nuclear-news

Workers still trying to stop Fukushima radioactive water leak

Bodies found as nuclear plant leak poisons ocean | The Australian, 4 April 11, “……..Plant workers yesterday attempted to inject water-absorbent polymer into a 20cm crack in a pit beneath the No 2 reactor that has been blamed for radioactive leaks into the ocean. Earlier attempts to fill the crack with concrete failed.”We are hoping the polymers will absorb water and fill in the pipe to prevent water from flowing,” said the deputy director-general of Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, Hidehiko Nishiyama.TEPCO said radiation readings in the air above the pit had hit 1000 millisieverts per hour – more than four times the allowable annual total for workers at the plant.

Tests of the water in the pit showed a concentration of one million becquerels per litre of iodine 131, about 10,000 times the normal level for the cooling water used in the plant.

At the time the leak was discovered, the 2m-deep pit under the reactor contained up to 20cm of contaminated water, according to TEPCO.

The nuclear safety agency said it believed the pit leaks could be the source of the contamination that has caused readings for radioactive iodine 131 in the sea just off the plant to rise to more than 4000 times the legal limit……

Reports said contaminated water was transferred to a barge to free up space in tanks on land, and a second barge had arrived……

Bodies found as nuclear plant leak poisons ocean | The Australian

April 4, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | - Fukushima 2011