Google Releases Street View Images From Fukushima Ghost Town

mdsolar writes in with news that Goolge has released Street View pictures from inside the zone that was evacuated after the Fukushima disaster. "Google Inc. (GOOG) today released images taken by its Street View service from the town of Namie, Japan, inside the zone that was evacuated after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in March 2011. Google, operator of the world's biggest Web search engine, entered Namie this month at the invitation of the town's mayor, Tamotsu Baba, and produced the 360-degree imagery for the Google Maps and Google Earth services, it said in an e-mailed statement. All of Namie's 21,000 residents were forced to flee after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami crippled the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant, about 8 kilometers (5 miles) from the town, causing the world's worst nuclear accident after Chernobyl. Baba asked Mountain View, California-based Google to map the town to create a permanent record of its state two years after the evacuation, he said in a Google blog post."

Comments

lolwut

[Anonymous Coward]

Google releases images, but we're not going to show them to you. Or load the page's CSS.

Re:lolwut

[Anonymous Coward]

But we are going to remind you of their ticker symbol, because everyone comes to Slashdot for investment advice.

Re:lolwut

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you just Google it?

Re:lolwut

[hackertourist]

We also need to be reminded that Google's based in Mountain View, CA. (rolleyes)

Re:lolwut

[Phreakiture]

Let me Google that for you . . .

Re:lolwut

[Phreakiture]

I already posted elsewhere in this thread (the link to lmgtfy above), or I would mod you up.

Were are the super-mutants ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I like the graphics but the game play can use more work.

Re:Were are the super-mutants ?

[rvw]

I like the graphics but the game play can use more work.

I think a clown or two could actually improve those pictures a lot.

Re:Were are the super-mutants ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I see a few nuka-cola vending machines that looks like they might also have a few nuka-cola quantum in them.

Re:Were are the super-mutants ?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Where"

Unmanned car ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did they use a manned, or unmanned car for this ?

Re:Unmanned car ?

[Maringo]

And did they stop for a red light?

Re:Unmanned car ?

[Anonymous Coward]

They used one of those, citizen.

Re:Unmanned car ?

[hcs_$reboot]

They stopped when an ant crossed the road.

Re:Unmanned car ?

[nadaou]

In all likelihood manned. If you "drive" around for a few minutes in street view you will notice a number of other cars driving on the main roads. The acute risk from radiation has dissipated (the worst emitting particles have the shortest half-lives) the remaining threat is low-level emitting particles where the danger is more or less cumulative with time. A day spent driving around the town might be a small risk to you and your car, but you wouldn't want to live or work there every day.

It probably wouldn't hurt to bolt an extra air filter in the cabin air intake, and give the car a good wash down afterwards, just in case you stirred up some nasties in a dust pile.

Re:Unmanned car ?

[thegarbz]

Manned of course. The exclusion zone is not a 100% ban on all people and the radiation isn't even that bad. The highest dose experts (not TEPCO) predict a person would be subjected to is 20mSv/yr, 1/5th the dose that is known to possibly cause cancer, and about the same as a commercial pilot is expected to be exposed to.

It's easy enough to enter the exclusion zone and several photographers already have, they just haven't made the headlines on Slashdot because they took photos not a streetview.

Re:Unmanned car ?

[AmiMoJo]

Please don't try to make simplistic comparisons of mSv/yr expose, they are not valid or helpful.

An airline pilot is exposed to radiation from outside his/her body, most of which can't penetrate the skin and none of which accumulates permanently. The next year the pilots exposure is still 20uSv/yr, and if they stop flying it drops back to normal levels.

A person trying to live in Namie is exposed to dust, earth, paint particles, pollen and accumulated minerals and metals in the environment. It gets inside them, particularly into organs like the thyroid. It sits there irradiating them for decades, with no skin/flesh barrier. That is what causes cancer and leukemia, and that is why every child living near Chernobyl had to have their thyroid glands removed and now can't absorb calcium. Clearly it is not an acceptable place to live.

Namie may never recover. Even if they clean it all up and make it safe most of the people who used to live there have been forced to move on. They have jobs in other places and have made new homes, or are at least trying to. They won't all just move back, and even if they did a lot of the jobs there have gone now as the companies folded and agriculture became impossible due to contamination. Some people will go back, but it will never be the same.

Re:Unmanned car ?

[Donwulff]

As everybody knows, Wikipedia is the end and be all of any scientific knowledge, so let's have a fact-check:

"The highest dose". Wikipedia to the rescue! "On 6 May 2012 it became known that according to documents of the municipal education board reports submitted by each school in Fukushima prefecture in April at least 14 elementary schools, 7 junior high and 5 nursery schools so called "hot spots" existed, where the radiation exposure was more than 3.8 microsieverts per hour, resulting in an annual cummulative dose above 20 millisieverts." Those schools are quite further away from the NPP than Namie, and the reason their dose rate is known at all is they were required to be measured. So we can say with certainty that expected highest annual doses exceed 20mSv/yr, in fact in Namie it's likely to be significantly higher.

"1/5th of the dose". From Wikipedia, "The linear no-threshold model (LNT) hypothesis is accepted by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) and regulators around the world." They note that there is some controversy, but over the linear part, not the no-threshold part. As in any scientific subject, one can always find a study-du-jour to challenge any widely held belief, but the no-threshold model seems to have become something of a consensus, except among those who seek to dismiss dangers of radiation.

Otherwise I generally agree, in particular the Google photographer is not going to be spending a year there, and I would wager they have the car windows tightly shut and air-conditioning off "just in case". With those precautions and a "decontamination" with e.g. firehoses on the checkpoint one could easily brave even higher contaminated areas. They may also change drivers regularly just to be safe - after all, elsewhere it's noted "Swathed in white protective masks and suits, residents are bused into the zone on rare occasions to retrieve valuables and check on their homes. The trips are brief—roughly two to three hours—to minimize radiation exposure."

Re:Unmanned car ?

[Donwulff]

About that, actually studies have quite consistently found airline crew annual exposure is around 2mSv/yr, see for example http://hps.org/publicinformation/ate/faqs/commercial flights.html. 20mSV is the absolute maximum annual dose that "should" be allowed for airline crew, while studies have found 20mSv is typical lifetime dose for airline crew.

There's better comparisons to put the dose rate in perspective though - for example, "Smoking an average of 1.5 packs per day gives a radiation dose of 60-160 mSv/year" (Wikipedia) while a CT-scan can give around 20mSv per examination http://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/safety/index.cfm?pg=sfty_xray - classified as "moderate" risk of developing cancer, as in 1 in 1000 to 1 in 500.

In this context of course none of this hardly matters - the Google driver isn't going to be spending an year there, and they're certainly not going to "internalize" most of that radiation. But it's very valid point for the prospect of people returning to Namie - the dose rates measured are taken at around waist height height where alpha and beta rays hardly even reach, indicating only external gamma ray dose. Those dose rates tell nothing about people who live, bathe and breathe in that isotope-soup. But currently, nobody lives in Namie and it's not know when, if ever, that can even be considered.

Re:Unmanned car ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Namie may never recover. Even if they clean it all up and make it safe most of the people who used to live there have been forced to move on. They have jobs in other places and have made new homes, or are at least trying to. They won't all just move back, and even if they did a lot of the jobs there have gone now as the companies folded and agriculture became impossible due to contamination. Some people will go back, but it will never be the same.

Oh, come on. Japan had two cities which were hit by nuclear bombs. After the war they cleaned them up and rebuilt. Sure, some people found work elsewhere, other people moved in. This is a continuous process all the time, even without disasters. The Japanese are an industrious people with a long history of their stuff being destroyed and them rebuilding--it's what they do.

As an aside, if anyone wants to look at the real tragedy of the tsunami, drag the Street View marker over to the seaside...

Re:Unmanned car ?

[AmiMoJo]

You are making the same mistake as the GP. It isn't just the quantity of expose that matters, in fact it isn't even the most important thing at low levels. The nature of the exposure matters, which is something most people on Slashdot seem to miss.

Re:Unmanned car ?

[Anonymous Coward]

It was manned until the driver mutated. After that, technically, it wasn't manned.

Re:Unmanned car ?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Did they use a manned, or unmanned car for this ?"

They used interns, much cheaper and they get fucked anyway, so who cares.

Re:Unmanned car ?

[Anonymous Coward]

AFAIK, nukes leave it pretty clean (if broken and melted down). The point of nuclear bomb is fission of a lot of concentrated fissionable material at once. Spreading it around is non-economical. Gamma-rays don't get stuck in the buildings.

Dirty bombs (and nuclear reactor blow-outs) is just the opposite - slow decay of radioactive material spread over big area. Danger of being there is not radiation itself, but the radioactive dust that might get stuck on your skin, inhaled, ingested and so on. They bring tiny doses of radiation, but it's close and personal.

Re:Unmanned car ?

[Westwood0720]

Manned. I'm curious of they got hazard pay out of it.

Re:Unmanned car ?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because, after a nuclear incident, the ant was 5 feet tall and 15 feet long.

Re:Unmanned car ?

[jrumney]

Not only were there other cars around, but traffic lights were switched on. The spot where the link takes you looks deserted, and there are a couple of impressively collapsed houses nearby, but travel a couple of hundred metres and things start to look a lot less like a ghost town and more like a run down rural town that is still rebuilding a couple of years after an earthquake.

Re:Unmanned car ?

[Donwulff]

I'm curious why you claim that, although I probably shouldn't expect much as your message boils down to an ad-hominem without even telling what you object to. Sieverts are weighted by biological effectiveness of the particles, so that when comparing committed doses from different sources ("nature of the exposure") they are intended to be comparable. Whether scientists have been successful in making them comparable is a topic that's perhaps more suited elsewhere than web-site discussion trying to find comparison points for dose rate, but that's certainly the intended purpose of Sieverts.

The wording on the "10mSv/yr average, 20mSv/yr max" claim makes it sound like it is committed dose. As I pointed earlier I'm aware geiger-counters don't measure Sieverts, at most they will show air gamma-ray dose at midpoint of body if calibrated correctly. In general this would be in ballpark of the minimum committed dose. If they ingest, inhale or touch anything, it'll be higher of course. In a car or cleaned up house it'll likely be lower due to distance and shielding. I've brought up the geiger-counter readings only as a means to show the average dose can't possibly be as low as 10mSv/yr, and the maximum certainly isn't 20mSv/yr.

However the Wikipedia quote on smoking is misleading if not outright incorrect, as I checked the original sources. The wording indicates it's whole body (effective) dose, but checking out the original source turns out it's only bronchial epithelial dose, so that is not really comparable to the others.

Re:Unmanned car ?

[Anonymous Coward]

at that point it's a "Hulked Car"

Re:Unmanned car ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Namie may never recover.

What is this bullshit and why are you modded insightful?

Radiation type pollution by definition *disappears* over time. Never is an infinite amount of time. Over a period of 5 generations, there will not be enough radiation to be of any importance. Over a period of 2 generations, there will be less radiation in Namie than in New York.

And before you start with other bullshit about "outside" radiation, radon is not exactly "outside".

An airline pilot is exposed to radiation from outside his/her body, most of which can't penetrate the skin and none of which accumulates permanently. The next year the pilots exposure is still 20uSv/yr, and if they stop flying it drops back to norm

Utter *ignorance*. Most of the extra radiation that pilots are exposed to originates from cosmic radiation particle showers. They easily penetrate **the plane**, yet, you say they can't penetrate the skin?? Think logically.

Secondly, "radiation" doesn't accumulate. Radioactive elements accumulate. Unless you start eating dirt around Fukushima, the "radiation" there also doesn't accumulate and most certainly can't penetrate the skin - it is much less energetic than from potassium!

Give me 100 acres around Namie and I'll move there tomorrow and live there for next 50+ years. There is much worse shit you are exposed to everyday than some radiation. Another case and point,

http://www.spiegel.de/international/living-in-chernobyl-radioactivity-that-s-nonsense-a-412954.html

people have never evacuated. They lived there for last 26 years and the only thing they gained was peace and quiet. Paranoia and related mental illnesses is what will kill people in Japan, not radiation.

That is what causes cancer and leukemia, and that is why every child living near Chernobyl had to have their thyroid glands removed

No leukemia spike from Chernobyl. Only about 200 cases of actual thyroid cancer attributable to Chernobyl and that is 99.99% curable. On the other hand, 1000s and 1000s that have literally killed their thyroids with "protective iodine dosages" and similar got butchered because ultrasound finds benign growths and they remove the thyroid "to be safe". You know, 15-60% of population has thyroid nodules (genetic). A doctor would tell you "if you look for something, you will find it", it doesn't mean there is a problem. From circulatory issues to growths, you'll find it! *Everyone* has those.

FUD and more FUD. No wander people freak out about "radiations". How many "victims" and "survivors" have killed themselves with alcoholism and other drugs? Think about it.

Re:Unmanned car ?

[Carnildo]

Sieverts are weighted by biological effectiveness of the particles, so that when comparing committed doses from different sources ("nature of the exposure") they are intended to be comparable.

Delivery vector matters as well. 20 mSv/yr of alpha particles delivered to the skin is essentially harmless (alpha particles cannot penetrate the dead outer layer to reach somewhere where they can cause damage), while 20 mSv/yr of alpha particles delivered to the surface of the lungs is more harmful (the lungs have no such protective layer).

The Sievert takes into account the relative effectiveness of different radiation types in causing damage (relative biological effectiveness), but not the relative susceptibility of different tissue types to damage (tissue weighting factor).

Re:Unmanned car ?

[Anonymous Coward]

mojo@world3.net
mojo@world3.net
mojo@world3.net
 
Spam this asshat!

Re:Unmanned car ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except sometimes it does. To quote the very Wikipedia page you helpfully linked, "An effective dose will carry the same effective risk to the whole organism regardless of where it was applied, and it will carry the same effective risk as the same amount of "equivalent dose" applied uniformly to the whole body. These doses can be added together and hence assume a linear no threshold model of cancer risk." and for committed dose "The committed dose in radiation protection or radiology is a measure of the stochastic (i.e., probabilistic) health effect on an individual due to an intake of radioactive material into their body. A committed dose from an internal source is intended to carry the same effective risk as the same amount of equivalent dose applied uniformly to the whole body from an external source, or the same amount of effective dose applied to part of the body."

The problem is there are so many different "meanings" to Sieverts, and very, very few sources bother to list whether they're referring to effective, equivalent, committed, air-gamma or some other kind of dose. To a level of detail and significance outside of scientific literature and studies, the risk from effective, committed and "equivalent dose to whole body" doses are intended to carry same level of risk to the organism to the best scientific knowledge available at the time.

All the examples I picked were intended to be in committed/whole body dose, except as already mentioned the cigarettes which were mis-stated on Wikipedia and appear to be in single-organ dose without biological effectiveness weighting (though it is bit unclear). The scientifically sound way to indicate this difference is to use Gy, the "absorbed dose", when that is the case. INES reports provide good examples of this use, for example "A worker made adjustments on a X-ray machine despite the fact that the device was in test. The worker received between 5 and 7 Gy on each hands during the intervention. The whole body dose that he received is 1.4 mSv." A tabloid paper/web-site would express that as "Innocent bystander received TWO times 7 Sv of radiation, OMGWTF!".

And once again, air gammay-ray dose such as generally measued by geiger meters and monitoring posts is not whole body or committed dose. At best it will indicate the external dose due to gamma-rays. But that's not what the original poster claimed, saying "The highest dose experts (not TEPCO) predict a person would be subjected to is 20mSv/yr", which fits the accepted definition of committed dose. Yet even the brought-to-you-by-Namie-tourist-board measurements indicate the gamma ray exposure ALONE is up to 100mSv/yr so that is factually impossible. The 20mSv/yr is the expected whole body/committed dose during the whole career of a commercial pilot, not annually. And there's no scientifically agreed "minimum dose known to cause cancer", any dose causes cancer, with 20mSv whole-body considered a "moderate" cancer risk. And the original posters claims, all provably wrong, are still rated "informative".

Yet as said, if the photographer followed the limits put to general public (residents allowed back to gather their valuables etc.) were followed, ie. max. 2 hours per person and properly decontaminated/isolated from fallout, they would face no appreciable risk from it.

(Captcha: ravings)

I would like to know

[Anonymous Coward]

How much they paid someone to do this, that would be interesting to know.

Direct link

[Raven737]

Direkt link to the google maps/streatview

Re:Direct link

[Anonymous Coward]

uhhh yeah, that looks like a big pile of bullshit to me. Glass covered buildings? In WW2?? Yeah ok.....

Not to mention there's like 2 buildings 'destroyed' in that one panorama while every other building merely looks 'closed' with modern style roll shutters....

Something stirs within bullshit-ville....

Re:Direct link

[Anonymous Coward]

You Sir appear to have a decent understanding of what happened at Fukushima. Congratulations on your education. It seems to have paid off.

Re:Direct link

[Ginger Unicorn]

Fukushima is the place that got levelled by a tsunami last year, not Hiroshima or Nagasaki that got nuked in the 40's.

Re:Direct link

[turkeyfeathers]

Don't make fun of the American kid. At least he realized that WW2 happened in the past.

Re:Direct link

[Anonymous Coward]

They're all look shma too me.

Re:Direct link

[SternisheFan]

Don't make fun of the American kid. At least he realized that WW2 happened in the past.

You have a good point about our education system today. I recently saw a History Channel show about a veteran crewman from the Enola Gay bomber who gave speeches of his experience to American schoolkids. He said in one high school one student thanked him for his service in "World War Eleven" (WWII).

Re:Direct link

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't make fun of the American kid. At least he realized that WW2 happened in the past.

More like Eurotrash trying to forget the past.

Re:Direct link

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the one guy who flew it?

Re:Direct link

[SternisheFan]

You mean the one guy who flew it?

Yes, I believe the gentleman was the actual pilot of the Enola Gay, the late Paul Tibbets.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Tibbets

I've searched for a positive link to the actual History Channel WWII documentary episode where at its end this was mentioned, and could only get confirmation about the quote from the link posted below. When I wrote my op I wasn't 100% sure, that's why I couched my phrasing carefully.

World War ELEVEN

This morning, after standard news fare, we kept the television on; but perused to the History Channel. The edict of the hour was live footage and narrative of the atomic bombing plans in World War II by pilots of the Enola Gay and Bockscar.

My husband and I commented on how the History Channel should be required in study hall or detention in high schools across the land. There was commentary that many high school graduates thought that the atomic bombs were dropped in World War ELEVEN:(

While a saddening fact and testimonial to the state of our education system, what can we do? Pour more money into the school system? We have a very finite amount of cash, yet America’s teachers have impressionable minds in their charge and a good teacher is worth his/her weight in gold. Some schools have precious few resources to meet the VERY basics. http://anniesanalysis.wordpress.com/2012/04/10/world-war-eleven/

The Google street view car...

[Anonymous Coward]

..is driving on the wrong side of the road (right instead of left)

Re:The Google street view car...

[jrumney]

It's not a car - its squeezing through some tight spaces in places.

Record radiation levels ...

[perpenso]

Sadly it might have been interesting to record radiation levels during the drive.

Re:Record radiation levels ...

[wanfuse123]

This is a publicity stunt. It's meant to show how the streets look O.K. to be filled with people again. It's the silent radiation killer that is the problem as everyone knows. Fukushima is a peering legacy like Chernobyl before it about the dangers of conventional generation I, II, and III nuclear reactors. We should have been long off these types of reactors. If we had been investing like the most brilliant minds said about Thorium (since 1940's) we would have had 73 years to develop them and we would all be driving around Thorium powered cars by now. With a million times the power density of coal, and much higher power density than current nuclear meltdown prone nuclear reactors we could be free of energy concern for 1000 years. No Melt Downs and No Global Warming and abundant cheap energy.

Re:Record radiation levels ...

[khallow]

It's the silent radiation killer

Oh yes, let's tremble at the spooky bogey man.

Fukushima is a peering legacy like Chernobyl before it about the dangers of conventional generation I, II, and III nuclear reactors.

No. It's a flaw of this particular design which spans generation I and very old generation II. Lumping generation III, which all has passive cooling, with Fukushima is mere deception.

Ghostery highscores...

[Cow Jones]

The linked page on businessweek.com contains no less than 13 trackers:

ChartBeat
Disqus
DoubleClick
Dynamic Logic
Facebook Connect
ForeSee
Google Adsense
Google Analytics
Krux Digital
New Relic
ScoreCard Research Beacon
Taboola
Twitter Button

Re:Ghostery highscores...

[Anonymous Coward]

The linked page on businessweek.com contains no less than 13 trackers:

Thank you Sir. That was the final nail in the coffin. I am now also running Ghostery. I will not be subjected to criminal abuse.

Re:Ghostery highscores...

[Anonymous Coward]

(cue obligatory "Ghostery is developed by Evidon, which is OMG ADVERTISING COMPANY, therefore it sends your browsing history and size of your underpants back to parent company" comment)

Sorry for offtopic, but the number of people unable to understand "you can choose to send info about found trackers" is too large.

</offtopic>

Re:Ghostery highscores...

[Anonymous Coward]

There are only 3 trackers if you disabled javascript or use NoScript :)

Prinz Eugen

[Anonymous Coward]

Hope the Japanese develop a technological solution to nuclear decontemination, bacteria or something, and we will one day raise the Prinz Eugen at the Bikini Atolls, the proud survivor of total war and victim of atomic madness.

Sorry but you are half correct

[Anonymous Coward]

You are correct in which ingested radioactive particle are much worst than external radiation. Which is why simple xposure even with Q factor taken into account does not tell the full story. I would rather be exposed to 20mSv per year of cosmic ray, than say , ingest 1/2 of the equivalent radiation in food.

In fact a lot of town reach similar environmental exposure all over the world without having a big increase in cancer. In fact I used to live in a city in France which had in average 4 mSv per year (mostly due to radon, and yes that one is responsible for lung cancer) with some street and school being close because they spiekd at above 8mSv per year. There are other city in the world which goes higher due to environmental sources. Heck even one place in Iran which goes 5 times that.

That said the exposure at Namie is not even that high, it is actualy highly irregular. Some people seems to have gotten higher dose than the numbers cited by the governemental officials, but most of the population a much lower dose. The maximum measured seems to have been at a local point 70 mSv/year which is barred of entry. The average of the town seems much more toward 10 mSv per year. Some people in a building in south korea (or china?) in which cobalt 60 iron girder were used had a much higher dose over 10 years and did not suffer more cancer. Possibly due to hormesis. Yes it was not inside exposure, but neither is most of the radiation in Namie !

The bottom line is that it is not that simple, and at the moment nobody can say whether it will be bad with a few more people dying out of cancer, or if it will be neutral, not seeing anything special, or even good for the inhabitant due to hormesis. Fear mongering won't help. All we can scientifically say right now is : i don't know.

Re:Sorry but you are half correct

[drinkypoo]

That said the exposure at Namie is not even that high, it is actualy highly irregular.

Self-contradictory statement. If the exposure is that high in places at Namie, then the exposure is that high at Namie. It really doesn't help you if only 1% of it is highly contaminated if you happen to encounter that 1%.

Some people in a building in south korea (or china?) in which cobalt 60 iron girder were used had a much higher dose over 10 years and did not suffer more cancer. Possibly due to hormesis. Yes it was not inside exposure, but neither is most of the radiation in Namie !

Disingenuous, again, since we're talking about Namie, which does have opportunities for internal exposure, unlike your unrelated anecdote about girders.

The bottom line is that it is not that simple,

but you're trying to simplify it anyway, without even logging in so that we can decide if this message is being left by a known shill. Which means it probably is.

Re:Sorry but you are half correct

[Donwulff]

It's clever to switch to claiming "average" instead of the indefensible "highest", as to prove average one has to go through every square inch... On maps Namie seems to usually be lumped up in the >30mSv/yr range (which ranges ranges all the way up to 1.6Sv/yr on the NPP). 10 mSv/yr would equate to 1.1 microSievers/h and it's actually hard to find outdoors areas that low in Namie town. On Namie town's own site http://www.town.namie.fukushima.jp/ (if you can read Japanese) decontaminated areas are listed as up to 10microSv/h (87.6mSv/yr) - they're actually lower than normal due to snow cover. According to http://jciv.iidj.net/map/list the highest monitoring post measurement within Namie prefecture is currently 9.2 microSv/h. The measuring posts showing lower than actual values is well documented however, probably owing to decontamination and shielding of the monitoring posts, though they're probably within that range.

It's hard to get there with a counter and measure for yourself, the government has taken a hard line on that and uninvited visitors face penalty of up to month in prison, so most measurements are just outside the mandatory evacuation zone. That's right, there's nobody living there, just empty buildings so they do have a legitimate worry about guarding property there. The dose rates before people were evacuated, back in 2011 (it's been over two years now) were much higher, up to 50mSv before evacuation (according to WHO). Radiologically hottest isotopes have decayed and the rest dispersed across the world since then, though.

For the Youtubers, there's always http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG4-Cw4z-kk for example. Person in that video at end of last year is measuring 13.05 microSv/h at waist height. Bringing the geiger-counter to fallen leave on ground, the dose rate jumps to 42.69 microSv/h. Given 365*24 hours in a year those come to 114 mSv/yr and 374mSv/yr respectively. And that's actually 28km from NPP within Namie prefecture, not 8km - but fallout can be spotty. But there's been no concerted effort to find the highest spot, just measurements here and there.

Finally... Fukushima will be good for us and telling people to stay out of mandatory fallout evacuation zone is unscientific fear-mongering? Ah, I see, you're just trolling, well carry on.

GOOG

[Anonymous Coward]

"Google Inc. (GOOG) today..."

Google Inc? Have I heard of them? Google... Google...

"... (GOOG)..."

Oh, that Google Inc! Ok, I'm with you now. Go on.

Where's Neville?

[Muad'Dave]

Creepy. I expected to see Charlton Heston driving like a maniac through the empty streets shooting at pale mutants.

Driver

[Anonymous Coward]

I think I see a driver:
http://goo.gl/maps/USmHJ

Interesting picture

[Anonymous Coward]

I saw this while exploring on google maps

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Namie+town,+Fukushima+Prefecture,+Japan&hl=en&ll=37.492975,140.990381&spn=0.053731,0.077162&sll=37.492171,140.990038&sspn=0.082539,0.116386&hnear=Namie,+Futaba+District,+Fukushima+Prefecture,+Japan&t=m&layer=c&cbll=37.493053,140.990409&panoid=PQphHxUD3BQbV8g89kWinw&cbp=12,125.3,,1,0.82&z=14

And now it made me wonder if this was a recycling shop of some sort or if those tv's and crt monitors still work! :D

Re:Interesting picture

[xQuarkDS9x]

Did you not notice on the sign it also says Special rice and special after service? Maybe you get rice after they serviced your electronics or you got serviced in a much more fun way? *Shrug*