TOKYO -- A Japanese nuclear official says highly radioactive water is leaking from a damaged nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean.
Nuclear safety spokesman Hidehiko Nishiyama says the air above the leak contains 1,000 millisiverts of radioactivity. Exposure to 500 millisiverts over a short period of time can increase the risk of cancer.
The water was seeping Saturday from a crack in the containment for a maintenance pit on the edge of the nuclear site.
The Fukushima Dai-ichi plant has been spewing radioactivity since it was hit by a tsunami three weeks ago.
Very sad indeed. 🙁 I wonder how far that stuff will spread in the ocean??
Unpredictable. Sharks in particular are extra-sensitive, will avoid those areas of the ocean
and considering the half-life of this stuff, you'd have to believe we'll be seeing the effects of this for a loooong time and over a long distance.
The biggest problem of the radiation getting into the ocean is that it enters the food chain and certain organisms will ingest high concentratios of radioactivity, which will be passed on to their predators.
Apparently this is the second time for the Japanese. There were a couple of leaks into the sea after the 2007 earthquake. There are a lot of differing reports, so who knows how much that was.
Really there is no need to worry about this, Nuclear is perfectly safe.
You people really should stop worrying about this.
Sure the radiation lasts for thousands of years in the extremely unlikely event of an accident but there is nothing to worry about. We have just so complete knowledge of where all the faults are and PG&E and SoCal Edison are wonderful utilities that never screw up (except for that little gas explosion thing in the bay area but that's not nuclear after all).
So stop worrying and be happy!
[flash width=480 height=390] http://www.youtube.com/v/PDNX4fRcHoY?fs=1&hl=en_US [/flash]
I listened to a very interesting interview from a worker and volunteer who was involved in clean up at the Chernobyl reactor. He and his squad worked on the roof of the building adjacent to the reactor, chipping out the asphalt roof that had reactor fuel material melted into the asphalt. He said the "safe" exposure time was 36 seconds!
It is remarkable how the plants and animals around the site seem to be thriving. Let's hope the ocean life will fare as well at Fukushima.
Here is an interview with Sergei.
