nuclear-news

Radiation released right after Fukushima accident was much more than first estimated

Fukushima radiation higher than first estimated,  By Kevin Krolicki TOKYO    May 24 (Reuters) – The radiation released in the first days of the Fukushima nuclear disaster was almost 2-1/2 times the amount first estimated by Japanese safety regulators, the operator of the crippled plant said in a report released on Thursday.

Tokyo Electric Power said its own analysis conducted over the past year put the amount of radiation released in the first three weeks of the accident at about one-sixth the radiation released during the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

“If this information had been available at the time, we could have
used it in planning evacuations,” Tepco spokesman Junichi Matsumoto
told a news conference.
Because radiation sensors closest to the plant were knocked out by the
March 11, 2011 quake and the tsunami, the utility based its estimate
on other monitoring posts and data collected by Japanese government
agencies.

Tepco, set to be nationalised in July in exchange for a Japanese
government bailout, estimated meltdowns at three Fukushima reactors
released about 900,000 terabecquerels of radioactive substances into
the air during March.

That was 2-1/2 times the amount of the first estimate by Japan’s
Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency in April last year and about 17
percent more than the highest estimate provided by the government
safety agency.

The estimate was based on measurements suggesting the amount of
Iodine-131 released by the nuclear accident was three times higher
than previous estimates, the utility said in the report….
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/24/nuclear-japan-idUSL4E8GO6ID20120524

May 26, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Fukushima 2012, incidents