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Monday, March 14, 2011

Meltdown Threat Rises At Japanese Nuclear Plant


A top Japanese official said the fuel rods in all three of the most troubled nuclear reactors appeared to be melting.

Of all these troubles, the drop in water levels at Unit 2 had officials the most worried.

"Units 1 and 3 are at least somewhat stabilized for the time being," said Nuclear and Industrial Agency official Ryohei Shiomi "Unit 2 now requires all our effort and attention."

In some ways, the explosion at Unit 3 was not as dire as it might seem.

The blast actually lessened pressure building inside the troubled reactor, and officials said the all-important containment shell -- thick concrete armor around the reactor -- had not been damaged.

In addition, officials said radiation levels remained within legal limits, though anyone left within 12 miles of the scene was ordered to remain indoors.

"We have no evidence of harmful radiation exposure," deputy Cabinet secretary Noriyuki Shikata told reporters.

3 comments:

thomas augustus littleton said...

Someone suggested that coal is as harmful as nuclear power. While that may be true over a lifetime in the past, current events show nuclear power's potential for unimaginable, catastrophic, immediate & long term loss of life & poisoning of the planet for hundreds of years. Yet our simple minded president say push on with Nuclear power when we have the largest reserve of coal on the planet. The Earth can recover from coal pollution..not so easy from nuclear disasters and nuclear waste! Now there a re way too many nuclear power plants on earth, each one with the potential to poison the earth for hundreds of years and kill millions should a natural or man made disturbance occur!

Anonymous said...

"We have no evidence of harmful radiation exposure,"

but a US ship 100 miles away was contaminated!

thomas augustus littleton said...

The obama team screams about the dangers of coal but is too dumb to see that nuclear disasters can ruin the oceans and contaminate the earth irreversibly and immediately, as we are likely to find out all too soon if things keep deteriorating in Japan. Team Obama likes to say "there is no clean coal"..true enough, but there is NO acceptably safe nuclear power.