Caesium-137 alienation around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Together with caesium-134, iodine-131, and strontium-90, caesium-137 was among the isotopes distributed by the reactor explosion that constitute the greatest risk to health. The mean contamination of caesium-137 in Germany following the Chernobyl disaster was 2000 to 4000 Bq/m. This corresponds to a contamination of 1 mg/km of caesium-137, totaling about 500 grams deposited over all of Germany. In Scandinavia, some reindeer and sheep exceeded the Norwegian legal limit (3000 Bq/kg) 26 years after Chernobyl. As of 2016 the Chernobyl caesium-137 has decayed by half, but could have been locally concentrated by much
Radiation effects from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster tests. As the isotope signature of the plutonium is closer to that of power-reactor plutonium, TEPCO suggested that "two samples out of five may be the direct result of the recent incident." The more important thing to look at is the curium level in the soil; the soil does contain a short-lived isotope (curium-242) which shows that some alpha emitters have been released in small amounts by the accident. The release of the beta/gamma emitters such as caesium-137 has been far greater. In the short and medium term the effects of the iodine and the caesium release will dominate the