Nuclear meltdown at Fukushima plant

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Workers pour concrete into a pit to stop contaminated water leaking from the reactor building Photo: TEPCO/AFP/Getty Images

Nuclear meltdown at Fukushima plant
One of the reactors at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi power plant did suffer a nuclear meltdown, Japanese officials admitted for the first time today, describing a pool of molten fuel at the bottom of the reactor's containment vessel.

By Julian Ryall in Tokyo 2:01PM BST 12 May 2011

Engineers from the Tokyo Electric Power company (Tepco) entered the No.1 reactor at the end of last week for the first time and saw the top five feet or so of the core's 13ft-long fuel rods had been exposed to the air and melted down.

Previously, Tepco believed that the core of the reactor was submerged in enough water to keep it stable and that only 55 per cent of the core had been damaged. Now the company is worried that the molten pool of radioactive fuel may have burned a hole through the bottom of the containment vessel, causing water to leak.

"We will have to revise our plans," said Junichi Matsumoto, a spokesman for Tepco. "We cannot deny the possibility that a hole in the pressure vessel caused water to leak".

Tepco has not clarified what other barriers there are to stop radioactive fuel leaking if the steel containment vessel has been breached. Greenpeace said the situation could escalate rapidly if "the lava melts through the vessel".

However, an initial plan to flood the entire reactor core with water to keep its temperature from rising has now been abandoned because it might exacerbate the leak. Tepco said there was enough water at the bottom of the vessel to keep both the puddle of melted fuel and the remaining fuel rods cool.

Meanwhile, Tepco said on Wednesday that it had sealed a leak of radioactive water from the No.3 reactor after water was reportedly discovered to be flowing into the ocean. A similar leak had discharged radioactive water into the sea in April from the No.2 reactor.

Greenpeace said significant amounts of radioactive material had been released into the sea and that samples of seaweed taken from as far as 40 miles of the Fukushima plant had been found to contain radiation well above legal limits. Of the 22 samples tested, ten were contaminated with five times the legal limit of iodine 131 and 20 times of caesium 137.

Seaweed is a huge part of the Japanese diet and the average household almost 7lbs a year. Greenpeace's warning came as fishermen prepared to start the harvest of this season's seaweed on May 20.

Inland from the plant, there has been a huge cull of the livestock left inside the 18-mile mandatory exclusion zone with thousands of cows, horses and pigs being destroyed and some 260,000 chickens from the town of Minamisoma alone. The Environment ministry has announced, however, that it will attempt to rescue the thousands of pets that were left behind when residents were ordered to evacuate. At least 5,800 dogs were owned by the residents of the zone, although it is unclear how many remain alive, two months after the earthquake struck.

[Paslode]

Discovery News
Sharks Dying by the Dozens Due to Internal Bleeding

By Jennifer Viegas | Thu May 12, 2011 01:28 PM ET

Dozens of leopard sharks have been washing up dead in California since April, and now a necropsy shows at least one of the sharks died of massive internal bleeding, such that blood was even coming out of the shark's skin, according to a Daily News report.

The necropsy, conducted by the California Department of Fish and Game, uncovered "inflammation, bleeding and lesions in the brain, and hemorrhaging from the skin near vents." According to the Daily News story, bleeding was additionally detected around the tested female's other internal organs.

The results suggest the 50 sharks that have washed up dead at Redwood Shores in Redwood City, California, since April must have died a slow and agonizing death.

Catherine Greer, a resident of the city, said she and her son tried to save some of the sharks by returning them to the water, but "they'd swim right back, thrashing their heads against the shore ... as if they were trying to commit suicide."

BLOG: Sharks Get Congressional Protection

I've been to this spot before and have seen presumably healthy leopard sharks right along the shore. You can see one in this video:

A key question then clearly remains: What is causing the internal bleeding?

As of now, that's still a mystery. A statement released by the Silicon Valley city mentioned, "The...pathologist is not drawing any conclusions until more examinations and all tests are performed."

A bacterial study and microspoic tissue analysis are underway. Investigators have not ruled out a human-caused spill of toxic chemicals, although no big spill has been reported in the region over the past couple of months.

Sean Van Sommeran, executive director of the Pelagic Shark Research Foundation in nearby Santa Cruz, suspects "we're only seeing a tiny fraction of what's going on," meaning more sharks and other animals are likely being affected by the problem.

Van Sommeran added that leopard sharks are typically a "pretty resistant" species.

I have to wonder...If whatever is in the water is doing this to a sturdy shark, what in the world is it doing, or could it do, to us? Perhaps the cause is shark-specific, such as a pathogen affecting only leopard sharks, but I'd like to see the proof.

http://news.discovery.com/animals/sh...tml?print=true

[tonyz]

"inflammation, bleeding and lesions in the brain, and hemorrhaging from the skin near vents."

Similar symptoms have been identified from watching the Rachel MadCow show.

[Sdiver]

Bringing this back up.

Even with all the stuff that's going on here, I was talking to someone today who follows what's happening in japan....specifically the Fukushima Nuke plant.

While some of his thoughts on the issue are fairly doomsday-ish, it's hard to ignore it when you catch yourself up on the news about it. My friend predicted that within 15 years ten of thousands (if not 100's of thousands) will abandon the west coast of the United States because of the elevate radiation levels, dead fishing, cancer etc. and that those around the power plant would be dead before then.

That the Fukushima meltdown is the greatest environmental threat the world faces,

Just thought I'd pass it along.

http://enenews.com/category/japan/fu...h#?1#?1#agtpwd

[Lan]

My friend just threw away freezer full of abalone, halibut and some other shellfish/fish he caught north of San Francisco a couple days ago.

[Pete]

Originally Posted by Sdiver

.... My friend predicted that within 15 years ten of thousands (if not 100's of thousands) will abandon the west coast of the United States.......

Good Lord - can we build a fence?

Or maybe give them through tickets to the Northeast?

[BrokenSwitch]

This isn't going to go away.

http://www.naturalcuresnotmedicine.c...fukushima.html

USS Ronald Reagan crew... well... read for yourselves:
http://nypost.com/2013/12/22/70-navy...-japan-rescue/

http://www.ibtimes.com/uss-ronald-re...photos-1519170