Fukushima Just Keeps Getting Worse

As does the apparent incompetence of TEPCO

In a sudden escalation of the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant, the Japanese nuclear watchdog has announced that it is raising the danger level of the radioactive water leak.

After 300 tons of highly radioactive water was found spreading near the storage tanks in the plant, the government had declared that it was a level 1 incident – called an ‘anomaly’ – on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES). Now it will be raised to level 3 which is called a “serious incident”, a spokesperson for Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA)said, according to Reuters.

… Contaminated water with dangerously high levels of radiation is leaking from a storage tank at Fukushima, the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co said on Tuesday. The leak, which has not been plugged, is so contaminated that a person standing 50 cm (1.6 feet) away would, within an hour, receive a radiation dose five times the average annual global limit for nuclear workers.

After 10 hours, a worker in that proximity to the leak would develop radiation sickness with symptoms including nausea and a drop in white blood cells.

Really, I trust them when they say that nothing is leaking into the ocean…

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