Radiation Levels Spiking at Fukushima

Posted by By Eric Zager at 28 April, at 12 : 53 PM Print

A new mystery at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Plant after a pair of robots returned data showing elevated levels of radiation in the building that houses reactor No. 1.

Sure there is radiation all over the complex but measurements on Wednesday registered over 1100 millisieverts an hour, which translates into four plus times the annual amount workers are allowed.

The readings are the highest since an earthquake and tsunami set Fukushima on a disastrous course.

Nuclear Engineer Hironobu Unesaki told Bloomberg News, “Tepco (Tokyo Electric Power Company) must figure out the source of high radiation,” Unesaki, a professor at Kyoto University speculated that, “if it’s from contaminated water leaking from inside the reactor, Tepco’s so-called water tomb may be jeopardized because flooding the containment vessel will result in more radiation, in the building.”

In the weeks since the twin disaster, radiation has fouled farmland, tap water and forced the evacuation of more than 100,000 people.

Tepco still relies on water from the hoses of fire trucks to keep reactor cores and spent fuel rod pools cool.

Tokyo Electric reversed its assessment of reactors 1 and 2 saying neither is as damaged as first believed.

“We revised the core damage data because some readings on the containment vessel monitors were wrong,” said Tepco General Manager Junichi Matsumoto. “There was also a recording mistake. We are investigating why this happened.”

(In the accompanying video on RTC, Arnie Gunderson sizes up what triggered the explosion at Fukushima Unit 3 Reactor)

This post was written by:

Eric Zager - who has written 323 posts for Rock The Capital

Eric is a national award winning storyteller. Eric’s work is credited with changing laws, saving lives, and in one instance, saving taxpayers about $2,000,000.00. Mr. Zager’s career in journalism is ripped from the pages of an adventure novel. Upon graduating from the esteemed Newhouse School of Public Communications, he headed north, about as far as one can travel and still stand in the Continental U.S. The call of journalism not a penchant to play with Polar Bears brought Zager to the ‘Last Frontier-Juneau, Alaska. Over the course of Zager’s more than 20 years in journalism, he has covered the political side of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, dodged horse manure on the backside of Churchill Downs, and has uncovered numerous scams and scam artists. Eric is constantly in search of a meaningful story to tell. - Email Eric Zager

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