Time Lapse Twitter, Tracking The Fukushima Radioactive Cloud

When the Fukushima Nuclear reactor began to meltdown on March 11, 2011 the people of Japan and individuals around the world quickly gathered around social networks to discuss the catastrophe. Soon after community project Webnode began charting the number of new blogs and comments being generated around the catastrophe.

The results? 500 Million+ Tweets have been generated regarding the catastrophe with information being shared all over the world from Japan to the United States.

To follow information about the disaster Webnode followed keyword specific Tweets including the words: Radioactivity, Pollution cloud, Fukushima, and many other terms associated with the meltdown. To accomplish their goal in real-time Webnode used the Google Realtime system to gather the most accurate information possible.

The community platform then tracked the Fukushima radioactive cloud movement using The Austrian Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics.

According to SocialIntensity, Dr.Gerhard Wottawa commented:

“The images show the multi-day spread of a plume released from The Fukushima Daiichi NPP. There is assumed to be a continuous release of Iodine-131 into the atmosphere between the surface and 250 meters. Since the release has decreased after 25 March 2011, we do not assume any larger-scale health impacts.”

Most interesting within the study was the fact that the number of Tweets quickly increased as the radioactive cloud plum reached into new countries. For example pay attention to the number of Tweets in Europe as the cloud moved towards that region.

The study also sheds light on areas where social media has not grown, such as Communist Cuba where the cloud was of big concern while governmental control and lack of internet connectivity for most of the countries citizens has restricted access to social networks such as Twitter.