Radiation in seawater off Japan at new high
Source: Agencies |
March 31, 2011, Thursday
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Seawater near Japan's stricken nuclear facility recorded its highest radiation levels yet as setbacks mounted in the battle to contain the crisis.
Nearly three weeks after the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant's cooling systems were knocked out by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, Tokyo Electric Power Co is still struggling to bring the facility in northeastern Japan under control.
Although experts have said since the early days of the crisis that the nuclear complex will need to be scrapped because workers have sprayed it with corrosive seawater to keep fuel rods cool, Tokyo Electric acknowledged publicly for the first time yesterday that at least four of the plant's six reactors will have to be decommissioned.
Nuclear safety officials said yesterday that seawater 300 meters outside the plant contained 3,355 times the legal limit for the amount of radioactive iodine - the highest yet.
The amount of iodine-131 found south of the plant does not pose an immediate threat to human health but was a "concern," said Hidehiko Nishiyama, a Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency official.
Radioactive iodine is short-lived, with a half-life of just eight days, and in any case was expected to dissipate quickly in the ocean. It tends not to accumulate in shellfish.
Highly toxic plutonium has also been detected in the soil outside the plant. Safety officials said the amounts did not pose a risk, but the finding supports suspicions that dangerously radioactive water is leaking from damaged nuclear fuel rods. There have been no reports of plutonium being found in seawater.
Meanwhile, white smoke was reported coming from a plant about 15 kilometers from the troubled one. The smoke quickly dissipated and no radiation was released; officials were looking into the cause.
The Fukushima Daini plant also suffered some damage in the tsunami but has been in cold shutdown since days after the quake.
The spread of radiation has raised concerns about the safety of Japan's seafood, even though experts say the low levels suggest radiation won't accumulate in fish at unsafe levels. Trace amounts of radioactive caesium-137 have been found in anchovies as far afield as Chiba, near Tokyo, but at less than 1 percent of acceptable levels.
Experts say the Pacific is so vast any radiation will be quickly diluted before it becomes problematic.
As officials seek to bring an end to the nuclear crisis, hundreds of thousands of people in Japan's northeast are trying to put their lives back together. The official death toll stood at 11,257 yesterday, with the final toll likely to surpass 18,000.
The country's Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko reached out to some of the thousands displaced by the twin natural disasters yesterday, spending about an hour consoling evacuees at a Tokyo center.
Nearly three weeks after the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant's cooling systems were knocked out by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, Tokyo Electric Power Co is still struggling to bring the facility in northeastern Japan under control.
Although experts have said since the early days of the crisis that the nuclear complex will need to be scrapped because workers have sprayed it with corrosive seawater to keep fuel rods cool, Tokyo Electric acknowledged publicly for the first time yesterday that at least four of the plant's six reactors will have to be decommissioned.
Nuclear safety officials said yesterday that seawater 300 meters outside the plant contained 3,355 times the legal limit for the amount of radioactive iodine - the highest yet.
The amount of iodine-131 found south of the plant does not pose an immediate threat to human health but was a "concern," said Hidehiko Nishiyama, a Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency official.
Radioactive iodine is short-lived, with a half-life of just eight days, and in any case was expected to dissipate quickly in the ocean. It tends not to accumulate in shellfish.
Highly toxic plutonium has also been detected in the soil outside the plant. Safety officials said the amounts did not pose a risk, but the finding supports suspicions that dangerously radioactive water is leaking from damaged nuclear fuel rods. There have been no reports of plutonium being found in seawater.
Meanwhile, white smoke was reported coming from a plant about 15 kilometers from the troubled one. The smoke quickly dissipated and no radiation was released; officials were looking into the cause.
The Fukushima Daini plant also suffered some damage in the tsunami but has been in cold shutdown since days after the quake.
The spread of radiation has raised concerns about the safety of Japan's seafood, even though experts say the low levels suggest radiation won't accumulate in fish at unsafe levels. Trace amounts of radioactive caesium-137 have been found in anchovies as far afield as Chiba, near Tokyo, but at less than 1 percent of acceptable levels.
Experts say the Pacific is so vast any radiation will be quickly diluted before it becomes problematic.
As officials seek to bring an end to the nuclear crisis, hundreds of thousands of people in Japan's northeast are trying to put their lives back together. The official death toll stood at 11,257 yesterday, with the final toll likely to surpass 18,000.
The country's Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko reached out to some of the thousands displaced by the twin natural disasters yesterday, spending about an hour consoling evacuees at a Tokyo center.
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