flying cuttlefish picayune

Tokyo Electric Power Company says it has detected radioactive materials 10-million-times normal levels in water at the No.2 reactor complex of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

The plant operator, known as TEPCO, says it measured 2.9-billion becquerels of radiation per one cubic centimeter of water from the basement of the turbine building attached to the Number 2 reactor.

The level of contamination is about 1,000 times that of the leaked water already found in the basements of the Number 1 and 3 reactor turbine buildings.

The company says the latest reading is 10-million times the usual radioactivity of water circulating within a normally operating reactor.
TEPCO says the radioactive materials include 2.9-billion becquerels of iodine-134, 13-million becquerels of iodine-131, and 2.3-million becquerels each for cesium 134 and 137.

These substances are emitted during nuclear fission inside a reactor core.

The company says the extremely contaminated water may stem from damaged fuel in the reactor, and are trying to determine how the leakage occurred.

University of Tokyo graduate school professor Naoto Sekimura says the leak may come from the suppression chamber of the Number 2 reactor, which is known to be damaged. The chamber is designed to contain overflows of radioactive substances from the reactor.

Sunday, March 27, 2011 13:44 +0900 (JST)               http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/27_12.html

NOW THEY CLAIM IT’S ALL A MISTAKE  (um hmm)

Japan: Huge radiation spike at nuke was a mistake

The claim is that because the reading was so high it must all be a mistake.

Um hmm.

But it seems the radiation is so high they all had to evacuate (again!) so it seems true that Soaring radioactivity deals blow to Japan’s plant rescue.  Also TOPEC has not been reassuring with their radiation level figures. This report today

Radioactivity at the surface of the puddle at the No. 3 unit was 400 millisieverts per hour as of Thursday, still far below the more than 1,000 millisieverts per hour detected at the puddle of the No. 2 reactor’s turbine building.

Tokyo Electric was not able to confirm how much the actual amount of radiation was at the No. 2 reactor because the radioactivity level was too high for workers to continue measuring.

Nothing says safety like workers fleeing the crime scene!

UPDATE

Clusterfuck, TOPEC President Masataka Shimizu, getting the boot soon as he wrecked the company’s market value.     http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-27/tepco-chief-pressured-to-quit-after-costing-holders-26-billion.html

And the San Fransisco Chronicle reports

TOPEC was warned 2 years ago

about risk of tsunami damage (!!!).

Japan’s nuclear regulators and the operator of the crippled Fukushima reactors were warned that a tsunami could overwhelm the plant’s defenses and failed to recognize the threat.

The Trade Ministry dismissed evidence two years ago from geologists that the power station’s stretch of coast was overdue for a giant wave, minutes from a government committee show. Tokyo Electric Power Co. engineers also didn’t heed lessons from the 2004 tsunami off Indonesia that swamped a reactor 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) away in India, even as they advised the nuclear industry on coping with the dangers. . .

. . . . Japan has suffered 195 tsunamis since 400, according to Japan’s Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry, which produced a report on tsunami threats to nuclear plants on the opposite coast to Dai-Ichi in July 2008. Three in the past three decades had waves of more than 10 meters.

A 7.6-magnitude quake in 1896 off the east coast of Japan created waves as high as 38 meters, while an 8.6- magnitude temblor in 1933 led to a surge as high as 29 meters, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. . . .
(more)

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/03/26/bloomberg1376-LIJQHN0UQVI901-1A6ARN6J6AG8L2BBJ3CI28SA9U.DTL

Japanese can go around official radiation stats by reporting their own figures.  From CBS – Crowdsourcing Japan radiation readings