The unfamiliar dial tone gives way to the voice of Subrata Ghoshroy, a contributor to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists famous for setting the Doomsday Clock. Ghoshroy is in Calcutta, but he seems to travel a lot, having been on a recent visit to areas left vacant since the March 2011 Fukushima meltdowns. “To be frank we were a little bit, ah, cavalier about it because these areas indeed were contaminated, remain contaminated,” he told the Post.

Subrata Ghoshroy at a compression plant. Photo: Lucas Wirl

“There was some risk of course, but we were there for a relatively short time, so the cumulative exposure was probably pretty small,” he added. He knows his radioactive stuff. Ghoshroy worked on the comprehensive test ban treaty among other policy areas, and for 20 years he worked on high energy lasers as an engineer and manager.

Read the story here: www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1922987/exclusion-zone-scientists-visit-fukushimas-radioactive-soil