nuclear-news

Outside Fukushima reactor building, deadly radiation in water

the worker who made the measurement, carried out on a pool of water in the reactor’s basement turbine building, had fled before taking a second reading.

Deadly nuclear levels detected, The Age, Osaka, March 29, 2011 RADIATION levels that can prove fatal were detected outside reactor buildings at Japan’s Fukushima  No.1 plant for the first time, complicating efforts to contain the worst disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.

Water in an underground trench outside the No.2 reactor had levels exceeding one sievert an hour, a spokesman for plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company  said.

Thirty minutes’  exposure to that dose would trigger nausea and four hours might lead to death within two months, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.

Preventing the most-contaminated water from leaking into the ground or air is key to containing the spread of radiation beyond the plant.

A partial meltdown of fuel rods in the No.2 reactor probably caused a jump in the readings, Japan’s chief governmentspokesman said yesterday…..

The initial report said the worker who made the measurement, carried out on a pool of water in the reactor’s basement turbine building, had fled before taking a second reading.

The worker’s discovery prompted another evacuation at the site, halting work to pump and store radioactive water that has built up in the turbine buildings of three  reactors…..Deadly nuclear levels detected

March 29, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | - Fukushima 2011