Radiation Now Detected In Taiwan

Radiation Expected To Hit Taiwan on Wednesday

****Update*** April 4th, 2011

The Atomic Energy Council of Taiwan said on Sunday (April 3rd) that the amount of radioactive dust released from the Japanese nuclear disaster that will reach Taiwan in the coming days will not pose a health risk.

According to their calculations, radioactive fallout from Japan will reach Taiwan on April 6 and will have a radiation level of 0.0638 microsieverts per hour, below the maximum permissible level of 0.2 microsieverts per hour, said Lee Ruoh-tsann, director the AEC’s Department of Radiation Protection.

On Sunday morning, the radioactive cloud was located over the Pacific Ocean just 300-400 kilometers off the coast of southern Taiwan.

The Government Information Office on Saturday said radioactive dust from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan that was battered by an earthquake and tsunami last month is expected to reach Taiwan on Wednesday, April 6th.

Real Time Radiation Levels In Taiwan

The Taiwan government has provided a publicly available website showing real-time radiation levels throughout Taiwan. Visit the Environmental Radiation Monitoring Network to get the latest numbers for your area of Taiwan. Radiation levels have been low and stable since the beginning of the Japanese reactor incidents on Friday, March 11th. Update – The link to the Radiation Monitoring Network is down – strange it would be taken down just when people would be most interested in monitoring it. I guess if you live in a radiation affected area you’d be better off buying your own geiger counter.

Environmental Radiation Monitoring Network Taiwan, Screenshot

What Is A Microsievert of Radiation?

The page shows radiation levels in µSv/h (microsievert per hour). This value reflects how much radiation a biological body absorbs during an hour of being exposed to radiation. When radiation is low the absorbed radiation is low and vice versa. For example one dental x-ray scan exposes you to roughly 5 µSv and by eating a banana you’ll absorb 0.1 µSv (More Info on radioactive bananas).Any value below 0.2 µSv/h is safe and no reason for concern. Prior to the nuclear reactor accidents in Japan, the natural radiation level in Taipei was 0.071 µSv/h.

If you’re interested to learn more, we recommend this text by Bill Knight from the U.S. National Laboratories in the Health Physics department: Bill Knight, “On The Fukushima Nuclear Emergency – The Media Meltdown”

The bottom line for right now – we’re all safe here in Taiwan right now and are not being exposed to harmful levels of radiation. So relax.

Not so fast. Things have changed since we first wrote that. Today (April 12th), the threat level of the nuclear crisis in Japan has been raised to the same level as Chernobyl. Check here for updates on the nuclear crisis.