Tokyo Electric Power Co., operator of Japan’s stricken Fukushima nuclear plant said concrete injections have failed to stop a leak of highly radioactive water from reactor Number 2 directly into the ocean.
A US engineer who helped install reactors at Fukushima, speaking anonymously, said he believes the radioactive core in reactor Number 2 may have melted through the bottom of its containment vessel and on to a concrete floor.
Plutonium has been found in soil at various points in and around Japan’s stricken Fukushima nuclear complex, officials admitted. The plutonium presumably comes from partially-melted MOX fuel from reactor Number 3.
Sharply elevated radiation at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex forced an emergency evacuation of the Number 2 unit, as highly radioactive seawater has been detected a mile off coast from the plant.
The voices of aging hibakushaāsurvivors of the August 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasakiāhave started to make their way into the international media regarding the Fukushima disaster.
Despite a temporary construction moratorium in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, China is still planning to move ahead with an ambitious thrust of nuclear developmentāwith a new generation of supposedly “safe” reactors.
Power was restored to the control room of the No. 3 reactor at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plantābut smoke has been rising intermittently from the reactor building, and elevated radiation is now detected in Tokyo’s water supply.
Japan has raised the alert level at the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant from four to five on the seven-point scale, due to containment core damage at reactors 2 and 3. Dangerous radiation levels have been noted 30 kilometers away.
The Japan Atomic Industrial Forum reports that following the explosions at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, “damage is suspected to unit 2’s inner or primary containment vessel (PCV).”
Two more reactors at the Fukushima nuclear power plant are reported to have lost cooling functions, as technicians continue their struggle to contain what threatens to become a meltdown.
In a televised statement, Prime Minister Naoto Kan said radiation from the three stricken reactors at the Fukushima nuclear plant has reached the danger zone. A fourth reactor is now aflame.
A third hydrogen explosion at the Fukushima nuclear plant is reported, destroying the outer building of reactor Number 2. All three damaged reactors at the site have now experienced explosions.
