The situation at the Japanese nuclear plant is clearly deteriorating. The MSM continues to downplay the magnitude and impact. Government talking heads and corporate shills tell everyone that it is safe. They have been lying for two weeks and continue to lie. The MSM describes how stoic and well mannered the Japanese are. The reality is that they have panicked and cleaned out every bottle of water in all of Tokyo. That is not the act of stoic, well mannered people.
My boss worked in Japan for twelve years in his earlier life. He described perfectly the thought process of the Japanese. Saving face is the most important thing to them. They never want to reveal weakness or the fact that they are not in control of the situation. This leads them to lie automatically. Saving face was the major reason they covered up the true financial situation of their banks in the 1990′s.
Whenever you see a Japanese spokesman speaking about the nuclear situation, you can be sure they are lying and the situation is far worse than they are describing. Saving face is a bitch.
Reactor Core May Be Breached at Damaged Fukushima Plant
Japan’s nuclear regulator said one reactor core at the quake-damaged Fukushima Dai-Ichi power plant may be cracked and leaking radiation.
“It’s very possible that there has been some kind of leak at the No. 3 reactor,” Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman at the Japan Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, said in Tokyo today. While radioactive water at the unit most likely escaped from the reactor core, it also could have originated from spent fuel pools stored atop the reactor, he said.
Repair work at the site of the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl has been plagued by explosions, fires and leaks of toxic material. Prime Minister Naoto Kan told a press conference that efforts to bring the reactor under control haven’t yet reached a stage where the government can let down its guard.
“Even if there has been encouraging news such as getting some power back to the site, the installation remains in an extremely precarious and very serious situation that has not yet been stabilized,” Thomas Houdre, head of reactors at France’s nuclear safety agency, told reporters in Paris.
Workers using fire engines have streamed 4,000 tons of water on the No. 3 reactor, five times more than any of the other five units, according to the government.
Radiation Burns
Two plant workers were hospitalized yesterday with radiation burns after stepping in the water, which was found to have radiation levels 10,000 times higher than water used in reactor cooling, Nishiyama said earlier today.
Tokyo Electric Power Co., the plant operator, said it found eight different radioactive materials in the water of the turbine building basement, where the men were attempting to connect a power cable. The materials are made through a process of fission, and include cobalt and molybdenum-99, a spokesman for the power utility said.
Tokyo Electric plans to drain radioactive water from the turbine building of the No. 3 unit where the accident occurred, spokesman Osamu Yokokura said. It has yet to determine how and when to do this, he said.
“The water that is coming out of that area is much higher in terms of radiation and this is obviously complicating the clean up,” said Tony Roulstone, an atomic engineer who directs the University of Cambridge’s master’s program in nuclear energy. “If it’s leaking out then they have to figure out some way to contain this water.”
The March 11 quake, Japan’s biggest ever, left the plant without power needed to cool nuclear fuel rods. Japan today advised more people living close to the nuclear plant to evacuate because basic goods are in short supply, while assuring them that radiation levels haven’t risen.
Evacuation Zone
The recommendation applies to residents living between 20 kilometers (12 miles) and 30 kilometers from the Fukushima Dai- Ichi facility, which was damaged by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. The government previously evacuated everyone living closer to the plant.
“It’s becoming difficult for people to live a normal life and we can’t rule out the possibility of broadening the mandatory evacuation if radiation levels rise,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters in Tokyo today. “We will make maximum efforts to ensure a smooth, voluntary withdrawal by providing transportation and shelter.”
The death toll from the quake and tsunami climbed to 10,066 as of 3 p.m. with 17,443 people missing, according to the National Police Agency in Tokyo.
The spread of radiation to food and water supplies prompted bulk-buying of bottled drinks even as the government said the health threat remained minimal.
Exceed Limits
Radioactive cesium above the government limit was found on komatsuna, a leafy vegetable known as Japanese mustard spinach, harvested in Tokyo’s Edogawa ward, authorities said yesterday. That indicates radioactive elements have spread 220 kilometers (135 miles) south of the Fukushima plant.
A sample collected on March 20 from an open field contained 890 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium, Japan’s Health Ministry said on its web site. The safety limit is 500 becquerels. Consuming 1 kilogram of komatsuna would yield a radiation exposure of 0.01 millisieverts, or a third of exposure to cosmic rays on a flight from New York to Los Angeles.
Cancer Risk
Exposure to radiation from cesium-137 increases the risk of cancer, and high doses can cause serious burns and death, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Tokyo authorities already were handing out bottled water after determining that tap water may be unsafe for babies. Radioactive iodine in tap water was above the government limit for infants today in Utsunomiya, a city about 80 miles southwest of the plant, Kyodo News reported.
Changing weather systems will drive radiation from the Fukushima plant over the Pacific Ocean today, Austria’s Meteorological and Geophysics Center reported, citing data from the United Nations nuclear-test ban treaty organization
Wind will carry the radionuclides for a “short while” inland, the center said on its website. Reactors at Fukushima may have released as much as 20 percent of the radioactive iodine and up to 60 percent of the radioactive cesium that resulted from the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986, according to the report yesterday.
The maximum radiation reading reported so far at the nuclear plant is 500 millisieverts per hour, meaning a worker in the vicinity would receive the maximum-allowed dose in 30 minutes. Tokyo Electric said 17 workers had received more than 100 millisieverts of radiation since the crisis started.
U.S. Navy ships carrying out Japan relief efforts have been ordered to stay outside a 100-nautical-mile radius of the Fukushima plant. Tokyo is 135 miles south of Dai-Ichi. The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington this week left port at Yokosuka, 175 miles south from the plant, to avoid getting residual traces of radiation on the vessel, which could trigger alarms and require extensive cleanup.
Reverse Engineer says:
RE
Hot debate. What do you think?
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25th March 2011 at 11:45 am
Administrator says:
As TEPCO Reports Increased Possible Radiation Release, Japan Expands Voluntary Evacuation Radius To 30 km
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/25/2011 11:28 -0400
The latest news from Fukushima continue progressing from bad to worse. Which of course means that the (physical) silver lining around the mushroom cloud will be that much more potent: after all, the greater the destruction, the higher the Russell 2000. Just ask the Keynesians.
FUKUSHIMA REACTOR VESSEL MAY HAVE STUCK VALVE, UCS SAYS
TEPCO FINDS POOLED WATER AT ALL FOUR TROUBLED REACTORS: KYODO
INCREASED RADIATION RELEASE FROM FUKUSHIMA POSSIBLE, UCS SAYS
This in turn has prompted the Japanese government to increase the “voluntary” evacuation radius from 20 to 30 kms, finally. Shortly, this will be 80. But not before many more innocent people are irradiated and sacrificed at the altar of Nikkei 10,000 (and RUT 36,000).
From Kyodo:
The Japanese government on Friday encouraged people living within 20 to 30 kilometers of the troubled nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture to leave voluntarily, citing concerns over access to daily necessities, while maintaining its directive for them to remain indoors and for residents within 20 km of the plant to evacuate.
The government asked heads of affected municipalities to encourage people to voluntarily move farther away, promising to provide its full support in helping them to relocate, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told a news conference.
But he stopped short of declaring an evacuation advisory to avoid fanning fears about the increasing danger of radiation leaks, despite criticism from concerned municipalities and local residents of the central government’s ”slow response” over the evacuation instruction.
On a possible new directive from the government, Edano said the Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan is looking into the possibility of whether an evacuation directive can be issued on the basis of living conditions rather than safety concerns. Evacuation directives to date have all been linked to concerns about radiation levels.
In a televised message to the public, Prime Minister Naoto Kan said his government is basing its decisions regarding evacuation advisories on the judgment of nuclear experts mainly from the commission.
The Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan, a government panel, also recommended voluntary evacuation the same day for residents 20 to 30 km from the Fukushima Daiichi complex, saying the release of radioactive materials from the plant is expected to continue for some time.
Bearing in mind the shortage of supplies for people stuck indoors within the 30-km radius, the government had been looking into possibly extending its evacuation range but, according to a government source, decided against it because expanding the directive simply because of living conditions would ”cause confusion.”
The government is not planning at the moment to expand the designated exclusion zone, Edano said, noting there has been no fresh information about the levels of radiation since the government issued its directives.
With many affected residents already voluntarily evacuating from around the plant and more wanting to follow, Edano said it is ”preferable” for people to leave of their own accord, given the difficulties they are encountering in their daily lives.
In the meantime, now that Tokyo has neither running nor bottled water, those particular 14 million residents are certainly giving a long hard look at at the voluntary evacuation option themselves. Which will be GDP bullish.
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25th March 2011 at 12:45 pm
Administrator says:
Things have gotten so bad, they’ve called in experts from the U.S.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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25th March 2011 at 12:47 pm
Administrator says:
The true story of the disaster will never be known.
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25th March 2011 at 12:49 pm
Hope@ZeroKelvin says:
Now Tokyo has run out of bottled water.
Reported in that most widely read of newspapers, the Bangladesh On Line newspaper, lol.
http://www.bdnews24.com/details.php?id=190878&cid=45
Betcha’ you won’t see that on FOX or the lickspittle MSMs.
If a government official is moving his lips, he’s lying, that’s my take on it.
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25th March 2011 at 12:55 pm
Welshman says:
These nuclear reactors are giving me the feeling that the “Nuclear Renaissance” is coming to an end. The NIMBY will be coming out with the no, no no not here.
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25th March 2011 at 3:15 pm