Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Fukushima Apocalypse? Japan Claims Fukushima Leak Worst Since Tsunami

Today, Japan issued its strongest warning about the Fukushima nuclear plant since the crisis began in 2011, as it struggled to seal a tank that has leaked 300 tons of radioactive water. It is the first time Japan has issued a so-called International Nuclear Event Scale (INES) rating for Fukushima since the meltdowns. Following the quake and tsunami, Fukushima was assigned the highest rating of 7, when it was hit by explosions after a loss of power and cooling. A puddle that formed near the leaking tank is emitting a radiation dose of 100 millisieverts an hour about 50 centimetres above the water surface, reporters were told at a news briefing.

This should not surprise anyone who has been really paying attention--in other words, digging for information--because the mainstream media, world governments, nuclear agencies, health organizations, etc., has completely ignored three ongoing triple meltdowns that have never been contained. The situation is either ignored or ridiculously downplayed. Just the fact that this is being reported at all should tell you how dangerous this is. Leaky tanks? More like the collapse of the infrastructure that is continuous, the nuclear criticialities, the atmospheric emissions, and the possible risk of more explosions. Yes, there was an explosion at Nuclear plant #4. Someone commented, "Standing in the middle of the freeway, you are directed to look at and note the leaky radiator, as the bus comes barreling down on you…"   Japan is quickly turning into radioactive quicksand...well, at the Fukushima plant sites, at the very least. Engineers warn reactor units may topple.

"In the context of what's going on now with the groundwater flooding of the site — because one of their mitigation measures which is not very well thought out, was building a seawall by freezing the ground — and guess what? The groundwater is piling up behind the seawall. [...] by backing up the water under the entire site, they are turning the ground into quicksand. And that's causing less stability — more instability. There are structural engineers and nuclear engineers warning that may be the final straw that's needed to topple not only Unit 4, but perhaps some of those other destroyed units with their high-level radioactive waste stored in pools fifty feet up in the air.[...] If that [Unit 4] pool goes down — enough of that fuel is still in there — it'll be on fire... --Kevin Kamps
Keep in mind that Fukushima’s reactors were built by General Electric and the same model is used all over the world. There are over 500 operating nuclear power plants, globally, with plans to build many more. As we've seen in Japan, all it takes is for one of those reactors to go critical and the entire globe is effected.

The Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986 was contained within 6 months, yet it is responsible for the death of at least one million people since its containment. That's one meltdown. We're looking at three meltdowns as the molten radioactive coriums currently bore their way into the deep crevices of the earth's mantle. 

The radiation has been traveling across the Pacific Ocean by the Transpacific Jet Stream since March 11, 2011 and  has hit the West Coast of U.S. and Canada much harder than they're letting on.

Important Links:

Radiation Levels Will Concentrate in Pockets In Baja California and Other West Coast Locations
"While many people assume that the ocean will dilute the Fukushima radiation, a previously-secret 1955 U.S. government report concluded that the ocean may not adequately dilute radiation from nuclear accidents, and there could be “pockets” and “streams” of highly-concentrated radiation.

Last year, scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory and 3 scientists from the GEOMAR Research Center for Marine Geosciences showed that radiation on the West Coast of North America could end up being 10 times higher than in Japan:"

Disease killing Pacific herring threatens salmon, scientist warns
"I've been seeing herring with bleeding fins," Ms. Morton said Monday. "Two days ago I did a beach seine on Malcolm Island [near Port McNeill on northern Vancouver Island] and I got approximately 100 of these little herring and they were not only bleeding from their fins, but their bellies, their chins, their eyeballs. These are very, very strong disease symptoms."
"The Implications of Massive Radiation Contamination of Japan with Radioactive Cesium"

New Study: Thyroid Cancer Surge Among Youth In Fukushima Region
"The nuclear accident of Fukushima is already leading to a surge in the number of cases of thyroid cancer, according to research being presented this week in Switzerland by Japanese scientist Toshihide Tsuda.

The Swiss daily Le Temps reports that Tsuda, professor of environmental epidemiology at the University of Okayama, said his tests show the annual incidence of thyroid cancer among those 18-years-old and younger in the Fukushima area to be 157 per one million, more than 31 times superior to the national average of five per million.

These numbers, presented in the Swiss city of Basel, show a stronger and faster evolution than that after the Chernobyl incident in the Soviet Union in 1986 and, Tsuda believes, are only the first signs of a wider health catastrophe.

3 comments:

Charlie Rose,  15:55  

Tepco dug some test boreholes recently and found that the caesium level was higher in samples from the bottom of the bore than at the top. Tepco suggested that this was because caesium was subject to gravity.

That's possible, but isn't there a more likely explanation for this phenomenon?

If the reactor cores have melted their way out of the containment vessels they may well have found their way into the subsoil BENEATH the reactor buildings. The corium would then keep going until it hit bedrock.

SO HERE'S THE PROBLEM:

If the corium is sitting on bedrock beneath the reactor buildings, there is only one thing preventing it from becoming critical again: the huge amount of groundwater flowing over and around it.

If Tepco start pumping up or diverting away the groundwater from the site in great quantities not only do they risk destabilising what remains of the reactor structures, they might also cause a re-criticality in reactor fuel in the subsoil.

The risk to the Pacific Ocean from contaminated water flowing into it is very great. But the risk to the planet from uncovering the melted reactor cores and exposing them to the air is far greater.

Incredibly it may actually be safer in the short term to continue polluting the Pacific than uncovering one or more melted reactor cores by removing or diverting groundwater away from the site..

Roth's stepchild 16:06  

Airborne vs. seaborne, huh? And let's not forget the contamination of land, which can also wreck havoc.

My question is, who is going to clean up this mess? The area must be so contaminated that the slightest exposure is dangerous to human life. One has to wonder if they have robots sophisticated enough to replace humans. I doubt it.

Thanks for the comment!

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