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."

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?

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.