JAPAN. Iitate. January 12th, 2012.
Rice paddies and pastures line in a valley surrounded by mountains of IITATE, a village nearly 45 km away from the damaged Fukushima power plant. Despite the fact that it's quite far outside the official no-entry zone, it was in IITATE village and four other towns outside the 20km zone where high radiation levels forced all the residents to evacuate. Lifestyles and landscapes have been shaped by agricultural activity for centuries, it took time to convince people that the radiation level in the area is too high to be exposed on a long-term basis. Since May 28th, 2011, a radiation monitoring station stands adjacent to the village office building in IITATE.

Here, the Geiger counter measured a little over 1 microsieverts per hour at 50cm height from the soil. In November, when the snow was absent, it registered 2,42 microsieverts per hour. Air radiation levels across the Fukushima prefecture has declined considerably late January, perhaps due to fallen snow blocking radiation leaked into the soil. Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science & Technology in Japan published official maps of soil contamination by strontium and plutonium on September 30th, 2011. It reveals that the maximum concentration of plutonium-238 was 0,82 becquerels per square meter in IITATE, while the maximum combined concentration of plutonium-239 and plutonium-240 was 2,5 becquerels per square meter.