What do you think about recent reports of radioactive hot-spots ?

Question:

I am going to have an internship in Tokyo. But, now, some bad news came out. Those news reported that Cs-137, Cs-134 and Sr-90 were found in various places. I would like to know how local people there feel about it?

Also, some reports from www.radiationdefense.jp/about_us?lang=en said that they found that some places with high radioactive contamination. How local people treat these reports? Is it still safe for foreigners?

Answer:

Many hotspots can be explained in one logical reason or another, some cases have nothing to do with the Fukushima radiation, other cases pose no danger to the public. For example the hotspot found in Setagaya was discovered to belong to a 60year old house, there the original owner was a arts/painter who stored powdered radium226 which was not uncommon to use in florescent paints up to the 1950s (even in the United States and Europe, radium 226 used in florescent paints were common). This case had nothing to do with Fukushima, but the Media got wind of it and it got "blown" all over the news.

In other examples, one would have to stand at the exact spot, not moving, for 24hours a day, being exposed to the maximum limit for years, obviously for active live humans, this is an unrealistic scenario.

Here's a article written on the subject that is non sensationalized and very explainable:
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/111014/f…

"No matter where you go in the world, if you take a radiation instrument with you and look around, you'll eventually stumble across something that's above what the background for that area normally is,"

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Now if you want to personally know what I think:

If the Emperor and the Imperial family, the Prime Minister of Japan, the US Government/US Embassy and Ambassador were to suddenly evacuate Tokyo along with millions of other people who live there, I'd take that as a good sign that Tokyo is not a good place to go. But since none of that has happened (never happened, even back in March, those people stayed in place, even the US Ambassador, while others were bailing out of Tokyo).

Tokyo is very much a safe place to be for foreigners and Japanese.

Don't go if you are afraid of Godzilla, he's been known to show up every few years.