Courage of doctors in Fukushima nuclear zone
“Doctors are there to work in this kind of adversity,” he said. “This is my mission — maybe it’s the last chapter of my medical career.”……
Doctors defy radiation woes in Japan’s Fukushima – Channel NewsAsia, 17 May, 11, FUKUSHIMA CITY, Japan: When other doctors fled, 72-year old Kyohei Takahashi stayed, and hundreds of patients in the tsunami-hit Japanese town of Minamisoma near a crippled nuclear plant will never forget.Dr. Takahashi has defied radiation fears and worked gruelling hours for the past nine weeks to do what he considers his duty.”As a doctor, I thought, I shouldn’t retreat,” he said. “I told myself: who will do it if I don’t?” Continue reading
Perspective on Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear catastrophes
The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster in Perspective, Global Research ca by Dr. Helen Caldicott 15 may 11, First I want to present this report, produced by the New York Academy of Sciences, a report on Chernobyl. It can be downloaded.(2) They translated 5,000 articles from Russian for the first time into English. It seems that nearly a million people have already died as a result of Chernobyl, despite what the WH0(3) says and the IAEA.(4) This is one of the most monstrous cover-ups in the history of medicine. Because everybody should know about this. Continue reading
Earthquake, not tsunami, damaged Fukushima nuclear plant
Quake ‘hurt reactors before tsunami’ | The Japan Times Online, May 16, 2011Tepco detected sharp rise in radiation in reactor 1 immediately after temblor struck High radiation readings taken in the No. 1 reactor building the night of March 11 suggest it was the quake rather than the loss of cooling that critically damaged the Fukushima No. 1 power plant, a utility source said Saturday.
The belated disclosure could trigger a review of quake-preparedness at nuclear facilities across the country. Many have been focusing on increasing defenses against tsunami, which knocked out the plant’s poorly placed emergency power generators…..Quake ‘hurt reactors before tsunami’ | The Japan Times Online
Fukushima nuclear plant – cooling process now abandoned
Japan nuclear: Tepco halts Fukushima cooling plan, BBC New15 May 2011 Japanese engineers have abandoned their latest attempt to stabilise a stricken reactor at the Fukushima nuclear plant.The plant’s operator, Tepco, had intended to cool reactor 1 by filling the containment chamber with water.
But Tepco said melting fuel rods had created a hole in the chamber, allowing 3,000 tonnes of contaminated water to leak into the basement of the reactor building……The government and Tepco (Tokyo Electric Power Company) said it would take until next January to achieve a cold shut-down at the plant……Tepco says it will come up with a new plan to stabilise the reactor by Tuesday.Japanese broadcaster NHK said Tepco was now studying a plan to circulate water from the basement through a decontamination filter and back into the reactor.BBC News – Japan nuclear: Tepco halts Fukushima cooling plan
Olympic swimming pool-sized pond of radioactive water at Fukushima
Radioactive ‘pond’ found at Fukushima, The Independent 16 May 11, Japanese officials have found an Olympic swimming pool-sized pond of radioactive water in the basement of a unit at the Fukushima nuclear plant crippled by the March earthquake and tsunami.The discovery has forced officials to abandon their original plan to bring the No 1 reactor under control. Now they will focus on how to deal with the rising pool that some experts see as a threat to groundwater and the Pacific coast……Radioactive ‘pond’ found at Fukushima – Asia, World – The Independent
Children, pregnant women, first in new evacuation outside Fukushima zone
Japan evacuates villages outside nuclear zone By Mark Willacy ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation), 16 May 11, Japan began evacuating people from outside the official exclusion zone around the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant after it was revealed fuel rods there probably melted hours after March’s devastating earthquake.
With radiation levels remaining high, small children and pregnant women were the first to be moved, with thousands more to be shifted into shelters and temporary housing. More details have emerged about the meltdown in Fukushima’s No. 1 reactor, with revelations the fuel rods were likely exposed to the air for as long as 14 hours – a fact not discovered until last week.
It appears the rods melted just hours after the earthquake and tsunami struck, dropping to the bottom of the pressure vessel at the core.It was the news the people of Litate village had been dreading…..After the plant’s operator, TEPCO, told the Japanese people that things were stabilising at Fukushima, it is now clear they knew far less about the situation than they were willing to admit.
About 8,000 Litate residents and those in the nearby village of Kawamata are being asked to move, joining the tens of thousands who have already been forced out of their homes by the nuclear crisis…..Japan evacuates villages outside nuclear zone – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Now damage likely to nuclear fuel cores in 3 Fukushima reactors
Damage suspected at other reactors Herald Sun May 16, 2011 SUBSTANTIAL damage has occurred in fuel cores at two other reactors of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear complex.The announcement by operator Tokyo Electric Power Co., further complicates the already daunting task of bringing the reactors to a safe shutdown while avoiding the release of high levels of radioactivity.
The revelation followed an acknowledgment on Thursday that a similar meltdown of the core took place at Unit Number One. The operator, known also as Tepco, said that the unit lost its reactor core 16 hours after the plant was struck by a magnitude-9 earthquake and a giant tsunami on the afternoon of March 11.
Workers also found that No. 1 Unit’s reactor building is flooded in the basement, reinforcing the suspicion that the containment vessel is damaged and leaking highly radioactive water…..Damage suspected at other reactors | Herald Sun
Yet another Fukushima cleanup strategy – giant polyester coverings
Giant Polyester Sheets To Cover Nuclear Reactor Buildings Wall Street Journal TOKYO (Dow Jones), 14 May 11, –Giant polyester covers will soon be placed around the damaged reactor buildings at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex to help contain the release of radioactive substances into the atmosphere, the plant operator said Friday.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501.TO) will install the first cover at the No. 1 reactor, the focus of recent stabilization efforts.Workers will erect a steel framework and place a giant polyester tent-like cover around the reactor building. The cover will be 55 meters high, 47 meters long and 42 meters wide.
The operation to fit the cover will begin next month. Similar covers will be placed around units Nos. 3 and 4. The work is expected to be completed by the end of the year…..The damaged buildings have come to symbolize the severity of the nuclear crisis at the plant, the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986. The loss of the roofs and filters above the reactors has led to the steady release of radioactive substances from the complex, prompting calls for measures to contain contamination in the surrounding areas.-By Mitsuru Obe, Dow Jones Newswires http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20110513-705098.html
Oh dear, Fukushima nuclear cleanup not really going so well
The new information about water levels in Unit 1, obtained after workers were able to enter the Unit 1 reactor building and adjust water gauges, now has officials worried that water level readings at Units 2 and 3 may also be wrong. It also throws a wrench in TEPCO’s sunny plan of having the crisis at the plant sewn up before the end of the year. And once the utility does achieve cold shutdown in all six reactors, it will face the problem of what to do with the damaged and unstable fuel rods.
Fukushima: Er, Sorry…Worse Than We Thought.TIME by Krista Mahr , May 13, 2011 n the two months since Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was pummeled by a quake and tsunami, no news has generally been good news.
Unfortunately, today, there’s some news.
Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) announced on Thursday that the damage to fuel rods inside Unit 1’s reactor core is worse than the utility previously thought. Continue reading
Fukushima reactor No 3 building – highly dangerous radiation level
Robot finds high radiation at No. 3 reactor bldg, The Yomiuri Shimbun, 14 May 11, A robot has detected highly dangerous levels of radiation in the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant’s No. 3 reactor building, it has been learned, indicating further safety measures will be needed before workers can enter the structure.
According to plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co., the remote-controlled PackBot robot on Tuesday found radiation levels in the northwestern section of the building of 49 to 120 millisieverts per hour, which would pose a threat to human workers.Time must be spent, therefore, removing or sealing up the radiation-contaminated debris in the building, before TEPCO starts work to stabilize the damaged reactors……http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110513005828.htm
Like Ukraine’s Pripyat Iitate becomes Japan’s nuclear ghost town
Fukushima village on way to becoming ghost town. By DAVID MCNEILL. The Japan Times, 14 May 11, IITATE, Fukushima Pref. — Sleepy, idyllic and dangerously irradiated, the village of Iitate is preparing to evacuate. The junior high school is closed, its children bused every day to nearby towns. Tractors sit idle, and weeds poke through rice and cabbage in the fields. Half-empty shelves greet customers at the A-Coop supermarket.
By the end of the month, this mountainous farming village of 7,000 people in Fukushima Prefecture, recently voted one of Japan’s most beautiful places, will join the Ukrainian ghost town of Pripyat on the planet’s short list of nuclear casualties….. Continue reading
Yes, Fukushima nuclear plant DID have a full nuclear meltdown
It’s Official: Fukushima Hit With Full-Blown Nuclear Meltdown Gizmodo Australia, By Sam Biddle on May 13, 2011 The flow of bad news (and radiation) out of Fukushima’s reactors has diminished to a trickle over the past several weeks, as rescue work has proceeded. Not today. TEPCO’s admitted for the first time that Fukushima experienced a full meltdown.
The possibility of a meltdown has been floating in the air since the earthquake and subsequent explosions first rocked the roof off of Fukushima, spreading radiation, confusion and displacement across the local populace (and beyond). Since then, TEPCO workers and the Japanese government have desperately struggled to keep the nuclear fuel rods inside the reactors cool – if they don’t, the scorching material will melt into a pool of radioactive lava. That’s the scenario everyone’s been aiming to avoid – and that’s the scenario we now know had actually occurred all along. Underneath all that dumped seawater has been lying a blob of melted fuel. And it could be melting its way out.
This admittance goes against every assurance TEPCO has handed the world in the midst of Japan’s nuclear crisis – that the situation was bad, but that with emergency work, the plant would be mostly stable, and could be safely shutdown within the year. The worry now, beyond the fact that the damage to the reactor is far worse than imagined, is that a hole in the facility will lead incredibly contaminated water leak out like a faucet. A scalding, radioactive faucet.
So now what? “We will have to revise our plans,” Junichi Matsumoto, a TEPCO rep, told The Guardian. To say the least. [The Guardian and Kyodo News]
It’s Official: Fukushima Hit With Full-Blown Nuclear Meltdown | Gizmodo Australia
Thousands of animals to be culled in Fukushima area
Japan to cull nuclear-affected livestock, ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)By North Asia correspondent Mark Willacy, wires 13 May 11 Japan will start culling thousands of livestock abandoned inside the 20-kilometre evacuation zone around the earthquake and tsunami-damaged Fukushima nuclear plant.Farmers living inside the evacuation zone had no choice but to abandon their pigs, chickens, beef cattle and dairy cows when they were ordered out by the government…..
The news comes after the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) yesterday reported a leak from the reactor vessel and another spill of contaminated water into the ocean.
TEPCO says rods inside one of the reactors have most likely melted after being fully exposed. The company says the water level inside reactor No. 1 was much lower than it thought, exposing about 1.5 metres of the fuel rods. It says the rods have likely melted and workers are still trying to cool them in water at the bottom of the pressure vessel.
According to TEPCO, seawater samples taken near the plant contained 18,000 times the permitted level of caesium-134….Japan to cull nuclear-affected livestock – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Greenpeace reports high marine radiation off Fukushima
Greenpeace says high radiation in Japan seaweed Google News – 12 may, 11 TOKYO — Environmental activist group Greenpeace said Thursday it had detected radiation far above legal limits in seaweed samples taken from the ocean off Japan’s stricken Fukushima nuclear plant.Greenpeace, which sent its Rainbow Warrior flagship to take samples of marine life and water, called on Japan’s government to undertake comprehensive radiation testing of seaweed along the Fukushima coast.Initial tests of 22 seaweed samples collected at distances up to 65 kilometres (40 miles) out to sea from the plant “registered significantly high levels of radioactive contamination,” the group said.Ten seaweed samples showed levels of over 10,000 Bequerel per kilogramme, the group said……AFP: Greenpeace says high radiation in Japan seaweed
Radiation levels in tea – Japanese tea recalled
Japan recalls tea over radiation fears| Herald Sun 13 May 11, JAPAN has detected radiation above the legal limit in tea grown southwest of Tokyo and blamed it on the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant northeast of the capital, officials said.Kanagawa prefecture has started a recall of the tea after measuring about 570 becquerel of caesium per kilogram in leaves grown in the city of Minamiashigara, prefectural officials said. The legal limit is 500 Bq/kg……The central government has imposed a ban on a range of vegetables and dairy produce from parts of Fukushima prefecture and several neighbouring regions and banned fishing in the vicinity of the plant……Japan recalls tea over radiation fears | Herald Sun
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