Summary of the New York Times article: Citizens’ Testing Finds 29 Hot Spots Around Tokyo (October 14, 2011)

The accident of Fukushima nuclear plants, caused by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, were the world’s second worst nuclear disaster after Chernobyl. Since the accident, Japanese people have been exposed to danger and threatened by the fear of nuclear contamination. Many scientists insist that radiation from plants is contaminating a larger area than expected, and causing serious effects on human health. However, the Japanese government and local officials don’t have a sufficient plan to check the radiation situation for the area farther than 160 miles from the disaster zone. In this situation, some individual experts and citizens’ groups conducted research by themselves.

One of these citizens’ groups in Tokyo tested the level of radioactive cesium and found 20 hot spots within their community. Some of the results shocked them, showing the same level of contamination as Chernobyl. After the test, a member of this group decided to move his family to Okayama, about 370 miles to the southwest, because he discovered a high contamination level at the baseball field where his son played, with a risk to damage cells and lead to cancers.

These results suggest that hot spots are more widespread than originally imagined. Doctors and scientists indicate radiation’s bad effects for human health and blame the government for their lack of information about radiation levels. However, Japan’s relatively tame mainstream media mainly ignored their findings and the government did not provide any effective solution.