The documents provide a view into what the area looks like now

Nov 14, 2011 12:04 GMT  ·  By

Reports from the Fukushima Medical University (FMU), some 60 kilometers (37.2 miles) away from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, show what the area looks like now, months after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that led to the meltdown of four nuclear reactors at the installation.

FMU physicist Tsuneo Konayashi has been continuously measuring background levels of gamma radiation since well before the tremor. His data show a huge spike in these radiations 5 days after the earthquake, on March 16, some 9.3 times above normal levels.

By August, radiation levels had decreased to 1.5 times the regular levels. The expert says that some isotopes, such as iodine-131, are very short-lived, with a half-life of less than a week. Conversely, isotopes such as cesium-134 and strontium-90 can affect the environment for 6 months.

The FMU team plans to continue monitoring radiation levels near Fukushima for the foreseeable future, Technology Review reports, and will make more results public as they become available.