Yes. I remember arguments about the way the numbers were taken, but really the measurements for pollution in the air were only useful to state that no explosion

Yes. I remember arguments about the way the numbers were taken, but really the measurements for pollution in the air were only useful to state that no explosion was occuring anymore. During the blowups, the worst thing that happened was clouds picking up radiation and bring it down with the rain. The level of radiation in the air got down really quick, but the rain left persisting peaks of ambiant radiation in Chiba and other regions, and these could only be solved by taking away huge amount of radiated soil, when possible. An exemple of an article describing the phenomenon: [1], but for every news worthy hot spot, there would be a lot of "mildly" dangerous level of radiation areas that would be found by residents buying detectors. Of course during that time reports of the air quality were still the rage with a few reports of the hot spots on the side. Focusing on how clean the air is at 20+m in the sky while part of the soil was infected really catches up the viewpoint taken by the media. That's part of the reason a lot of people are still taking the "it's ok, the numbers prove it's safe" arguments with very big grains of salt and sometimes point the middle finger. [1] http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/radiation-hotspot-in-chiba-linked-to-fukushima http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/radiation-h...