[Overheal]

Originally Posted by jackiebaron

Now who's the clown who said that the radiation leaking from this debacle is less than a fücking cat-scan? Water around Fukushima is now 1800 times above a safe level. Can't wait to eat some of that sushi.

And 2 weeks ago that would have been the case.

[Grim.]

Reuters Reuters Top News
Japan plant operator says radioactivity in water at reactor No. 2 is 10 million times usual level, workers evacuated - local media

[Overheal]

Well thats not good..

How recent is that? We've seen levels spike and recede before, and temporary evacuations.

Whats the normal level though 10 million times X is still Y = an unknown variable.

[andrew]

If it's water which was in the reactor vessel and has leaked out, 1) is it really that dangerous and 2) surely it's to be expected?

[Overheal]

Maybe?

if it leaks out and steams up it would carry uranium and caesium out.

[andrew]

Originally Posted by Overheal

Maybe?

if it leaks out and steams up it would carry uranium and caesium out.

I got the impression it had settled in 'stagnant pools' and so wasn't in much danger of steaming up, but is a hazard to the workers there for sure.

[Grim.]

no idea what normal levels are just following this as it breaks on twitter

Reuters Reuters Top News
FLASH: #Japan plant operator confirms high radiation, evacuates workers from reactor's turbine building

[Run_to_da_hills]

If radiation remains extremely high they can't very well abandon the plant indefinitely, why don't they just do as the Russians did
and burry the damn thing asap.

[gbee]

Wasn't Reactor No2 the one they thought the suppression chamber had cracked after and explosion?

How many Reactors are leaking coolant? If I am getting the reports right ~ not easy with so much going one and news conferences being denied later in the day and so fourth, but it seems like two reactors are leaking. No2 & No3.

It had been said that as the water contained iodine, and the spent fuel would not contain isodine, that the water had to be from the cores [somehow].

All I'm getting on the usual news is the clean up of the tsunami and the low microsievert reports. Upstream seems to be gone, live news seems to be gone. ??

[gbee]

8:00PM local Japan: 10,000,000 times the normal level found inside nuclear reactors:

Water samples: 1000mSv or 2.9 Billion Bq in turbine building No2 reactor and read above the limit of the gauge.

Iodine 134 & 131 Caesium 134 [found in water]

High levels of radiation including iodine [2 types] but the reactor is off for a 1/2 month now. No2 reactor suppression chamber may be damaged.

Current data does not indicate that the current substances are leaking from the reactor. They cannot deny that the leak is indicating damage in the suppression chamber but have no data.

ME: if I read this correctly, it seems the reactor No2 is actually still active? Right 134mCs (with a half-life of just under 3 hours), ? 4 to 5 hours in here at these levels are lethal.

[el diablo]

Originally Posted by andrew

From the BBC: Viewpoint: We should stop running away from radiation

Interesting article.. thanks.

[Rob A. Bank]

Originally Posted by gbee

8:00PM local Japan: 10,000,000 times the normal level found inside nuclear reactors:

ME: if I read this correctly, it seems the reactor No2 is actually still active? Right 134mCs (with a half-life of just under 3 hours), ? 4 to 5 hours in here at these levels are lethal.

This is very very bad news indeed, if what they are reporting is true.

The radioactive reading may actually be higher than 10,000,000 times the normal level , because they say it exceeded the range of the counter.

The levels are such that a person can not spend more than 10 or 15 mins close to it, which will severely complicate stabilizing at the reactors.

They found Iodine 134, a fission product which has a half-life of 53 minutes.

This isotope loses half its radioactive atoms every 53 minutes so it should all be gone in 530 minutes.

This means that it was created by uncontrolled and uncontained nuclear fission in the previous few hours, maybe in a severely damaged reactor or in the spent rod pool. This nuclear fission could also possibly generate enough heat to burn its way through steel and concrete.

Things seem to be going out of control again.

[peasant]

Originally Posted by Rob A. Bank

This is very very bad news indeed, if what they are reporting is true.

The radioactive reading may actually be higher than 10,000,000 times the normal level , because they say it exceeded the range of the counter.

The levels are such that a person can not spend more than 10 or 15 mins close to it, which will severely complicate stabilizing at the reactors.

They found Iodine 134, a fission product which has a half-life of 53 minutes.

This isotope loses half its radioactive atoms every 53 minutes so it should all be gone in 530 minutes.

This means that it was created by uncontrolled and uncontained nuclear fission in the previous few hours, maybe in a severely damaged reactor or in the spent rod pool. This nuclear fission could also possibly generate enough heat to burn its way through steel and concrete.

Things seem to be going out of control again.

According to "Der Spiegel" http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/0,1518,753407-2,00.html we're not talking about just "puddles" of highly contaminated water but massive amounts of it in the basements of the reactors. Reactor 1 - 40cm; Reactor 2 - 1.0 m; reactor 3 (the one with the plutonium) - 1.5m; Reactor 4 - 80 cm high.

This of course is a massive problem in that all of that highly contaminated water has to be safely disposed of before they can even think about investigating further and getting things fixed.

How do you remove cubic meters over cubic meters of highly radioactive water without killing people?

[vibe666]

looks like someone at TEPCO didn't do their sums right before their last press release.

TEPCO retracts radioactivity test result
Tokyo Electric Power Company has retracted its announcement that 10 million times the normal density of radioactive materials had been detected in water at the Number 2 reactor of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

The utility says it will conduct another test of the leaked water at the reactor's turbine building.

The company said on Sunday evening that the data for iodine-134 announced earlier in the day was actually for another substance that has a longer half-life.

The plant operator said earlier on Sunday that 2.9 billion becquerels per cubic centimeter had been detected in the leaked water.

It said although the initial figure was wrong, the water still has a high level of radioactivity of 1,000 millisieverts per hour.
Sunday, March 27, 2011 22:02 +0900 (JST)

[vibe666]

Awesome Rescuer is Awesome!

No doubt many stories of heroism in the face of Japan's recent tsunami will emerge in the upcoming weeks—one is happening in the Fukushima Daiichi plant as I write this, in fact—but the latest is so beautiful and fantastical that it seems primed for a Hollywood movie.

Meet Hideaki Akaiwa, 43. Startled at work by the now infamous earthquake and tsunami that shook and overtook Japan on March 11, Akaiwa rushed to high ground and immediately called his wife of two decades. When she didn't answer, Akaiwa ignored friends' pleas to wait for a military rescue, instead rummaging up some scuba gear and diving into the dark, cold, debris-filled tsunami. Hundreds of yards of swimming later, Akaiwa found his wife struggling against the 10-foot current that had overtaken the couple's Ishinomaki home.