The crisis at the damaged Fukushima Dai-Ichi Nuclear Power Station in northern Japan has raised worries about radiation risks. We spoke with Jonathan Links, an expert in radiation health sciences. He is a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland. Professor Links says workers within the nuclear plant are the only people at risk of extremely high doses of radiation.
For other people, he says, there may be a long-term worry. People can get cancer from low doses of ionizing radiation, the kind released in a nuclear accident. Professor Links says scientists can use computers to quickly model where radioactive material has blown and settled. Then they measure how large an area is contaminated. He says if the situation is serious enough, officials could take steps like telling people not to eat locally grown food or drink the water. But he said that would only be the case if there was a major release of radiation. And if it was shown that the radioactive material was blown over the area and then settled into and onto water, plants, fruits and vegetables.
The reactors at Fukushima are on the Pacific coast. But Professor Links says people should not worry about any radioactive material leaking into the ocean. He said even in the worst accident, the sea dilutes the radiation. So the amount of radioactivity in the seawater would still be quite low. Japan is the only country to have had atomic bombs dropped on it. That memory from World War Two would create a stronger “psychological sensitivity” to radiation exposure, Professors Links says. The twenty-fifth anniversary of the explosion and fire that destroyed a reactor at Chernobyl in Ukraine was in April.
The nineteen eighty-six event was the world’s worst accident in the nuclear power industry. A new United Nations report says more than six thousand cases of thyroid cancer have been found. These are in people who were children in affected areas of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. The report says that by two thousand five the cancers had resulted in fifteen deaths. The cancers were largely caused by drinking contaminated milk. The milk came from cows that ate grass where radioactive material had fallen. For VOA Special English I’m Alex Villarreal. To get the latest updates, go to voaspecialenglish.com.
Words in This Story
crisis – n.a time of great disagreement, confusion, or suffering
radiation – n. a form of energy that comes from a nuclear reaction and that can be very dangerous to health
dilute – v. to make a liquid weaker by mixing in something else
atom – n. the smallest unit of any chemical element, consisting of a positive nucleus surrounded by negative electrons. Atoms can combine to form a molecule
atomic – adj. using the energy that is created when an atom is divided
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