sea)
Ruthenium 103: 39 days
5.6
Ruthenium 106: One year 1.4
20km
12 miles Iwaki
Caesium 134: Two years 20km evacuation zone
Absorbed in food and water or inhaled as dust, 20-30km stay-indoors zone Sendai
caesium spreads into soft body tissue, muscle Radiation level (µSv per hour)
and bone, boosting risk of cancer.
Radiation by prefecture
Strontium 90: 30 years
March 24 Microsieverts
(µSv) per hour
Detail
1 Hokkaido 0.029 area
Caesium 137: 30 years 2 Aomori 0.023
3 Iwate 0.033
4 Miyagi –
Plutonium 239: 24,100 years 5 Akita 0.035 PACIFIC
Japan says soil samples detected around 6 Yamagata 0.084 OCEAN
Fukushima plant are similar to those found at 7 Fukushima –
locations polluted by atmospheric nuclear tests. 8 Ibaraki 0.309
9 Tochigi 0.136
Uranium 234: 247,000 years 10 Gunma 0.094
11 Saitama 0.118
12 Chiba 0.098
Uranium 235: 710,000,000 years 13 Tokyo 0.139
14 Kanagawa 0.096
Uranium 238: 4,500,000,000 years 15 Niigata 0.047
The most common natural uranium isotope,
it can be used to form Plutonium 239.
16
17
Yamanashi
Nagano
0.046
0.054
Tokyo
18 Shizuoka 0.048
Billions
of years
Sources: Graphic News; Wikipedia MEGAN DINNER/QMI AGENCY