Mediahysterie rond Fukushima zwakt af

The situation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear powerplant in Japan, badly damaged during the extremely severe earthquake and tsunami there a week ago, continues to stabilise. It is becoming more probable by the day that public health consequences will be zero and radiation health effects among workers at the site will be so minor as to be hard to measure. Nuclear experts are beginning to condemn the international hysteria which has followed the incident in increasingly blunt terms.

Occasional brief readings of slightly heightened radiation – occasionally reported in scaremongering fashion as "10x normal" – have been detected as far afield as the outskirts of Tokyo, but these are insignificant in a health context. Even if they persisted unbroken for a year, local dosages at such a level would be no more than powerplant workers are allowed in normal times: and nuclear powerplant workers' cancer rate is actually lower than in the general population.

Measurable blips in background radiation may be detectable around the world in coming weeks, and will no doubt be heavily reported on, but they will be more insignificant still.

Japan's nuclear powerplants have performed magnificently in the face of a disaster hugely greater than they were designed to withstand, remaining entirely safe throughout and sustaining only minor damage. The unfolding Fukushima story has enormously strengthened the case for advanced nations – including Japan – to build more nuclear powerplants, in the knowledge that no imaginable disaster can result in serious problems.

The Fukushima reactors actually came through the quake with flying colours despite the fact that it was five times stronger than they had been built to withstand. Only with the following tsunami – again, bigger than the design allowed for – did problems develop, and these problems seem likely to end in insignificant consequences.