Japan... ‘Maximum Alert’!... Over Fukushima Nuke Crisis... Head of TEPCO Vanishes!

Workers at the Fukushima nuclear power plant are working in overdrive, attempting to stop the spread of radioactive materials into the ocean as well as avoid a full scale meltdown. ~ Alex Thomas

In a startling development, Crews found traces of plutonium in the soil outside of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex on Monday, but officials continued to insist there was no threat to public health. Plutonium is highly dangerous and has raised the level of fear tenfold.

Worried? Apparently at least one person now believes that Plutonium is actually good for human health!

Plutonium, one of the most feared radioactive substances on earth, may in fact enhance human health, according to unexpected new findings published in the journal, Health Physics, wrote Lawrence Solomon in the Financial Post.

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan rttnews.com has stated that Japan is on Maximum Alert and the situation remains unpredictable and ever changing.

Multiple embassies in Japan have started to pass out potassium iodide tablets as a precautionary measure. These tablets are being distributed in a 250km radius yet Japanese officials continue to claim that potassium iodide is only needed within the 20km evacuation zone.

The difference in opinion between the Japanese government and Foreign embassies is so huge that it seems impossible that Japan is not covering up the extent of this disaster.

“The recommendation by the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority that all Swedes who are staying within a radius of 250 km from the Fukushima No. 1 power plant to take iodide tablets every three days is still valid,” the embassy’s website, last updated Saturday, says. “Best protection against radioactive iodine is to take iodide tablets before the exposure, as doing so afterward will prove too late,” reported The Japan Times.

Officials with TEPCO are also facing a major dilemma. They need to cool the reactors with water but at the same time keep the water from contaminating the ocean with toxic radioactive materials.

“TEPCO is in an awful dilemma right now,” said Jim Walsh, an international security expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “One the one hand, they want to cool the reactor and keep the reactor cool, so they have to pour water in. If there is a leak in one of the containment vessels, that water keeps leaking out. So they have a problem where the more they try to cool it down, the greater the radiation hazard as that water leaks out from the plant,” reported the CNN Wire Staff.

Fox News is reporting that TEPCO officials have LOST the battle to save one of the damaged reactors at the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

“The indications we have, from the reactor to radiation readings and the materials they are seeing, suggest that the core has melted through the bottom of the pressure vessel in unit two, and at least some of it is down on the floor of the drywell,” Lahey told the Guardian.

Meanwhile the Head of TEPCO has all but vanished since a 9.0 earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan on March 11th. He was last seen on the 13th which has led many to speculate that he has left the country.

Amid rumors that Shimizu had fled the country, checked into a hospital or committed suicide, company officials said Monday that their boss had suffered an unspecified “small illness” because of overwork after a 9.0-magnitude earthquake sent a tsunami crashing onto his company’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, reported the Washington Post.

There is no way to tell if Shimizu is actually in Tokyo due to the fact that no one has actually seen him.

Officials in the United States have continued to claim that the levels found in the U.S. are no worse then background radiation, ignoring the simple fact that most of these radioactive particles do not normally occur in the atmosphere at all.

Radiation from Japan N-plant reaches Britain

Alex Thomas - March 29, 2011 - IntelHub

Submitted by SadInAmerica on Tue, 03/29/2011 - 7:01pm.

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Plutonium Found In Fukushima, TEPCO Executive Says "Radioactive Substance Shouldn’t Have Any Impact On Human Health"

Shit just got real. The spin? It is not harmful to human health. Oh really? We can't wait for Kan to eat some plutonium on national TV to confirm this. In the meantime we await the retraction from TEPCO claiming they made a mistake and they really meant platinum not plutonium.

Plutonium has been detected in soil at five locations at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Monday.

The operator of the nuclear complex said that the plutonium is believed to have been discharged from nuclear fuel at the plant, which was damaged by the devastating March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

While noting that the concentration level does not pose a risk to human health, the utility firm said it will strengthen monitoring on the environment in and around the nuclear plant.

Meanwhile, high levels of radiation exceeding 1,000 millisieverts per hour have been detected in water in a trench outside the No. 2 reactor's building at the nuclear plant, with the contaminated water suspected to have come from the reactor's core, where fuel rods have partially melted, authorities said Monday.

The government's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said the electric power company, known as TEPCO, is expected to pump out similarly highly contaminated water that has been building up in the basement of the No. 2 reactor's turbine building, which is connected to the trench, to eventually remove the water.

The company said the high radiation level in water in the trench connected to the No. 2 complex was detected Sunday, adding that the radiation level in the air in the trench stood at 100 to 300 millisieverts.

At a radiation level of 1,000 millisieverts per hour, people could suffer a decrease in the number of lymphocytes -- a type of white blood cell -- in just 30 minutes, and half could die within 30 days by remaining in such conditions for four hours.

TEPCO also found Sunday afternoon that the radiation level at the surface of the trench water adjacent to the No. 1 complex was 0.4 millisievert per hour. But it could not measure the level at the gutter linked to the No. 3 unit as rubble prevented the firm from checking it, the company added.

Although it remains unknown whether the contaminated water has flowed into the sea from the trenches that are 55 to 70 meters away from the shore, TEPCO suspects the high concentration of radioactive substances found in seawater near the plant reactors' drainage outlets may be linked to the trench water.

Earlier in the day, the nuclear agency said radioactive iodine-131 at a concentration 1,150 times the maximum allowable level was detected Sunday in a seawater sample taken around 1.5 kilometers north of the drainage outlets of the troubled No. 1-4 reactors.

Haruki Madarame, chairman of the Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan, a government panel, told reporters he is ''very worried'' about the high-level radiation detected in water in the trenches, which is outside the radiation-controlled area set by TEPCO.

March 28 (Bloomberg) -- Tokyo Electric Power Co. found plutonium contamination in soil near the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant that was tested, Sakae Muto, vice president at plant operator, said at a press conference shown on a webcast today.

The plutonium probably came after the accident at the reactors following Japan’s strongest earthquake and tsunami, he said. The radioactive substance shouldn’t have any impact on human health, he said.

Fear not: TEPCO will bravely continue to sacrifice its workers even after this discovery. Per Reuters:

Attached is a report from the ANS on why this discovery means that Reactor 3 is compromised.

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TEPCO Admits To Another Cover Up As Radioactivity In Seawater Near Fukushima Soars To 1,251 Above Legal Limit

The latest news out of Fukushima confirms fears that irradiated water containment at the radioactive plant has been complete breached, after Radioactive iodine-131 at a concentration 1,250.8 times the legal limit was detected Friday morning in a seawater sample taken around 330 meters south of the plant, near the drainage outlets of the four troubled reactors, the government's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said Saturday. As Kyodo updates: "The level rose to its highest so far in the survey begun this week, after remaining around levels about 100 times the legal limit. It is highly likely that radioactive water in the plant has found its way into the sea, TEPCO said." It's all good though: the government has a prepared strawman for this unprecedented surge in radioactivity as well."Radioactive materials ''will be significantly diluted'' by the time they are consumed by marine species, the agency said, adding it would not have a significant impact on fishery products as fishing is not being conducted in the area within 20 kilometers of the plant because the government has issued a directive for residents in the zone to evacuate." But none of this matter as we get the latest confirmation that no news coming out of the stricken plant can be trusted: "TEPCO's Fukushima office acknowledged Saturday that it had known earlier that the radiation in the underground level of the turbine building of one of the reactors was extremely high, but had not made the information available to pertinent parties."

From Reuters: " Officials said iodine 131 levels in seawater 30 km (19 miles) from the coastal nuclear complex were within acceptable limits established by regulations and the contamination posed little risk to aquatic life. "Ocean currents will disperse radiation particles and so it will be very diluted by the time it gets consumed by fish and seaweed," said Hidehiko Nishiyama, a senior official from Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency. Despite that reassurance, the disclosure may well heighten international concern over Japanese seafood exports. Several countries have already banned milk and produce from areas around the Fukushima Daiichi plant, while others have been monitoring Japanese seafood." So fear not - instead of having 10 fins, that yummy piece of toro you are injesting will sport only a substantially "diluted" 5. Also, expect to see Kan eating seaweed and sashimi,  and washing it down with radioactive tap water on TV any minute to prove just how safe everything really is.

More from Kyodo:

The level rose to its highest so far in the survey begun this week, after remaining around levels about 100 times the legal limit. It is highly likely that radioactive water in the plant has found its way into the sea, TEPCO said.

Radioactive materials ''will be significantly diluted'' by the time they are consumed by marine species, the agency said, adding it would not have a significant impact on fishery products as fishing is not being conducted in the area within 20 kilometers of the plant because the government has issued a directive for residents in the zone to evacuate.

TEPCO is planning to inject fresh water into pools storing the spent nuclear fuel at the plant to prevent crystallized salt from seawater already injected from hampering the smooth circulation of water and thus diminishing the cooling effect. It has begun injecting fresh water into the reactor containers of the No. 1 and No. 3 as well as No. 2 reactors.

At the same time, the company is trying to remove the pools of water containing highly concentrated radioactive substances that may have seeped from either the reactor cores or the spent fuel pools.

On Thursday, three workers were exposed to water containing radioactive materials 10,000 times the normal level at the turbine building connected to the No. 3 reactor building.

On Friday, a pool of water with a similarly high concentration of radioactive materials was found in the No. 1 reactor's turbine building, causing some restoration work to be suspended.

Similar pools of water were also found in the turbine buildings of the No. 2 and No. 4 reactors, measuring up to 1 meter and 80 centimeters deep, respectively. Those near the No. 1 and No. 3 reactors were up to 40 cm and 1.5 meters deep, respectively.

And the most dramatic example of strategic idiocy: all the hoopla about dumping tons of water on the reactors will now have to be undone:

While analyzing the radioactivity levels of the pools from the water found in the No. 2 and No. 4 reactors, TEPCO will remove the water in all four reactor units to reduce the risk of more workers being exposed to radioactive substances, it said.

The risk would hinder efforts to restore the plant's crippled cooling functions, which are crucial to overcoming the crisis, the government's nuclear safety agency said.

But the most infuriating development is the latest disclosure from TEPCO that once again it covered up critical data.

TEPCO's Fukushima office acknowledged Saturday that it had known earlier that the radiation in the underground level of the turbine building of one of the reactors was extremely high, but had not made the information available to pertinent parties.

Edano criticized the utility's handling of the data, saying unless it reports necessary information to authorities in a timely manner, ''the government will not be able to give appropriate instructions and (TEPCO) will make workers, and eventually the public, distrustful'' of the firm.

So aside from the constant lies and misinformation, the public can be assued that all is well.

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