The danger of radiation exposure due to leaks from Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant is rising after explosions at the site caused by Japan’s earthquake and tsunami.
Source : elev8
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| Radiation Leak From Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant, Japan. (AP) |
What is radiation?
The Radiation Support Portal provides the following answer to this question:
Radiation is energy that travels in the form of waves or high speed particles. Radiation can be naturally occurring or man made. It is all around us in varying forms ranging from radio waves to x-rays to cosmic radiation from space.
While there are various different types of radiation, some more energetic than others, there are two primary classifications :
Non-Ionizing Radiation: Radiation having enough energy to excite atoms (make them move more rapidly), but not enough to ionize them (alter them physically). Examples of non-ionizing radiation include microwaves, radio waves and visible light.
Ionizing Radiation: The most energetic forms of radiation, capable of removing electrons from atoms (ionization) and damaging the DNA within living cells. X-rays, gamma rays and alpha & betaparticles are examples of ionizing radiation.
What is the effect of radiation exposure on your health?
The best resource that I found to answer this question comes from the article Radiation Fears After Japan Blast on BBC News:
Exposure to moderate levels of radiation – above one gray – can result in radiation sickness, which produces a range of symptoms.
Nausea and vomiting often begin within hours of exposure, followed by diarrhoea, headaches and fever.
After the first round of symptoms, there may be a brief period with no apparent illness, but this may be followed within weeks by new, more serious symptoms.
At higher levels of radiation, all of these symptoms may be immediately apparent, along with widespread – and potentially fatal – damage to internal organs.
Exposure to a radiation dose of four gray will typically kill about half of all healthy adults.
For comparison, radiation therapy for cancer typically involves several doses of between one and seven gray at a time – but these doses are highly controlled, and usually specifically targeted at small areas of the body. (read more)
The following video explains the devastation effect of radiation exposure and poisoning: Explorer: 24 Hours After Hiroshima :
Two years after the US dropped the atomic bomb (1945), a commission is created to study the effects of the intense radiation on humans.
During the final stages of World War II in 1945, the United States conducted two atomic bombings against the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, the first on August 6, 1945 and the second on August 9, 1945. These two events are the only active deployments of nuclear weapons in war to date.
Within the first two to four months of the bombings, the acute effects of radiation exposure killed 90,000–166,000 people in Hiroshima and 60,000–80,000 in Nagasaki, with roughly half of the deaths in each city occurring on the first day. The Hiroshima prefectural health department estimates that, of the people who died on the day of the explosion, 60% died from flash or flame burns, 30% from falling debris and 10% from other causes. During the following months, large numbers died from the effect of burns, radiation exposure sickness, and other injuries, compounded by illness.
Source : elev8
