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10 million times over normal, say nuke execs.
TOKYO—Japanese officials on Sunday reported a gigantic jump in radioactivity—levels 10 million times the norm—in the water inside a reactor at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Station, prompting the evacuation of workers seeking to avert a catastrophic meltdown at the tsunami-damaged complex.
Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said that water seeping out of the No. 2 reactor building into the adjacent turbine building contained levels of radioactive iodine 134 that were about 10 million times the level normally found in water used inside nuclear power plants.
Late Sunday night, however, the operator of the stricken plant said that the high reading may have been a mistake.
“The number is not credible … We are very sorry,” a spokesperson of Tokyo Electric Power Co. said without providing details on what could have gone wrong with the tests.
According to him, officials were taking another sample but he did not know when the results would be announced.
Earlier, Tokyo Electric said radiation in the water near Reactor No. 2 was measured at more than 1,000 millisieverts an hour, the highest reading so far in a crisis triggered by a massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11.
That radiation level compares with Japan’s safety standard of 250 millisieverts over a year. The US Environmental Protection Agency says a single dose of 1,000 millisieverts is enough to cause hemorrhaging.
Radioactive iodine in seawater just outside the six-reactor plant also rose to 1,850 times the usual level on Sunday, up from 1,250 on Saturday, according to the nuclear safety agency.
Radiation in the air measured 1,000 millisieverts per hour—four times the limit deemed safe by the Japanese government, said Takashi Kurita, a spokesperson of Tokyo Electric.
The 9.0-magnitude quake off Japan’s northeast coast 17 days ago triggered a tsunami that barreled onshore and disabled the Fukushima plant, complicating a humanitarian disaster that has killed well over 10,000 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless.
The official death toll stood at 10,489 on Sunday, with more than 16,620 people missing.
Since the quake and tsunami, radiation also have made its way into food, seawater and even tap water supplies as far away as Tokyo.
Worker flees
The radioactive reading at Reactor No. 2 was so high that the worker measuring the radiation levels fled before taking a second reading, officials said.
Word of the startling jump in radioactivity in the reactor came as Tokyo Electric struggled to pump contaminated water from four troubled reactor units at its overheated Fukushima nuclear complex, 220 kilometers northeast of Tokyo.
Japan’s nuclear safety agency warned on Saturday that radioactivity inside the reactors was rising quickly and that extracting the radioactive water was a priority.
The discovery over the last three days of radioactive water in one or more reactors at the nuclear complex has been a major setback in the urgent mission to get the crucial cooling system back up and operating more than two weeks after a massive earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan.
Prolonged emergency
The world’s chief nuclear inspector said the nuclear emergency could go on for weeks, if not months, given the enormous damage to the nuclear plant.
“This is a very serious accident by all standards,” Yukiya Amano, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told the New York Times. “And it is not yet over.”
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, however, told reporters on Sunday evening that emergency workers still needed to figure out the source of the radioactive water at Reactor No. 2, but he insisted the situation had stabilized—at least partially.
“Radiation levels are increasing and measures need to be taken,” Hidehiko Nishiyama, the deputy director general of Japan’s nuclear safety agency, said at a news conference.
Still, Nishiyama said he did not think there was need to worry about high levels of radiation immediately escaping the plant.
Breach in reactor’s core
Officials said the discovery on Thursday of highly radioactive pools of water in Reactor No. 3 had led to suspicions that radiation was leaking due to a possible breach in the reactor’s core.
The IAEA, citing data from Japanese officials, reported on Saturday that two of three workers who were exposed to radioactive water near Reactor No. 3 last week had suffered “significant skin contamination over their legs.”
Edano said doctors were expected to discharge on Monday the injured workers who were exposed to radiation at levels between 2,000 and 6,000 millisieverts.
Even so, Edano urged Tokyo Electric to be more transparent after Japan’s nuclear safety agency revealed that the plant operator was aware of high levels of radiation in the air at Reactor No. 3 several days before the three workers suffered burns there.
Concern over food, water
The protracted nuclear crisis has spurred concerns about the safety of food and water in Japan, which is a prime source of seafood for some countries.
Radiation has been found in milk, seawater and a range of vegetables, including broccoli, cauliflower and turnips.
Tap water in several areas of Japan, including Tokyo, has showed higher-than-normal levels of radiation, prompting officials to distribute bottled water to families with infants.
Several countries have banned farm produce and milk from Japan’s nuclear crisis zone.
Careful monitoring
The elevated levels of radiation at and around the Fukushima plant also will require careful monitoring of seafood in Japan, said Kimberlee J. Kearfott, a professor of nuclear engineering and radiological sciences at the University of Michigan.
“It is extremely important that seafood be carefully monitored,” Kearfott said in an e-mail. “This is because many of the radionuclides are concentrated in the environment. For example, iodines are concentrated in kelp (a Japanese food, seaweed) and shrimp.”
She explained that iodine, cesium and strontium also were concentrated in other types of seafood.
“Fish can act like tea or coffee presses. When you push down the plungers, the grounds all end up on one side. In this case, that is the fish,” Kearfott added.
She said an example of this phenomenon occurred after the Chernobyl disaster, when specific radionuclides were concentrated far away in Norwegian lichens. Reindeer ate the lichens, concentrating it again, a danger to the native peoples whose diet includes a large amount of reindeer meat.
Opinion poll
The first opinion poll to be taken since the disaster struck showed that approval ratings for Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan had edged higher to 28.3 percent, but more than half disapproved of how the nuclear crisis had been handled.
Prior to the earthquake, Kan’s approval rating had sunk to around 20 percent, opposition parties were blocking budget bills to force a snap election that his party was at risk of losing, and critics inside his own camp were pressing him to quit.
The survey, published by Kyodo news agency on Sunday, showed that nearly two-thirds of respondents were in favor of a tax increase to help fund recovery in the earthquake-torn northeast. Reports from Associated Press, New York Times News Service and Reuters
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TOKYO—Japanese officials on Sunday reported a gigantic jump in radioactivity—levels 10 million times the norm—in the water inside a reactor at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Station, prompting the evacuation of workers seeking to avert a catastrophic meltdown at the tsunami-damaged complex.
Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said that water seeping out of the No. 2 reactor building into the adjacent turbine building contained levels of radioactive iodine 134 that were about 10 million times the level normally found in water used inside nuclear power plants.
Late Sunday night, however, the operator of the stricken plant said that the high reading may have been a mistake.
“The number is not credible … We are very sorry,” a spokesperson of Tokyo Electric Power Co. said without providing details on what could have gone wrong with the tests.
According to him, officials were taking another sample but he did not know when the results would be announced.
Earlier, Tokyo Electric said radiation in the water near Reactor No. 2 was measured at more than 1,000 millisieverts an hour, the highest reading so far in a crisis triggered by a massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11.
That radiation level compares with Japan’s safety standard of 250 millisieverts over a year. The US Environmental Protection Agency says a single dose of 1,000 millisieverts is enough to cause hemorrhaging.
Radioactive iodine in seawater just outside the six-reactor plant also rose to 1,850 times the usual level on Sunday, up from 1,250 on Saturday, according to the nuclear safety agency.
Radiation in the air measured 1,000 millisieverts per hour—four times the limit deemed safe by the Japanese government, said Takashi Kurita, a spokesperson of Tokyo Electric.
The 9.0-magnitude quake off Japan’s northeast coast 17 days ago triggered a tsunami that barreled onshore and disabled the Fukushima plant, complicating a humanitarian disaster that has killed well over 10,000 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless.
The official death toll stood at 10,489 on Sunday, with more than 16,620 people missing.
Since the quake and tsunami, radiation also have made its way into food, seawater and even tap water supplies as far away as Tokyo.
Worker flees
The radioactive reading at Reactor No. 2 was so high that the worker measuring the radiation levels fled before taking a second reading, officials said.
Word of the startling jump in radioactivity in the reactor came as Tokyo Electric struggled to pump contaminated water from four troubled reactor units at its overheated Fukushima nuclear complex, 220 kilometers northeast of Tokyo.
Japan’s nuclear safety agency warned on Saturday that radioactivity inside the reactors was rising quickly and that extracting the radioactive water was a priority.
The discovery over the last three days of radioactive water in one or more reactors at the nuclear complex has been a major setback in the urgent mission to get the crucial cooling system back up and operating more than two weeks after a massive earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan.
Prolonged emergency
The world’s chief nuclear inspector said the nuclear emergency could go on for weeks, if not months, given the enormous damage to the nuclear plant.
“This is a very serious accident by all standards,” Yukiya Amano, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told the New York Times. “And it is not yet over.”
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, however, told reporters on Sunday evening that emergency workers still needed to figure out the source of the radioactive water at Reactor No. 2, but he insisted the situation had stabilized—at least partially.
“Radiation levels are increasing and measures need to be taken,” Hidehiko Nishiyama, the deputy director general of Japan’s nuclear safety agency, said at a news conference.
Still, Nishiyama said he did not think there was need to worry about high levels of radiation immediately escaping the plant.
Breach in reactor’s core
Officials said the discovery on Thursday of highly radioactive pools of water in Reactor No. 3 had led to suspicions that radiation was leaking due to a possible breach in the reactor’s core.
The IAEA, citing data from Japanese officials, reported on Saturday that two of three workers who were exposed to radioactive water near Reactor No. 3 last week had suffered “significant skin contamination over their legs.”
Edano said doctors were expected to discharge on Monday the injured workers who were exposed to radiation at levels between 2,000 and 6,000 millisieverts.
Even so, Edano urged Tokyo Electric to be more transparent after Japan’s nuclear safety agency revealed that the plant operator was aware of high levels of radiation in the air at Reactor No. 3 several days before the three workers suffered burns there.
Concern over food, water
The protracted nuclear crisis has spurred concerns about the safety of food and water in Japan, which is a prime source of seafood for some countries.
Radiation has been found in milk, seawater and a range of vegetables, including broccoli, cauliflower and turnips.
Tap water in several areas of Japan, including Tokyo, has showed higher-than-normal levels of radiation, prompting officials to distribute bottled water to families with infants.
Several countries have banned farm produce and milk from Japan’s nuclear crisis zone.
Careful monitoring
The elevated levels of radiation at and around the Fukushima plant also will require careful monitoring of seafood in Japan, said Kimberlee J. Kearfott, a professor of nuclear engineering and radiological sciences at the University of Michigan.
“It is extremely important that seafood be carefully monitored,” Kearfott said in an e-mail. “This is because many of the radionuclides are concentrated in the environment. For example, iodines are concentrated in kelp (a Japanese food, seaweed) and shrimp.”
She explained that iodine, cesium and strontium also were concentrated in other types of seafood.
“Fish can act like tea or coffee presses. When you push down the plungers, the grounds all end up on one side. In this case, that is the fish,” Kearfott added.
She said an example of this phenomenon occurred after the Chernobyl disaster, when specific radionuclides were concentrated far away in Norwegian lichens. Reindeer ate the lichens, concentrating it again, a danger to the native peoples whose diet includes a large amount of reindeer meat.
Opinion poll
The first opinion poll to be taken since the disaster struck showed that approval ratings for Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan had edged higher to 28.3 percent, but more than half disapproved of how the nuclear crisis had been handled.
Prior to the earthquake, Kan’s approval rating had sunk to around 20 percent, opposition parties were blocking budget bills to force a snap election that his party was at risk of losing, and critics inside his own camp were pressing him to quit.
The survey, published by Kyodo news agency on Sunday, showed that nearly two-thirds of respondents were in favor of a tax increase to help fund recovery in the earthquake-torn northeast. Reports from Associated Press, New York Times News Service and Reuters
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