Radiation of 10 Sieverts Per Hour Detected Between Reactors 1 and 2 at Fukushima

The measurements were made yesterday and reported here and here.

Just 2 sieverts in an hour can be fatal.

Fukushima Prefecture Residents Have Absorbed 3.2 MilliSieverts Between March and May

According to this story.

The total is over 3 times the annual limit, in just 2 months, while Americans typically get 6.2 millisieverts per year from natural background radiation, air travel, and medical diagnostic scans.

Levels of radiation in the air in Fukushima have declined steadily, but concentrations of radiation in soil and water have contaminated food which residents are urged to avoid.

Residents of Iitate and Kawamata had their food and urine tested in the study.

Fukushima City Checks Radiation at Over 1000 Sites, 6 Are Above 3.4 MicroSv/Hr

The city itself is 60 km inland from the nuclear power plant on the coast.

Reported here.

The levels are over 30 times normal, three months and counting since the accident.

Fukushima Cooling Water Requirements Total 500 Tons Per Day

The water gets contaminated with radioactivity and must be stored on site. A new system to decontaminate this water was unsuccessfully tested on Friday.

NHK World reports here:

Contaminated water is increasing by 500 tons a day as fresh water is continuously being injected into the reactors to cool them down.

The storage facilities for the contaminated water are filling up and a delay in restarting the system could cause the water to overflow [into the sea] in about a week.

A story via Reuters here says 110,000 tons of the stuff has already accumulated since 3/11 and that space is running out.

Robot at Fukushima Reactor 1 Finds Crevice in Floor, Steam and Highest Radiation Yet Measured in Air Pouring From It

NHK World has the story here:

The operator of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant says steam was observed coming out of the floor of the No.1 reactor building, and extremely high radiation was detected in the vicinity.

Tokyo Electric Power Company inspected the inside of the No.1 reactor building on Friday with a remote-controlled robot.

TEPCO said it found that steam was rising from a crevice in the floor, and that extremely high radiation of 3,000 to 4,000 millisieverts per hour was measured around the area. The radiation is believed to be the highest detected in the air at the plant.

That's an astounding number, also expressed as 3 to 4 sieverts per hour. See this series of charts to appreciate the significance of the level, which is deadly:

It seems pretty clear that the earthquake damaged the floor of the reactor building, causing the crevice. And it also seems pretty clear that the water which has had to be supplied continually to the core to cool it has been leaking out, along with melted fuel materials, from holes caused in the pressure vessel by the meltdown and out onto the floor and into the crevice. Or something close to that.

A monumental mess.

Holes/Cracks in Fukushima Reactor Pressure Vessels/Containments Estimated at 3-10 Centimeters

So reported NHK World on Wednesday, here:

Tokyo Electric Power Company analyzed the changes in pressure levels inside the pressure and containment vessels to gauge the scope of the damage.

TEPCO said the analyses show that holes in the Number 1 reactor containment vessel amounting to 3 centimeters in total may have formed 18 hours after the quake. ...

The utility said holes and cracks equivalent to 10 centimeters in diameter may have formed in the Number 2 reactor's containment vessel about 21 hours after the quake. ...

TEPCO said these results were obtained through data calculations, and that it has yet to confirm whether such holes actually exist.

Presumably high radiation conditions near the reactors continue to prohibit the actual physical inspections which would confirm such estimates and calculations.

Fukushima Waste Water Treatment Facility is Leaking

So says this report, which indicates that the water in question had been transferred from the Unit 3 reactor's turbine building and tunnels earlier in the week.

The surface radiation of the water was said to be 70 millisieverts per hour.

It seems like these people just can't catch a break.

Fukushima Reactor 1 Melting Fuel Rods Put Small Holes in Pressure Vessel by 3/12

According to a report at NHK World here, and The Wall Street Journal here.

Without quick action to pour on water and keep it on, it would have been much worse. But as it was, it was and is far worse than some realized.

Areva To Build Water Decontamination Capability at Fukushima, Operable By June

Capable of processing 1200 tons of contaminated radioactive water per day, according to the story at NHK World here.

Long live the French!

Vermont Wants to Shut Down Yankee Nuke Plant, Lawsuit Filed

The reactor is of the same design as at Fukushima and is already 40 years old. 

Read more about it, here.

Reactor 2 Suppression Pool Abnormalities Blamed For Bulk of Radiation Release

Over a two day period beginning the morning of March 15.

This according to the Nuclear Safety Commission in Japan, as reported here.

The leak is ongoing, "rising" in fact, even though volume is down, according to the story.

Radiation in Namie Town at 34 Millisieverts in Just 25 Days

From March 11 to April 5.

As reported here:

34 millisieverts of radiation had accumulated over that period at one location in Namie Town, about 24 kilometers northwest of the plant. This equates to about 314 millisieverts per year, more than 3 times the permissible level of 100 millisieverts.

The figure of 314 must factor in some estimate of radiation degradation over a year. 34 millisieverts in 25 days is a rate of 1.36 mSv/day, or 496 in a year, not 314. 

The 100 mSv level may be permissible under extreme circumstances, perhaps, but the evacuation standard being used is 20 millisieverts or higher.

Normal average radiation exposure from all sources in the US is 6.2 millisieverts annually. A person living to age 78 would get almost 484 millisieverts in an entire lifetime at that rate. In Namie Town one could conceivably get that same whole lifetime's exposure in a single year.

Nuclear power is safe . . . until it isn't. And then it's unsafe it a big, dirty, relentless and inuring kind of way.

Japan Expands Evacuation Zone Due To Expected Annual Radiation of 20 Millisieverts

A month after the accident at Fukushima, the future is clear: there will be radiation problems 20 to 30 km around the nuclear plant for the foreseeable future.

So NHK World, here:

[A]nnual exposure in the zone is expected to be above 20 millisieverts. The worldwide average exposure from the natural environment is 2.4 millisieverts.

The expanded zone includes Katsurao Village, Namie Town, Iitate Village and some parts of Kawamata Town and Minami Soma City.

Was it worth it, Tokyo?

Namie, Japan, Radiation 14 Millisieverts in 17 Days, In Iitate 8 Millisieverts

The source is believed to be cesium, with a very long half-life (a generation) compared to radioactive iodine (a week).

An American gets on average 6.2 millisieverts in a year from all sources. Japanese set the threshold for natural sources at 1 millisievert.

NHK World has the story here:

Since March 23rd, the ministry has been measuring radiation levels in 15 locations more than 20 kilometers away from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

At one location, in Namie Town about 30 kilometers northwest of the plant, 14,480 microsieverts of radiation had accumulated over the 17-day period to Sunday.

8,440 microsieverts of radiation were observed in Iitate Village.

In another location in Namie, the amount reached 6,430 microsieverts.

People would be exposed to this accumulated amount of radiation if they had stayed outdoors throughout the entire period.

New Video: Fukushima Daiichi Swamped by 15m Tsunami, Designed for 5.7m

Story and video here:

[T]he tsunami reached up to 15 meters on the ocean side of the reactor and turbine buildings. The figure is far beyond the company's originally estimated height of 5.7 meters.

TEPCO confirmed that the 6 reactors at Fukushima Daiichi power plant had been under as much as 5 meters of water.

Radiation in Namie, Japan, Approximately 37.88 Microsieverts Per Hour

As reported here (but you have to do the math of 10 mSv divided by 264 hours times 1000):

On Monday, the [Japanese] government announced that radiation of more than 10 millisieverts had been detected at one location in Namie Town, some 30 kilometers northwest of the plant. The figure is what a person would be exposed to if they stayed outdoors for 11 consecutive days at the location. It is 10 times higher than the 1 millisievert-per-year long-term reference level for humans as recommended by the International Commission on Radiological Protection.

The prefectural government is measuring from Tuesday more than 1,400 institutions in the prefecture outside the 20-kilometer evacuation zone.

If the recommended limit is 1 mSv per year, however, it is utterly misleading to suggest the problem in Namie is 10 times higher than it should be. It is, but only for eleven days. This is comparing 11 day apples with 365 day oranges. The problem is much worse.

The fact is, people are getting almost a millisievert per 24 hour day, 909 microsieverts to be exact, if the radiation has been properly measured. At the levels indicated, people in Namie would get 332 mSv in a year, 332 TIMES normal for a year, if normal is 1.

The reported radiation level of almost 38 microsieverts per hour, if it is accurate, is much lower than prior reports here and here, which were 161 microsieverts per hour around March 21st and 1,400 microsieverts per hour around March 27th.

Radiation at the main gate to Fukushima Daiichi, one kilometer from the reactors, at the latest reading was 121 microsieverts per hour, over three times worse than in Namie.

Radiation Next to Reactor Buildings 100 Millisieverts Per Hour, Inside Off the Scale

So reports NHK World, here:

A radiation monitor at the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says workers there are exposed to immeasurable levels of radiation.

The monitor told NHK that no one can enter the plant's No. 1 through 3 reactor buildings because radiation levels are so high that monitoring devices have been rendered useless. He said even levels outside the buildings exceed 100 millisieverts in some places.

Is the Plutonium Story Being Sensationalized?

To read the online papers, like ABC News (here), you'd think the detection of plutonium around the Fukushima reactors indicates a meltdown is suddenly underway, as if nothing has been happening since the quake and tsunami struck on March 11, 17 days ago, and radiation subsequently began to pour out of the facilities.

Yet the reports from Japan are not wholly satisfactory, evidenced by speculation about a direct correlation between the problems at reactor 3 (where plutonium is an ingredient in Mixed OXide fuel) and what has been found in the soil.

Kyodo News likens the amounts detected in the soil to amounts routinely found during the era of atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons before the Test Ban Treaty (here):

[T]he levels confirmed from soil samples taken at the plant on March 21 and 22 were almost the same as those from the fallout detected in Japan following past nuclear tests by the United States and Russia, said the utility known as TEPCO.

And NHK World has perhaps a slightly different angle (here):

[T]he level detected is the same as that found in other parts of Japan and does not pose a threat to human health. ...

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency says the detected level is the same as that found in the environment and not health-threatening for workers who conducted the sampling, nor residents in surrounding areas.

The question is whether the plutonium traces found are the normal residue from the era of atmospheric testing, are otherwise normal traces unrelated to that time, or are related to a problem at reactor 3.

Additional testing is said to be underway.

Meanwhile, if it bleeds, it leads.

Radiation in Namie, Japan, Has Risen From 0.161 to 1.4 mSv/hour

According to this report:

The Science Ministry says a reading of 1.4 millisieverts was taken on Wednesday morning in Namie Town northwest of the plant.

We reported the lower level of 0.161 on Monday last, here. The measured increase is dramatic. Just two days later the measurement is over 700 percent higher.

Background radiation plus other routine exposures in America amounts to, on average, 6.2 mSv/year. In Namie, Japan, on Wednesday, one would get that much in just under five hours.

Coast of Minami-sanriku Was Hit By 52 Foot Tsunami

Reported here.