Are the Fukushima residents supposed to be grateful for that?
What about the rest of Tohoku and Kanto, where the high-radiation "hot spots" have been cropping up all over the place?
More than 3 months into the accident and with ever-accumulating radiation in people, many public and private institutions from the national government on down is eager to test the radiation levels. Yes, now let's collect the world-class data! (Sorry for being cynical.)
From Yomiuri Shinbun (11:29PM JST 6/28/2011):
政府の原子力災害対策本部は２８日、東京電力福島第一原子力発電所の事故による福島県民の被曝ひばく調査に、放射性物質の拡散予測を行う国のシステム「ＳＰＥＥＤＩ（スピーディ）」を利用すると発表した。
The Japanese government's headquarters for the nuclear disaster countermeasures announced on June 28 that the SPEEDI system will be used for the survey of the Fukushima residents to determine the radiation exposure after the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident. The SPEEDI system is designed to forecast the dispersion of the radioactive materials.事故初期の３月１２日から１６日までの空間線量率を計算し、外部被曝の調査に役立てる。
The government will use SPEEDI to calculate the air radiation levels from March 12 to March 16 to help determine the external radiation exposure for the residents.
福島第一原発事故では、東日本大震災の影響で放射性物質の計測機器の多くが作動せず、３月１７日に移動式機器などで計測を再開するまで空間線量率が不明だった。
Many radiation monitoring stations did not work after the March 11 earthquake, and the air radiation levels were not known until March 17 when the portable monitoring stations were used to measure radiation.
スピーディで放射性物質の放出量などを計算して、１時間ごとの放射線量地図を作成し、県民の行動範囲と照合して個人の外部被曝量を計算する。
The government will use SPEEDI to calculate the amount of radioactive materials released and create the hourly radiation contour maps, then calculate the personal external radiation level for each resident by figuring out where he/she was during that period.
地図の作成・公表に約２週間、被曝量の算定に１か月程度を見込んでいる。
The government thinks it will take about 2 weeks to create and publish the maps, and one month to calculate the individual radiation levels.
The Japanese taxpayers footed the bill for this costly system so that it could predict the radioactive material dispersion in case of a nuclear accident AND warn them in advance. Having failed miserably in that task (thanks to the government who supposedly feared panic and/or couldn't release the simulations because they were just, well, simulations), now it will be used to tell people how much radiation they have been exposed, after the fact.