Helen ApSimon founding member and Chairman of the European Association for the Science of Air Pollution. ApSimon is well known for her research into the transport of radioactivity from the Chernobyl disaster. In the immediate aftermath, Russia issued a media blackout and ApSimon was one of few European scientists to detect rising radiation levels. She modelled the nuclear fallout, calculating Chernobyl released 15 - 20 megacuries of Iodine-131 and 1 - 2 megacuries of caesium-137. During the first few weeks after the disaster, ApSimon calculated the radioactive plum covered Scandinavia and the North coast of Europe. She travelled to Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster On 13 February 2014, TEPCO reported 37 kBq (1.0 microcurie) of caesium-134 and 93 kBq (2.5 microcuries) of caesium-137 were detected per liter of groundwater sampled from a monitoring well. Dust particles gathered 4 km from the reactors in 2017 included microscopic nodules of melted core samples encased in caesium. After decades of exponential decline in ocean caesium from weapons testing fallout, radioactive isotopes of caesium in the Sea of Japan increased after Fukushima from 1.5 mBq/L to about 2.5 mBq/L and are still rising as of 2018, while those just off the western coast of Japan have declined. According