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Japan Earthquake: 8.9 Magnitude Earthquake Hits, 19-Feet High Tsunami Feared

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Post by JaneWI Tue Mar 22, 2011 8:42 am

Stop-start work at Japan reactors

"Power cables have been restored at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which was seriously damaged in the 11 March earthquake and tsunami.

However, officials say further testing is needed before the electricity can be switched on. For now, seawater is being sprayed onto reactor No 3 to cool it. "


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12814871
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Post by Phillymg Tue Mar 22, 2011 10:14 am

Riled American wrote:It's all very sad what happened in Japan,yes. It's not our problem!!! There's plenty of problems here in America.
Yes there are--104 of them.

Japan Earthquake: 8.9 Magnitude Earthquake Hits, 19-Feet High Tsunami Feared  - Page 13 Reactors-map

Fuel storage, safety issues vexed Japan plant--
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/03/21/us-japan-nuclear-idUSTRE72K47A20110321

Japan extended reactor's life, despite warning--
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/22/world/asia/22nuclear.html?_r=1

The media is focusing on the Fukushima plant's huge number of spent fuel rods & huge number of missed safety fixes.....but every single nuclear plant in the world is suffering from similar problems. The 104 reactor plants in the US especially the older ones are disasters waiting to happen due to fuel storage issues.

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Post by mrgolf Tue Mar 22, 2011 11:37 am

From the NY Daily News
Japan has been in the throes of a meltdown panic and humanitarian crisis since March 11, when a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami killed at least 7,300, left 11,000 missing and half a million people in shelters.

At the Fukushima plant, heroic crews used unconventional methods - police water cannons, fire trucks and military helicopters - to dump sea water on reactors and prevent a full-scale meltdown.

A team of about 500 workers successfully connected a power line to the complex in an attempt to get the cooling system up and running again.

But later in the day, thick smoke was seen billowing out of a building at the crippled power plant, and stored fuel rods are believed to be exposed in a separate complex, Unit 3, sparking fears that they may release more radiation.

"Dealing with Unit 3 is our utmost priority," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said.

The cause of the smoke from the complex's Unit 2 was unknown.

Experts voiced optimism that the situation was slowly stabilizing, but the challenge was immense and future unclear.

Even if power can be restored, it's unclear the equipment to cool the reactors will work.

"Most of the motors and switchboards were submerged by the tsunami and they cannot be used," said Hidehiko Nishiyama of Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.

"We are making progress ... [but] we shouldn't be too optimistic."

He shed light on what caused the nuclear disaster, saying backup power systems at the plant weren't properly protected.

When the tsunami took them out, the cooling equipment failed, and that let the uranium fuel overheat.

"I cannot say whether it was a human error, but we should examine the case closely," he told reporters.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2011/03/19/2011-03-19_japan_radiation_fears_heighten_as_tainted_water_discovered_in_wake_of_nuclear_pl.html#ixzz1HLKYCBNU
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Post by mrgolf Tue Mar 22, 2011 11:43 am

elvis44102 wrote:Someone correct me If I am wrong...
I understand that the reason the emergencency generators failed to pump water to avoid this whole disaster is that they were not put up high enough to avoid the tidal wave????

If this is true it certainly points to human falability..

I am very much infavor of nuclear power as long its properly engineered..I see no other alternative to fossil fuels in the IMMEDIATE future...

Before you jump on me for being Pro-nuclear...
1) some of the alternative energy sources depend upon very, very toxic to get rare-earth materials (of which china has a monoploy)

so there is going to be damage to the environment and death from exposure anyway you go...but seems like a few tens of thousand of dollars putting the back-up system on stilts would have avoided this japanese tragedy..

2)There seems to be some interesting work being done with algee/bacteria produced hydrocarbons/fuel....Producing automobile fuel from corn seems to take about as much energy as it produces, AND it diverts food...
Whether you are for or against nuclear power it is here. No way we can shut down all the nuclear power plants operating in the USA. It is important that they are kept safe.

Sorry that I don't have a link but I read somewhere that there have been more deaths of workers in the wind turbine industry than in the nuclear industry. Of course I understand the potential for disaster is much greater in the nuclear industry.
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Post by Phillymg Tue Mar 22, 2011 6:00 pm

Chernoble Cleanup Survivor's Message for Japan:
'Run Away as Quickly as Possible'

http://www.aolnews.com/2011/03/22/chernobyl-cleanup-survivors-message-for-japan-run-away-as-qui/?icid=maing%7cmain5%7cdl3%7csec1_lnk3%7c51283

This article is quite alarming.....the story about the dog is really sad.....I wonder if the people evacuated from the contaminated zone around the Fukushima plant were ordered to leave their pets behind.....

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Post by JaneWI Tue Mar 22, 2011 6:04 pm

Phillymg wrote:Chernoble Cleanup Survivor's Message for Japan:
'Run Away as Quickly as Possible'

http://www.aolnews.com/2011/03/22/chernobyl-cleanup-survivors-message-for-japan-run-away-as-qui/?icid=maing%7cmain5%7cdl3%7csec1_lnk3%7c51283

This article is quite alarming.....the story about the dog is really sad.....I wonder if the people evacuated from the contaminated zone around the Fukushima plant were ordered to leave their pets behind.....

The dog story was very sad. I can't even imagine what it must have been for the lady in story to go through all that she did.
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Post by Guest Tue Mar 22, 2011 6:22 pm

When it comes to the almighty dollar. You can bet corners are gonna be cut.
We had one helluva fight to keep the Shoreham nuclear plant from opening, even after there was proof positive that the plant was faulty. AND even though we won that battle, they had the audacity to make it hot just to do a test run.
My blood still boils thinking what could have happened to thousands and thousands of people who would never be able to get off our tiny little island had there been an accident.

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Post by mrgolf Tue Mar 22, 2011 8:25 pm

I couldn't find a link in google but last night I heard on the tv news that the venting system at the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant here in Nor Cal hasn't worked properly for the last 18 months
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Post by elvis44102 Tue Mar 22, 2011 8:57 pm

by mrgolf Yesterday at 22:43
""Whether you are for or against nuclear power it is here. No way we can shut down all the nuclear power plants operating in the USA. It is important that they are kept safe..""

by knarf Today at 5:22
""When it comes to the almighty dollar. You can bet corners are gonna be cut.""

Thats exactly correct...I am sure there were engineers who wanted to "bulletproof" the japanese reactors more and told to be quiet..

The first space shuttle disaster was because managment insisted on launchs...engineers warned against cold weather lauchs, and were ignored...
As far as I know engineers are a fairly caustios conservative group...(unless they want to get into management)

Was watching a video on BP's mini-disasters (before the big one)
numerous cost cutting in refinery maintenence and upkeep..saving a few hundreds of thousands....making multi-millions in lawsuits and needless damage and death...

Its the corporate cost cutters and the short-term pofiteers we need to watch....

Simple things happen too as in bad welding joints, just due to sloppinesss...all avoidable stuff

There seemed to be a sense of National Pride or something in the Space program in the sixties along with redundant and doubleredundant systems that produced a remarkably accident free environment for quite a long time...
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Post by mrgolf Tue Mar 22, 2011 9:35 pm

From the Bloomberg Report
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-22/nuclear-plant-s-fuel-rods-damaged-leaking-into-sea-tokyo-electric-says.html

Food Screening

Five kinds of radioactive materials released by damaged fuel rods were detected in the sea, including iodine-131, cesium-134 and cobalt, according to Tokyo Electric. Radiation in food is measured in Becquerel, a gauge of the strength of radioactivity in those materials. The prescribed safe limit for I-131 in vegetables is set at 2,000 Becquerel (Bq) per kilogram and 500 Bq/kg for radioactive cesium.

Screening food for radiation is being stepped up as Japan seeks to calm a population that eats more fish than any other nation except China. Shih-Yew Chen, a researcher at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, said the levels found so far in milk and vegetables could cause a slight increase in the number of cancer cases.

“A person would really have to continue to eat that food grown locally that’s contaminated,” he said.

Japan consumes about 9 million metric tons of seafood a year, according to the website of the Sea Around Us Project, a collaboration between the University of British Columbia and the Pew Environment Group. China ranked first with consumption of 13.6 million metric tons and the U.S. was third at 4.7 million tons.

Contaminated Vegetables

Prime Minister Naoto Kan ordered a halt to shipments of leafy vegetables from Fukushima prefecture, his office said today. He also stopped shipments of milk and parsley from neighboring Ibaraki.

The health ministry earlier advised against eating leafy vegetables, broccoli and cauliflower produced near the damaged nuclear power plant. People eating vegetables from Fukushima for the past 10 days will have ingested half of the natural level of a year’s worth of radiation, the ministry said in a statement.

The death toll from Japan’s worst postwar disaster climbed to 9,199 as of 11 p.m. yesterday, with 13,786 people missing, according to the National Police Agency in Tokyo. The earthquake and tsunami devastated the country’s northern coastline and forced several hundred thousand people to evacuate.
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Post by Phillymg Wed Mar 23, 2011 8:31 am

'FDA Halts Imports of Dairy, Produce from Japan'

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42215049/ns/health-food_safety/

The US imports nearly 4% of its food from Japan.

All the media stories say 'less than 4%'.....maybe wanting to avoid panic about what could happen to food prices in the US if 4% of its food supply is cut. Of course not all Japanese imports of food are banned--only food from the radioactively-contaminated areas of Japan. (So far.)

In the US the cost of imported food & other imports went up in Feb. by 1.4% so who knows what the affect of losing food from Japan will be.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-15/import-prices-in-u-s-increased-1-4-in-february-on-oil-food.html

Probably Hawaii will take the biggest hit. Food there's already expensive & now they'll lose some of their regular imported food supply.

What a mess..... Japan Earthquake: 8.9 Magnitude Earthquake Hits, 19-Feet High Tsunami Feared  - Page 13 395651

-----

The radioactivity in the air hit the West Coast on Fri.....wonder where it is now.....working its way through the Midwest towards the East Coast?? Haven't heard anything about this on the news.

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Post by stilllooking Wed Mar 23, 2011 9:58 am

I heard about this, this morning & it makes me mad why would we get milk & vegetables from Japan when we can get both from right here in the U.S.---no wonder everything is so expensive!
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Post by Guest Wed Mar 23, 2011 10:03 am

I would imagine it would effect Hawaii more-so than the mainland US.

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Post by Phillymg Wed Mar 23, 2011 10:58 am

Still Looking--

Like Knarf says Hawaii with a large Japanese American population & due to Japanese tourism imports maybe 25-30% of its food from Japan including fresh vegetables & fruits, seafood, & sushi staples like seaweed. Hawaii is nearly as close to Japan as it is to California so it's been logical to import food from Japan to Hawaii. The American territories of Guam & American Samoa also get food from Japan.

States like California with Japanese American residents & others who enjoy Japanese cuisine have import companies that buy speciality foods from Japan. (I don't think Japan exports milk to the US. The Japanese don't drink much milk or eat much cheese--but mothers in Japan give milk to their children for the calcium so they have cows for that.) Every city in the US has Japanese restaurants with items not usually grown in the US like Daikon vegetables & sweet Japanese spinach as well as Japanese sushi-quality rice. Our government is forbidding these products from the radiation-contaminated areas.

The idea is to protect the part of our economy that depends upon Japanese food products by making sure that they are radiation-free. My family enjoys eating sushi sometimes.....& it's good to know the imported seaweed, rice, sesame seeds, etc. will be screened for safety.


Last edited by Phillymg on Wed Mar 23, 2011 11:12 am; edited 1 time in total

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Post by Phillymg Wed Mar 23, 2011 11:06 am

Here's one reason our food is so expensive & it has nothing to do with imports from Japan.....billions given out in fake farm subsidies--

http://farm.ewg.org/

Not to mention manipulations in Wall Street's futures commodities markets.

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Post by Phillymg Wed Mar 23, 2011 11:46 am

Heading out to apply for a couple of jobs but before I go.....

This bit of pleasant news from the Reuters blog.....

Since they began cooling the 3 active reactors at Fukushima with seawater 10 days ago.....used water has been pumped directly back into the ocean. It's no longer a 'closed system' like before the tsunami.

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Post by Jen Wed Mar 23, 2011 12:06 pm

http://www.infowars.com/corporate-media-ignores-astronomical-fukushima-radiation-levels/
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Post by stilllooking Wed Mar 23, 2011 1:12 pm

Phillymg wrote:Still Looking--

Like Knarf says Hawaii with a large Japanese American population & due to Japanese tourism imports maybe 25-30% of its food from Japan including fresh vegetables & fruits, seafood, & sushi staples like seaweed. Hawaii is nearly as close to Japan as it is to California so it's been logical to import food from Japan to Hawaii. The American territories of Guam & American Samoa also get food from Japan.

States like California with Japanese American residents & others who enjoy Japanese cuisine have import companies that buy speciality foods from Japan. (I don't think Japan exports milk to the US. The Japanese don't drink much milk or eat much cheese--but mothers in Japan give milk to their children for the calcium so they have cows for that.) Every city in the US has Japanese restaurants with items not usually grown in the US like Daikon vegetables & sweet Japanese spinach as well as Japanese sushi-quality rice. Our government is forbidding these products from the radiation-contaminated areas.

The idea is to protect the part of our economy that depends upon Japanese food products by making sure that they are radiation-free. My family enjoys eating sushi sometimes.....& it's good to know the imported seaweed, rice, sesame seeds, etc. will be screened for safety.

Oh, that makes sense. I thought they were saying that we just import foods from there for no real reason like free trade or something, I get it now. Thanks
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Post by stilllooking Wed Mar 23, 2011 1:32 pm

Phillymg wrote:Heading out to apply for a couple of jobs but before I go.....

This bit of pleasant news from the Reuters blog.....

Since they began cooling the 3 active reactors at Fukushima with seawater 10 days ago.....used water has been pumped directly back into the ocean. It's no longer a 'closed system' like before the tsunami.

How could they allow this to happen, Hate to think of what will happen to the creatures of the ocean & where it can spread from there.
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Post by mrgolf Wed Mar 23, 2011 1:48 pm

Work to restore power and key cooling functions was disrupted again Wednesday at the crisis-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant as smoke caused workers to evacuate, while fear of radioactive pollution spread to Tokyo with an alert not to give tap water to infants.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano urged residents of areas under the wind from the plant to stay indoors and avoid exposure to air as much as possible as a precaution, while official advisories are for people within a 20-kilometer radius to evacuate and within 20 km to 30 km to stay indoors.

The plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said it learned at around 4:20 p.m. that black smoke was seen rising at the No. 3 reactor building, leading to evacuation of workers from the four troubled reactors, but added about an hour later that it was receding.

The radiation level was unchanged shortly afterward, meaning the smoke caused no massive release of radioactive materials, the government's nuclear safety agency said. Smoke was also seen billowing from the No. 3 building on Monday.

It also turned out that the surface temperatures of the No. 1 and No. 3 reactor vessels have topped the maximum levels set by their designers. The rise of the temperatures came to light after data measuring instruments became available with the power restored Tuesday, the agency said.

In Tokyo, the metropolitan government said radioactive iodine exceeding the limit for infants' intake was detected in water at a purification plant, apparently due to the ongoing crisis at the power station crippled by the March 11 massive quake and tsunami.

At the plant run by the utility known as TEPCO, all six reactors were reconnected to external power as of Tuesday night and workers scrambled to check each piece of equipment, such as data measuring tools and feed-water pumps, before transmitting power to them.
http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/80532.html
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Post by Phillymg Wed Mar 23, 2011 8:02 pm

Optimism Wanes at Japan Plant as New Problems Arise
By Keith Bradsher 03/23/11 NYTimes

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/24/world/asia/24nuclear.html?_r=1&hp

The restoration of electricity at the plant, the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, stirred hopes that the crisis was ebbing, but nuclear engineers say some of the most difficult and dangerous tasks are still ahead — and time is not necessarily on the side of the repair teams. The tasks include manually draining hundreds of gallons of radioactive water and venting radioactive gas from the pumps and piping of the emergency cooling systems, which are located diagonally underneath the overheated reactor vessels. The health warning that infants should not drink tap water — even in Tokyo, far from the stricken plant — raised alarms about extensive contamination.

“We’ve got at least 10 days to two weeks of potential drama before you can declare the accident over,” said Michael Friedlander, who worked as a nuclear plant operator in the United States for 13 years.

Western nuclear engineers have become increasingly concerned about a separate problem that may be putting pressure on the Japanese technicians to work faster: salt buildup inside the reactors, which could cause them to heat up more and, in the worst case, cause the uranium to melt, releasing a range of radioactive material. Richard T. Lahey Jr., who was General Electric’s chief of safety research for boiling-water reactors when the company installed them at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, said that as seawater was pumped into the reactors and boiled away, it left more and more salt behind.

He estimates that 57,000 pounds of salt have accumulated in Reactor No. 1 and 99,000 pounds apiece in Reactors No. 2 and 3, which are larger. The big question is how much of that salt is still mixed with water and how much now forms a crust on the reactors’ uranium fuel rods. Chemical crusts on uranium fuel rods have been a problem for years at nuclear plants. Crusts insulate the rods from the water and allow them to heat up. If the crusts are thick enough, they can block water from circulating between the fuel rods at all. As the rods heat up, their zirconium cladding can ignite, which may cause the uranium inside to melt and release radioactive material.

Some of the salt might be settling to the bottom of the reactor vessel rather than sticking to the fuel rods. But just as a heating element repeatedly used to warm tea in a mug tends to become encrusted in cities where the tap water is rich with minerals, boiling seawater is likely to leave salt mainly on the fuel rods, Mr. Lahey said. The Japanese have reported that some of the seawater used for cooling has returned to the ocean, suggesting that some of the salt may have flowed out again rather than remaining in the reactors. But clearly a significant amount remains.

A Japanese nuclear safety regulator said on Wednesday that plans were under way to fix a piece of equipment that would allow freshwater instead of seawater to be pumped into at least one of the reactors. He said that an informal international group of experts on boiling-water reactors was increasingly worried about salt accumulation and was inclined to recommend that the Japanese try to flood each reactor vessel’s containment building with cold water in an effort to prevent the uranium from melting down. That approach might make it a harder to release steam from the reactors as part of the “feed-and-bleed” process that was being used to cool them down, but that was a risk worth taking, he said.

Public alarm in Japan about the crisis increased on Wednesday after officials announced that levels of radioactive iodine had been detected in Tokyo’s tap water. Recent rains might have washed radioactive particles into the water, as the Japanese government suggested. But prevailing breezes for the past two weeks should have been pushing the radiation mostly out to sea. And until Wednesday, some experts had predicted that radioactive iodine would not be much of a problem, because the fission necessary to produce iodine — which breaks down quickly, with a half-life of just eight days — stopped within minutes of the earthquake on March 11. The fear is that more radiation is being released than has been understood.

Preventing the reactors and storage pools from overheating through radioactive decay would go a long way toward limiting radioactive contamination. But that would require pumping a lot of cold freshwater through them, which is not easily done. The emergency cooling system pump and motor for a boiling-water reactor are roughly the size and height of a compact hatchback car standing on its back bumper. The powerful system has the capacity to propel thousands of gallons of water a minute throughout a reactor pressure vessel and storage pool. But that very power can also be the system’s Achilles’ heel.

The pump and piping are designed to be kept full of water. But they tend to leak and develop alternating pockets of air and water, said Mr. Friedlander, who said he had performed maintenance on the systems many times in his career. If the pump is turned on without venting the air and draining the water, the water from the pump would hit the alternating pockets with enough force to blow holes in the piping. Venting the air and draining the water requires a technician to reach a dozen valves, sometimes using a ladder. The water is removed through a hose to the nearest drain, usually in the floor, that leads to machinery designed to remove radiation from the water.

The process takes a full 12 hours in a reactor that is operating normally, Mr. Friedlander said. But even then, the water in the pipes tends to become radioactively contaminated because the valves that separate it from the reactor are never entirely tight. It is likely to be an even bigger problem when the water inside the reactor is much more radioactive than usual and is under extremely high pressure, as it has been in all three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant at various times since the earthquake and tsunami. Japanese government and power company officials expressed optimism on Wednesday morning that the crisis was close to being brought under control, only to encounter two reminders in the afternoon of the unpredictable difficulties that lie ahead.

Fukushima Daiichi’s Reactor No. 3 began belching black smoke for an hour late in the afternoon, leading its operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, to evacuate workers. No. 3 is considered one of the most dangerous of the reactors because of its fuel — mixed oxides, or mox, which contain a mixture of uranium and plutonium and can produce a more dangerous radioactive plume if scattered by fire or explosions. The cooling system at Reactor No. 5, which was shut down at the time of the earthquake and has shown few problems since, also abruptly stopped working on Wednesday afternoon, said Hiro Hasegawa, a spokesman for Tokyo Electric.

“When we switched from the temporary pump, it automatically switched off,” he said. “We’ll try again with a new pump in the morning.”

David Jolly contributed reporting.


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Post by Guest Wed Mar 23, 2011 8:25 pm

Not to make light of it, but I felt like I was reading a thriller. That is some spooky stuff going on over there.

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Post by Phillymg Wed Mar 23, 2011 8:38 pm

Hope they have a psychiatrist in there helping the workers. Japan Earthquake: 8.9 Magnitude Earthquake Hits, 19-Feet High Tsunami Feared  - Page 13 395651

There are 500+ workers* now rotating in & out.....
That's alot of stress day after day.....
*engineers, firefighters, self-defense forces

Hope they know how grateful the world is for their efforts & sacrifice.

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Post by mrgolf Wed Mar 23, 2011 9:34 pm

By VERONIKA OLEKSYN, Associated Press – Wed Mar 23, 2:20 pm ET

VIENNA – Minuscule particles of fallout from a damaged power plant in Japan have reached Iceland and are expected in France and elsewhere in Europe, experts said Wednesday, but stressed they don't pose a health risk.
Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex was hit March 11 by a huge earthquake and massive tsunami, causing it to release radiation, and sparking fears of widespread contamination.

A plume carrying trace amounts of radioactive iodine has been detected in Iceland, the country's Radiation Safety Authority said. However, it added, the concentration was "less than a millionth" of what was found in European countries in the wake of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster that spewed radiation over a large distance.

Recollections of the accident's aftermath continue to haunt many Europeans, putting them on edge as they watch the Japanese nuclear crisis unfold.
"We thus conclude that there is no reason to worry about radioactivity levels in Iceland, nor anywhere in Europe, resulting from the nuclear accident in Japan," said Sigurdur Emil Palsson, head of emergency preparedness.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said Wednesday that the overall situation at the Fukushima plant remains of serious concern. The deposition of radioactive iodine and cesium varies across 10 prefectures on a day to day basis but "the trend is generally upward," said Graham Andrew, senior adviser to IAEA chief Yukiya Amano.

In contrast, environmental radiation monitoring in the Fukushima prefecture outside the 20 kilometer evacuation zone shows mostly decreasingly values, he added.
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Post by mrgolf Sat Mar 26, 2011 12:00 pm

TOKYO — A possible breach at Japan's troubled nuclear plant has escalated the crisis anew, two full weeks after an earthquake and tsunami first compromised the facility. The development suggested radioactive contamination may be worse than first thought, with tainted groundwater the most likely consequence.

Japanese leaders defended their decision not to evacuate people from a wider area around the plant, insisting they are safe if they stay indoors. But officials said residents may want to voluntarily move to areas with better facilities, since supplies in the tsunami-devastated region are running short.

The escalation in the nuclear plant crisis came as the death toll from the quake and tsunami passed 10,000. Across the battered northeast coast, hundreds of thousands of people whose homes were destroyed still have no power, no hot meals and, in many cases, no showers for two weeks.
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