Fukushima disaster still interests Korean media

    1 of 1 2 of 1

      Today, a Korean documentary crew visited the Georgia Straight to ask about our coverage of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

      Bohae Cha, a fourth-year SFU psychology student, served as the interviewer and translator. 

      The cameraman, Jong-Sang Lee, hails from Hamilton and has taken footage in Canada for Korean TV producers.

      They approached the Straight because we've tried to shine a light on the impact of the Fukushima nuclear disaster on people's health.

      We've done this in part because it has been so utterly ignored by many Canadian media outlets.

      The crew was particularly interested in articles by Alex Roslin about radiation levels in fish caught near Japan.

      I explained that the Japanese radiation limit is 100 becquerels per kilogram, compared to 1,000 becquerels per kilogram in Canada.

      Roslin reported in 2012 that one landlocked salmon tested in Japan posted a level of 18,700 becquerels per kilogram.

      The following year, Roslin calculated that there would be 800 cancers resulting from the consumption of fish contaminated by radiation from the crippled Fukushima plant.

      He arrived at these figures by plugging in radiation test results from 33,000 fish caught in Japan into a model used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

      Comments