Fukushima Risks Chernobyl ‘Dead Zone' as Radiation Soars
Fukushima Power Plant
EMF Protection Devices
Magnetic Field Detector
September 26, 2011
June 3 (Bloomberg) -- The water level in
basements and trenches at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s
Fukushima plant rose and may contain more radiation than is
known to have been released into the atmosphere in the worst
nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.
The amount of contaminated water rose to
about 105 million liters (28 million gallons) from 100
million liters on May 18, and may start overflowing after
June 20, the company known as Tepco said in a statement
today. Radiation in the water is estimated at 720,000
terabecquerels, general manager Junichi Matsumoto said at a
media briefing in Tokyo.
Tepco has pumped millions of liters of
water to cool three reactors that melted down at the
Fukushima Dai-Ichi station after the March 11 earthquake and
tsunami knocked out power and backup generators, crippling
its cooling systems. With Japan's rainy season in full
swing, heavy downpours threaten to flood the plant and leak
more radiation into the sea, soil and air.
“The risk of overflow is as serious as the
meltdown of reactor fuel rods that's already happened,”
Tetsuo Ito, the head of the Atomic Energy Research Institute
at Kinki University in western Japan, said in a phone
interview. “Tepco should've acknowledged this risk weeks ago
and could've taken any urgent measures.”
A water de-contamination unit being built
at the plant will start operating after June 15 and an
underground tank capable of holding 10 million liters will
be ready by the middle of August, Tepco said in today's
statement.
Radiation in Atmosphere
Tepco shares fell 6.2 percent today to 286
yen, the lowest level since at least September 1974. The
stock has fallen 87 percent since the day before the quake,
erasing 3 trillion yen ($37 billion) of the company's market
value.
Much of the water poured into reactors and
spent-fuel pools has overflowed or leaked into basements,
connecting tunnels and services trenches at the plant, which
has six reactors housed in separate building.
Japan's Nuclear Safety Commission said on
April 12 an estimated 630,000 terabecquerels of radiation
had been released into the atmosphere. The country's
government the same day raised the severity rating of the
nuclear crisis to the highest level on an international
scale.
The government aims to release the latest
radiation data early next week, Goshi Hosono, a special
adviser to Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan, said on June
1.
Failure of cooling systems for reactors
and water pools storing spent fuel rods led to explosions
and fires at the Fukushima plant, causing radiation leaks
that forced the evacuation of more than 50,000 households
and contaminated drinking water and food.
Japan's government halted shipments of tea
from four prefectures near Tokyo after detecting radioactive
cesium that exceeded regulatory limits, the Yomiuri
newspaper reported today.
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