Massive Earthquake in Japan: Fukushima prepares for cold shutdown

(Reuters) - Plutonium found in soil at the Fukushima nuclear complex heightened alarm on Tuesday over Japan's battle to contain the world's worst atomic crisis in 25 years, while opposition MPs attacked the prime minister for his handling of the disaster.

Some opposition lawmakers lambasted Naoto Kan in parliament for not extending an evacuation zone around the plant. Kan said he was seeking advice on widening the area, which would force 130,000 people to move in addition to 70,000 already displaced.

Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co said plutonium was found at low-risk levels in five places at the facility, which was crippled by a massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11.

A by-product of atomic reactions and also used in nuclear bombs, plutonium is highly carcinogenic and one of the most dangerous substances on the planet, experts say.

They believe some of the plutonium may have come from spent fuel rods at Fukushima or damage to reactor No. 3, the only one to use plutonium in its fuel mix.

Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said while the plutonium levels were not harmful to human health, the discovery could mean a breach in the reactor's containment mechanism.

"Plutonium is a substance that's emitted when the temperature is high, and it's also heavy and so does not leak out easily," agency deputy director Hidehiko Nishiyama told a news conference.

"So if plutonium has emerged from the reactor, that tells us something about the damage to the fuel. And if it has breached the original containment system, it underlines the gravity and seriousness of this accident."

Sakae Muto, a Tokyo Electric vice-president, said the traces of plutonium-238, 239 and 240 were in keeping with levels found in Japan in the past due to particles in the atmosphere from nuclear testing abroad.

"I apologise for making people worried," Muto said.

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(AGI) Tokyo - The Japanese government believes a plutonium release from Fukushima is "possible". During a press conference, the cabinet chief, Yukio Edano admitted the possibility and announced "more controls, including in the areas surrounding the plant". In the meanwhile, the premier Naoto Kan ha assured the Parliament that the government stands to "maximum alert" in regard to Fukushima, where the situation remains "unforeseeable". .

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The radioactive core in a reactor at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant appears to have melted through the bottom of its containment vessel and on to a concrete floor below, experts say, raising fears of a major release of radiation at the site.

Richard Lahey, who has worked on the plant at Fukushima, told the Guardian officials seemed to have "lost the race" to save the reactor, but added that there was no danger of a Chernobyl-style catastrophe.

His warning came as Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, signalled that Britain could take a step back from nuclear power in the wake of the disaster.

Speaking on a trip to Mexico, Clegg said the resulting uncertainty for the nuclear industry could make it more likely the industry would need a public subsidy, which the coalition would be unable to provide.

"We have always said there are two conditions for the future of nuclear power [the next generation of power stations] have to be safe and can not let the taxpayer be ripped off," he said.

Eight new nuclear plants are due for construction in the UK.

Meanwhile the Health Protection Agency said that traces of radioactivity believed to come from the Fukushima disaster had been detected across the UK by emergency monitoring stations in Oxfordshire and Glasgow.

The agency that "the minutest" levels of radioactive iodine had been detected at its air monitoring stations over the last nine days, but they posed no risk to health.

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Ronin said:

Don't they have some kind of bomb disposal robot they can use to go inspect??? WTF! Aren'T we in 2011?

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dolomight 74-86 said:

Appearently its in reactor #2 that this "Assumed" complete meltdown is occuring. These experts claim that there is a core breach but have no way of directly verifying since the area is too radioactive to send personnel. I don't think the core is breached but if it were it is the best place for it to happen since reactor #2's containment building is mostly intact.

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OSAKA: Radiation levels in the sea off Japan's stricken nuclear plant hit their highest reading yet, officials said Wednesday, amid a struggle to deal with large amounts of radioactive water at the site.

A spokesman for Tokyo Electric Power Co., operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant crippled by a March 11 earthquake and tsunami, said levels of radioactive iodine-131 were 3,355 times the legal limit in the sea near the plant, according to a reading taken on Tuesday.

Officials said they did not know what cause the radiation level to rise.

"The figures are rising further. We need to find out as quickly as possible the causes and to stop them from rising any higher," said nuclear safety agency spokesman Hidehiko Nishiyama.

The sampling location is 330 metres south of the discharge outlet for four troubled reactors. Officials have said that tidal dispersion means that there is no immediate health threat, and that the iodine degrades relatively quickly.

A 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami knocked out the cooling systems of the Fukushima plant's six reactors -- triggering explosions and fires, releasing radiation and sparking global fears of a widening disaster.

Radiation from the plant northeast of Tokyo has wafted into the air, contaminating farm produce and drinking water, and seeped into the Pacific Ocean.

In a stop-gap measure to contain the crisis at the plant, crews have poured thousands of tons of water onto reactors where fuel rods are thought to have partially melted, and topped up pools for spent fuel rods.

But the run-off of the operation has accumulated in the basements of turbine rooms connected to three reactors and filled up tunnels, making it too risky for workers to go near to repair cooling systems needed to stabilise the plant.

The water out of reactor two has measured 1,000 millisieverts per hour - four times the recently-hiked total exposure limit for emergency staff, and a level that can cause radiation sickness with nausea and vomiting in an hour.

On Sunday, iodine-131 measuring 1,850 times the legal maximum were reported a few hundred metres from the plant, up from 1,250 times the limit Saturday.

Japan's government has evacuated hundreds of thousands of people from within 20 kilometres of the plant, and more recently encouraged those remaining within 30 kilometres to also leave.

- AFP/fa

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