Perilous
Times
Radiation levels soar to highest levels ever recorded near
nuclear plant
March 30, 2011 - 4:29PM
AFP
Radiation levels in the sea off Japan's stricken nuclear plant hit
their highest reading yet, officials said, 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 on Wednesday levels of radioactive iodine-131
were 3,355 times the legal limit in the sea near the plant,
according to a reading taken Tuesday.
Officials said they did not know what cause the radiation level to
rise.
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"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 20km of the plant, and more recently encouraged those
remaining within 30km to also leave.