Nuclear plants information

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For Fukushima #1 Nuclear Plant, evacuate immediately if you are within 20km distance. For 20-30km areas, do not go outside. Keep stay in your house.

■Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency Info

*Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry

Japanese: http://kinkyu.nisa.go.jp/
English: http://www.nisa.meti.go.jp/english/index.html

■Protect from radiation

  1. Avoid from outer irradiation.  If you have scars, radiation will get inside of your body from it.  So prevent them with something like band-aid.
  2. Also radiation may get inside from your eyes too.  Radiant materials come out from the nuclear plant are gas.  The point is to protect poisonous radiation from those materials.  If you are inside of building, close the doors and windows then stop A/C or fan to shut out the outside airs.
  3. If you are at outside within radiation effective areas, you MUST cover your mouth and nose with mask or wet towel.  Also, wear long sleeves cloth to cover your skins as possible as you can.
  4. Radiations are invisible with no smell.  This is the point you must be cautious.  You need to protect yourself from inner irradiation by breathing or eating.  Once you get inner irradiation, you will be affected for long term. 
  5. 10 days after the nuclear plant’s accident may be safe.  After that, be cautious to take in radiant materials by water from water source, plants, and dust.

■Necessary Articles for Disaster of a Nuclear Power Plant and Radiation

  • Radiation detector, Radiation alarm
  • Maps
  • Band-aids (to protect any wounds from radiation)
  • Hats or anything that covers your head (to keep your hair from contacting radiation)
  • Dust mask (to avoid inhaling radiation) *
  • Raincoat (to keep your clothes away from radiation)
  • Plastic gloves (to avoid being contaminated with radiation)
  • Garbage bags (to put in things contaminated with radiation)
  • Plastic bag to put in your shoes (to keep your shoes away from radiation)
  • Packing tapes, Plastic wraps (to seal up doors or windows to avoid being contaminated)
  • Urine sand for pets (useful when confining in a room)
  • Big-sized plastic bags (for toilette use when confining in a room)

*Dust Mast : Masks for hay fever actually let you take in some air between your face and a mask. Minute particles of radiation could also go through these hay fever masks. Dust masks that are verified by the government are categorized in ranks and their effectiveness is guaranteed. The recommended rank is DS2 and DS3. The size a radiation particle is less than 3μm. Masks ranked as DS2 can eliminate 95% of minute particles whose sizes are between 0.06~0.1μm. Radiation particles with the size of less than 3μm would almost not go through these masks at all. The price is approximately between 300 and 600 yen.

■How to Flee to Safety Inside of a Building

It is dangerous to leave where you are when there is no means of transportation or low possibility to escape completely. It is rather safer to stay inside a building or house than to expose yourself to radiation outside.

Food and Water

First of all, secure enough food and water. A tentative estimation for how long one would stay inside is about a week. If water service still works, store water in every container you have. A water shortage will be severe. When exposed to radiation, the source of water supply will be contaminated, and so will the tap water. If you have to use the water that has been exposed to the air outside, filter it by a water purifier.

A handy water purifier will be useful when evacuating, but it wouldn’t be enough if you end up staying inside. The recommended type of a water purifier is the one with high efficiency to filter that can purify water without much pressure.

Secure food, too. The amount of food necessary to feed everyone for a week is substantial. Stock some food habitually. Agricultural products and marine products from radiation-contaminated areas are dangerous to consume. Try to stock food than can keep well for a long time, such as rice or noodles.

Air Pollution

Choose a room that wouldn’t let outside air to come in. That would be the room to stay in. Prepare for the confinement.

It is important to keep off the air outside. Just closing windows would not completely shut the air out. Aluminum window frames allows some air in even if they are locked.

Seal up all the windows. Do not forget about the extractor fan. Air does come in even when the fan is not moving. Seal it up, too.

Also prepare the followings: wide plastic sheets (to cover all the windows and fans), packing tapes (to attach the sheets), and cushions (to cover up any other openings left).

After sealing up, do not light anything with fire. You may die of suffocation.

Rain is very dangerous since it is contaminated with high-level radiation. Dust in the radiation-polluted air is absorbed in the rain. Be careful of it, especially when it starts to rain.