Source: Wall Street Journal

If heavy rain had fallen in Tokyo on March 14 or March 15, the capital could have experienced the same severe spikes in radiation that areas northwest of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant suffered, says the author of a new study.

“There was a period when quite a high concentration went over Tokyo, but it didn’t rain,” Norwegian scientist Andreas Stohl told Nature News. “It could have been much worse.”

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Mr. Stohl’s paper says the highest emissions occurred on March 14-15, and at the same time winds transported these emissions over Japan. Rain or snow on those days in places such as Iitate, northwest of the plant, caused those areas to suffer from high radiation on the ground, and some were later evacuated indefinitely.

If it had rained in Tokyo those days, “a disastrous scenario … in the major population centers would have been possible,” the paper says.

Read more: http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2011/10... /