The staff have been evacuated again because the radiation spiked in the plant. The NY Post says:
“A possible breach in a reactor at Japan’s quake-crippled nuclear plant yesterday triggered an emergency evacuation of the facility, prompting fears of far worse radiation leaks than previously believed and causing a dire setback for workers scrambling to avert a full-scale global catastrophe.”
And the US military is getting large amounts of fresh water to flush the seawater from the cooling system. But that was halted when the staff fled. AOL news says:
IAEA experts said the ocean will quickly dilute the worst contamination. Radioactive iodine breaks down within weeks but cesium could foul the marine environment for decades.
Nuclear safety officials suspect a breach in one or more of the plant’s units, possibly a crack or hole in the stainless steel chamber around a reactor core containing fuel rods or the concrete wall surrounding a pool where spent fuel rods are stored.
Photo ©Digital Globe
Physicist Michio Kaku says:
“This is huge. For the first time, they’re using that dreaded word, ‘breach,’ Kaku said during an interview at KATU’s studios. “Plutonium is the most toxic chemical known to science. A speck of plutonium, a millionth of a gram, could cause cancer.”
Meanwhile, in the USA –
The nuclear crisis in Japan has laid bare an ever-growing problem for the United States — the enormous amounts of still-hot radioactive waste accumulating at commercial nuclear reactors in more than 30 states.
The U.S. has 71,862 tons of the waste, according to state-by-state numbers obtained by The Associated Press. But the nation has no place to permanently store the material, which stays dangerous for tens of thousands of years.
Some truthful science from Sascha Vongehr:
Fukushima Nuclear Reactor Truth: Locally Chernobyl
For decades we have been told that with the lessons learned from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, nuclear energy is safe. As the still unfolding mayhem at the Dai-Ichi plant in Fukushima, Japan, proves, nothing could be further from the truth.The fuel rods in at least three reactors are partly molten. All six reactors are in trouble, although most were not on-line during the earthquake! In spite of all downplaying by officials, the nuclear industry, and science apologists, a complete meltdown of some reactors and a nuclear chain reaction of molten fuel are still possible. A few science bloggers keep up honest reporting about the current state. . .
http://www.science20.com/alpha_meme/fukushima_nuclear_reactor_truth_locally_chernobyl-77331

















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