Page 18 - Gamma Rays News Today

Its damaged nuclear power plant and workers there. they are still frantically trying to avert a meltdown, possibly meltdowns, and some evacuees fleeing the danger zone are not surviving. details now from our own dr. sanjay gupta. >> reporter: brooke, obviously the big news today talking about the classification of this nuclear accident. on a scale of 1 to 7, they are classifying this as a 5. a little bit of context. chernobyl was a 7, but this now puts it on par with what happened at three mile ...

They know in some cases theyre going to die. >> yeah, they certainly know the deal here specifically in terms of the radiation. theyre looking at levels presumably, also trying to figure out what that means for them. one of the things is, they try and protect themselves as much as possible, even with masks like this, for example. we showed suits as well, but they dont do that much in terms of the most dangerous forms of radiation, these gamma rays. these are devices which theyre probably carryin...

Nuclear meltdown and fears spread over radiation in japan, a u.s. company is donating special radiation protection suits that they say block x-rays, nuclear emissions and gamma rays. orlando salinas is live at radiation shield technologies in florida today. orly? >> reporter: jenna, youre hitting it right on the head. this company, radiation shield technology, says its product can block all the bad stuff that were seeing right now, were talking about taking place in japan. jenna, we just saw a v...

Particularly the radiation levels, we know theres no power. theyre probably doing this in the darkness or using flashlights. wearing protective suits that seal around the neck and wearing a mask to provide some protection. again, the most dangerous types of radiation, the gamma rays that weve been talking about, they penetrate just about everything. you can measure how much radiation youre getting using certain devices like these. carol, i mean, this is what they do for a living. they know -- ho...

Gamma rays are external to their body, like being in an extra machine. its passing through that bubble suit and theres only a limited amount of stay time that they can be in the area. >> so what does that mean for the 180 workers? there have been differing opinions about what is going to happen to those that are cycling through as they desperately try to avert an even bigger nuclear crisis for their country. >> well the rule of thumb is that 250 rem of radiation will definitely give you cancer. ...

Part, were not detecting radioactivity. you want to know how much exposure have you had. >> a machine doesnt tell you how much exposure youve had three days ago? >> no. think of it like a camera. you can hear it clicking off as its giving readings here, which are all low. theyre significantly low as compared to anything that would trigger an alarm. that measures alpha, beta and gamma rays. this is just measuring the air constantly around us, 13 microrads per hour, and thats, again, a very low nu...

Brooke were on the top story of a seven-floor building in san francisco. the radiation detection unit here, this silver box, you can see what it looks like when its open. some computer equipment. theres a bit of a filtration system that analyzes the air and is able to provide real-time data to the epa. joining us to talk about how this system works is eric stevenson with the bay area air quality management district. he manages this system for the epa. is this pretty simple equipment? explain, gi...

Its designed to pick up these gamma rays. theres a crowd that gives off gamma rays that would fire it off. theres also particles that land on your skin or enter your -- through your mouth or through your breathing, and those are not detected by the dessimeter. i dont think the people in tokyo should be stampeding for the doors or anything like that. if the wind changes, i still have pretty serious concerns. >> we know now that the united states military is using drones, unmanned aircraft to fly ...

Seems to disagree. but there seems to be questions as to whether theyre being exposed to potentially fatal doses of radiation. >> reporter: theres conflicting information and sometimes a complete lack of information. what people are trying to figure out is what are the radiation levels inside the plant, and thats an answer we dont know. we know what some of the high readings have been outside the plant, we know what some of the readings have been for example in tokyo, 20 times normal but still v...

Years. whats pushing the firemen back is the radiation thats coming from the spent fuel pool, and its like, theyre called gamma rays but its a very high powered x-ray, and without the water in that fuel pool, theres two things, one, its not being cooled but two its not being shielded and so theres an awful lot of gamma rays flooding that site forcing the workers to say further away. >> which is why the water cannons have stopped, theyve stopped the water cannons using the water on the facility a...