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Sunday, March 13, 2011

Update: Japan Nuclear Plant Crisis

According to an IAEA statement, 110,000 people have been moved away from Fukushima No. 1 plant. Another 30,000 have been evacuated from a 10km radius around Fukushima No. 2 plant (about 5 miles away).   But full evacuation measures have not been completed.

Fukushima has two nuclear plants; Fukushima Daiichi (No. 1,) which has six reactors (three of which were offline at the time of the quake) and Fukushima Daini (No. 2,) which has four reactors.

It is the number three reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi plant where officials have just announced that the cooling system has failed. This morning's blast took place at the number one reactor at the same plant. "All the functions to keep cooling water levels in No. 3 reactor have failed at the Fukushima No. 1 plant," a spokesman for the operator said.

The number of people exposed to radiation near Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant could reach 160, an official from the Japan Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency has said. Nine people have shown signs of possible exposure.

Operators are preparing to release radioactive steam from the number three reactor at Fukushima No. 1 plant, after the cooling system failed there

BBC

1 comment:

Atlanta Roofing said...

In a worst case scenario the control rods have collapsed and they have a full scale runaway reactor that will start to produce heat again with no cooling system. If that is the case it can only end one way. A complete core breach that will allow the core to fall down into the ground water. When that happens the molten sodium and fission mass will cause a massive explosion throwing cubic kilometers of steam containing Cesium, Uranium 235 and perhaps worst of all Plutonium 239 up into the atmosphere¬, all the way up into the jet stream.. Lets all hope that doesn't happen