Study Calculates Health Impacts Of Japan’s Fukushima Nuclear Disaster

Roughly 130 people are likely to die from radiation exposure and another 180 die from cancer as a result of the March 2011 meltdown of the Fukushima-Daichi nuclear power station in Japan, according to a new study by Stanford University researchers. The researchers presented a wide range of possible fatalities from the disaster, estimating that 15 to 1,300 people could die from direct radiation exposure; they also said an estimated 24 to 2,500 people could contract cancer from exposure to radiation following the meltdown. Reporting in the journal Energy and Environmental Science, the researchers settled on the figures of 130 direct exposure fatalities and 180 cancer fatalities as their best estimates. Nearly all of the people affected live in Japan. The Stanford scientists said only 19 percent of the released radioactive material fell on land, noting that mortality rates would have been far higher if most of the radiation had not been blown out to sea. The researchers came up with their estimates by using a 3-D global atmospheric model to predict the transport and concentrations of material released from the stricken reactors.