Fukushima nuke plant radiation leak exceeds Hiroshima!

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Associated Press / ibnlive.in.com / Posted on Aug 26, 2011 at 11:44pm IST.

Tokyo: The amount of radioactive cesium that has leaked from a tsunami-hit nuclear plant is about equal to 168 of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima at the end of World War II, Japan's nuclear agency said on Friday.

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency supplied the estimate at a parliamentary panel's request, but it noted a simple comparison between an instantaneous bomb blast and long-term accidental leak is impossible and the results could be "irrelevant."

The report estimated for each of the 16 isotopes released from "Little Boy" and 31 of those detected at the Fukushima plant but didn't provide the total. NISA has said the radiation leaked from Fukushima was about one-sixth of what the Chernobyl disaster released in 1986.

The March 11 earthquake and tsunami caused three reactor cores at Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant to melt. Several blasts and fires also sent massive radiation into the environment.

The report said the damaged plant has released 15,000 tera becquerels of cesium-137, which lingers for decades and could cause cancer, compared with the 89 tera becquerels released by the U.S. uranium bomb.

Rest at,

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/japan-nuke-plant-radiation-leak-exceeds-hiroshima/178879-2.html

Sunflowers melt Fukushima's nuclear 'snow'!

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zeenews.india.com / Last Updated: Saturday, August 20, 2011, 08:43.  

zeenews.india.com / Last Updated: Saturday, August 20, 2011, 09:04.

Fukushima: Sparks from burning strips of paper swirled into the hot summer sky, carrying the names of the dead above a temple in Fukushima where thousands of sunflowers have been planted to help fight the omnipresent radiation.

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant some 50 km away suffered a series of core meltdowns and explosions after the massive March 11 earthquake and tsunami knocked out cooling systems, setting off the world's worst nuclear accident in 25 years and forcing tens of thousands from their homes.

"It is as if an invisible snow had fallen on Fukushima and continued to fall, covering the area," said Koyu Abe, chief monk at the Buddhist Joenji temple.

"This snow, which doesn't melt, brought a long, long winter to Fukushima."

Some 80,000 people were forced to evacuate from a vast swathe of land around the reactor as engineers battled radiation leaks, hydrogen explosions and overheating fuel rods -- and have no idea when, if ever, they can return to homes that have been in their families for generations.

Worse still, radiation spread well outside the mandatory evacuation zone, nestling in "hot spots" and contaminating the ground in what remains a largely agricultural region.

Rice, still a significant staple, has not been planted in many areas. Others face stringent tests and potentially harmful shipping bans after radioactive cesium was found in rice straw.

Excessive radiation levels have also been found in beef, vegetables, milk, seafood and water and, in hot spots more than 100 km from the plant, tea.

In an effort to lift the spirits of area residents as well as lighten the impact of the radiation, Abe began growing and distributing sunflowers and other plants.

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http://zeenews.india.com/news/eco-news/sunflowers-melt-fukushima-s-nuclear-snow_727200.html

JAPAN NUCLEAR CRISIS: Japan Held Nuclear Data, Leaving Evacuees in Peril!

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By NORIMITSU ONISHI and MARTIN FACKLER, nytimes.com / Published: August 8, 2011.

Ko Sasaki for The New York Times / 

Contaminated soil at a school in Koriyama, Japan.

FUKUSHIMA, Japan — The day after a giant tsunami set off the continuing disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, thousands of residents at the nearby town of Namie gathered to evacuate.

Given no guidance from Tokyo, town officials led the residents north, believing that winter winds would be blowing south and carrying away any radioactive emissions. For three nights, while hydrogen explosions at four of the reactors spewed radiation into the air, they stayed in a district called Tsushima where the children played outside and some parents used water from a mountain stream to prepare rice.

The winds, in fact, had been blowing directly toward Tsushima — and town officials would learn two months later that a government computer system designed to predict the spread of radioactive releases had been showing just that.

But the forecasts were left unpublicized by bureaucrats in Tokyo, operating in a culture that sought to avoid responsibility and, above all, criticism. Japan’s political leaders at first did not know about the system and later played down the data, apparently fearful of having to significantly enlarge the evacuation zone — and acknowledge the accident’s severity.

“From the 12th to the 15th we were in a location with one of the highest levels of radiation,” said Tamotsu Baba, the mayor of Namie, which is about five miles from the nuclear plant. He and thousands from Namie now live in temporary housing in another town, Nihonmatsu. “We are extremely worried about internal exposure to radiation.”

The withholding of information, he said, was akin to “murder.”

In interviews and public statements, some current and former government officials have admitted that Japanese authorities engaged in a pattern of withholding damaging information and denying facts of the nuclear disaster — in order, some of them said, to limit the size of costly and disruptive evacuations in land-scarce Japan and to avoid public questioning of the politically powerful nuclear industry. As the nuclear plant continues to release radiation, some of which has slipped into the nation’s food supply, public anger is growing at what many here see as an official campaign to play down the scope of the accident and the potential health risks.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/09/world/asia/09japan.html?_r=1

JAPAN NUCLEAR CRISIS: 45 per cent of Fukushima children had thyroid exposure to radiation!

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DPA / The Hindu /  TOKYO, July 5, 2011.

In this March 13, 2011 photo a man holds his baby as they are scanned for levels of radiation in Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan.

The plant has been leaking radioactive substances since it was hit by a magnitude-9 earthquake and resulting tsunami on March 11

About 45 per cent of children in Fukushima prefecture experienced thyroid exposure to radiation after the nuclear power there was damaged in March, officials said Tuesday.

But the results were not high enough to require further examination, the Nuclear Safety Commission said.

In late March, local and central governments carried out the survey on 1,080 children under the age of 15 in areas near the damaged Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station after the crisis.

The plant has been leaking radioactive substances since it was hit by a magnitude-9 earthquake and resulting tsunami on March 11.

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http://www.thehindu.com/news/article2161471.ece

JAPANESE NUCLEAR DISASTER: Fukushima children to receive radiation meters!

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Experts conduct radiation check following nuclear leak in Japan - Reuters.

Radiation meters will be distributed to about 34,000 children living in the largest city near the tsunami-damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant to monitor their exposure levels, a city official said Tuesday.

The decision to hand out the meters comes amid growing concern over the safety of children as the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima plant drags on, posing potential long-term health risks.

The devices, called dosimeters, will be distributed in September to children between the ages of four and 15 living in Fukushima city, which has recorded relatively high radiation levels since a massive March 11 earthquake and tsunami severely damaged the nuclear plant.

Dosimeters have already been supplied to area schools but not to each student, according to city official Koichi Kato. Other towns in the area have begun similar measures, but Fukushima's plan is the largest to date.

"We intend to continue the program for about three months," Kato said. "We are still considering whether to expand it further to include other residents."

Fukushima city, where about 300,000 people live, is 45 miles (60 kilometers) from the nuclear facility.

The government has established a 12-mile (20-kilometer) "no-go" zone around the plant, and a further 6-mile (10-kilometer) ring outside of that in which residents — particularly pregnant women and children — have been instructed to take special precautions and be prepared to evacuate.

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http://www.deccanchronicle.com/channels/world/asia/fukushima-children-receive-radiation-meters-237

Japan Nuclear Crisis: Decontamination system fails again at Japan nuclear plant!

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DPA / The Hindu. 

File Photo of Hamaoka nuclear power plant of Chubu Electric Power Co., in Central Japan - AP/Kyodo News.

The operator of a damaged Japanese nuclear plant suspended another test run of a newly installed water-treatment system after its pump stopped on Tuesday.

Tokyo Electric Power Co said the pump was overburdened by excessive liquid flow, Kyodo News reported.

The system designed to decontaminate highly radioactive water stopped only five hours into full operation on Friday at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, 250 kilometres north-east of Tokyo.

The operator concluded on Monday that absorbent materials inside the decontamination equipment needed changing more frequently than previously estimated, public broadcaster NHK reported.

The company is trying to reduce radioactivity in water that has accumulated around the plant as a result of emergency measures to cool the reactor cores. Storage facilities for contaminated water were reaching capacity.

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http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-and-environment/article2122873.ece

Japan Nuclear Crisis: Contaminated water swells at Japan nuke plant!

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AP / The Hindu.

File photo shows the damaged reactor building of Unit 4, left, of the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan.

The operator of Japan’s crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant is preparing to open a door of a reactor building to allow workers to install a cooling system and equipment to prevent an explosion.

Tokyo Electric Power says radiation that will be released by ventilating the Unit 2 reactor Sunday will be too small to threaten human health.

Hope technology is available to overcome this threat!

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http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/article2117919.ece

NUCLEAR DISASTERS: Lack of will on implementing Fukushima nuclear lessons!

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DPA / The Hindu. 

File Photo of Fukushima No.1 power plant of Tokyo Electric Power co at Fukushima prefecture - AP.

Efforts to patch up global nuclear safety guidelines in the wake of the Fukushima disaster are being hampered by a lack of international political will, diplomats said ahead of next week’s Vienna International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) conference on the accident in Japan.

Shortly after an earthquake and tsunami led to a nuclear meltdown at the Japanese power plant in March, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Yukiya Amano started looking for ways to reassure the global public about the safety of nuclear energy and initiated the ministerial conference that opens Monday.

In the meantime, Germany -- Euorope’s largest economy -- has decided to abandon nuclear power by 2022, and last week Italy voted in a referendum in favour of abandoning nuclear.

Although the draft final statement contains general proposals to strengthen existing safety rules and mechanisms, it is short on actual commitments.

“I think this will be more a photo-opportunity than a substantive conference,” one Arab diplomat said.

01) IAEA is the club of sellers and buyers, who simultaneously exclude all others to join this exclusive club in the name of prevention of proliferation!

02) The sellers of Nuclear Power Technologies and / or Raw Materials would not insist on safety, but they themselves are slowly exiting this arena!

03) The buyer counties, which are mostly the developing ones, which are also in a hurry to catch up with the lost economic growth, prefer overlooking the "Safety" in favour of the rapid growth!!

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http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-and-environment/article2112284.ece

Japan Nuclear Crisis: Fukushima: It's much worse than you think!

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Dahr Jamail Last Modified: 16 Jun 2011 12:50.

Many Japanese citizens are now permanently displaced from their homes due to the Fukushima nuclear disaster [GALLO/GETTY]

"Fukushima is the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind," Arnold Gundersen, a former nuclear industry senior vice president, told Al Jazeera.


Japan's 9.0 earthquake on March 11 caused a massive tsunami that crippled the cooling systems at the Tokyo Electric Power Company's (TEPCO) nuclear plant in Fukushima, Japan. It also led to hydrogen explosions and reactor meltdowns that forced evacuations of those living within a 20km radius of the plant.


Gundersen, a licensed reactor operator with 39 years of nuclear power engineering experience, managing and coordinating projects at 70 nuclear power plants around the US, says the Fukushima nuclear plant likely has more exposed reactor cores than commonly believed.


"Fukushima has three nuclear reactors exposed and four fuel cores exposed," he said, "You probably have the equivalent of 20 nuclear reactor cores because of the fuel cores, and they are all in desperate need of being cooled, and there is no means to cool them effectively."


TEPCO has been spraying water on several of the reactors and fuel cores, but this has led to even greater problems, such as radiation being emitted into the air in steam and evaporated sea water - as well as generating hundreds of thousands of tons of highly radioactive sea water that has to be disposed of.


Radiation monitors for children...................................................................................................................


Blame the US?...........................................................................................................................................


A problem of infinite proportions..............................................................................................................


This level of high secrecy surrounding Nuclear Disasters would boomerang on the Japanese Administration! 

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http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/06/201161664828302638.html

Japan Calamity: Japan marks three months since tsunami!

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• June 11, 2011 
• AFP 
• Tokyo / D.C..

• 
  

• 

• (File photo) An arial view of tsunami-hit area in Japan - Reuters.

• 
  

• Japan on Saturday marked three months since its massive quake-tsunami and resulting nuclear crisis, amid simmering public frustration over the government's slow response to the catastrophe.
  Prime Minister Naoto Kan, under heavy pressure to step down, visited part of the disaster zone where some 8,000 people remain unaccounted for and more than 90,000 others are holed up in crowded shelters.
  Thousands of people were expected to attend an anti-nuclear rally in Tokyo as radiation continued to leak from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, some 220 kilometres (140 miles) northeast of the capital.
  They were to observe a minute's silence at 2:46 pm (0546 GMT), the moment the 9.0-magnitude quake struck below the Pacific seafloor, sending monster tidal waves over the country's northeast coast.
  The death toll from the quake - Japan's biggest on record and the world's fourth largest tectonic event since 1900 - has topped 23,000 including the missing.

Hope, the Nippons would soon recover from this tragedy!

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http://www.deccanchronicle.com/channels/world/asia/japan-marks-three-months-tsunami-685