Fukushima is low in the fifteen minute news cycle, but the problem of long-lived and far traveling nuclear pollution is not going away…

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan plans to ask pregnant women and children to move away from radiation “hotspots” that were found far away from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, the government said on Thursday, reflecting new anxieties about the spread of radioactivity.

The government will not, however, evacuate entire towns, but rather homes where residents could be exposed to more than 20 millisieverts of radiation per year. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters.

See our post of 2 months ago, Radiation Does Not Spread in Circles.

The Mainichi Daily News has a Q and A for Japanese readers concerned about the unfolding crisis…

Q: Why do areas far from the plant become hot spots?

A: Radioactive materials emitted from a damaged nuclear plant do not spread evenly. Rather, they form into plumes that are carried by the wind. In the Fukushima disaster, large-scale emissions of radioactive materials are thought to have occurred from March 15 to 16 after hydrogen explosions damaged reactor buildings at the plant.

According to an analysis by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, a plume of radioactive materials started heading west around noon on March 15, and from around 2 to 3 p.m. it came into contact with rain and fell over the cities of Koriyama and Shirakawa. Later, the plume was carried northwest and rained over areas including Iitate from the evening of March 15 to the predawn hours of March 16.

In areas over which plumes happened to come into contact with rain, radioactive materials were deposited on the ground, creating hot spots.

The pro-nuclear arguments only make sense when you discount human error and unpredictable events– two things that are guaranteed in the real world.