Mutant flowers growing near Fukushima nuclear disaster site
Mutant flowers growing near Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant are going viral four years after the nuclear disaster devastated the region.
Photos of the deformed daisies were posted on Twitter by user @san_kaido from Nasushiobara city, which is located about 110 kilometres from Fukushima.
Translated from Japanese, @san_kaiod's tweet describes how the daisies growing there have apparently been impacted by exposure to radiation since the March 2011 incident, which resulted in the breakdown of three of Fukushima's six reactors following a devastating tsunami.
His caption, as translated by the IB Times, reads: “The right one grew up, split into two stems to have two flowers connected each other, having four stems of flower tied belt-like. “
“The left one has four stems grew up to be tied to each other and it had the ring-shaped flower. The atmospheric dose is 0.5 μSv/h at 1m above the ground."
マーガレットの帯化(那須塩原市5/26)② 右は４つの花茎が帯状に繋がったまま成長し，途中で２つに別れて２つの花がつながって咲いた。左は４つの花茎がそのまま成長して繋がって花が咲き輪の様になった。空間線量0.5μSv地点(地上高1m) pic.twitter.com/MinxdFgXBC
— 三悔堂 (@san_kaido) May 27, 2015
The IB Times reports that the abnormal growth that distorts the heads of the wildflower is caused by hormonal imbalance.
The mutation, known as fasciation, is a relatively rare condition of abnormal growth in vascular plants.
This is not the first time that deformities have been spotted in local flora, with deformed fruit previously reported in the region.
Japan is continuing to struggle with the aftermath of the nuclear disaster, which blanketed vast tracts of land with isotopes of iodine and cesium, which are hazardous to health if ingested, inhaled or absorbed.
Much of the surrounding region has been evacuated since the disaster occurred back in 2011.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government is aiming to lift many evacuation orders by March 2017.
While these mutant flowers are the result of a nuclear disaster, rare mutations can also occur naturally among both plants and animals.
Earlier this year a Florida farmer got quite the surprise when her cow gave birth to a two-headed calf.
Meet Indy, the two-headed boa constrictor from New York.
Mihael Hnatyšyn of Kutjevo, Croatia, was shocked when one of his goats, Sarka, gave birth to this deformed offspring.
A vet clinic in Denmark was presented with a rare sight: a two-headed tortoise, just one day old.
Then there was that time that screen legend Bart Simpson caught a three-eyed fish from a lake just down from the fictitious Springfield Nuclear Plant.
