Some 170,000 people have been ordered to evacuate the area within 20 kilometres of the plant. Three reactors at the plant lost their cooling functions in the aftermath of quake and tsunami because of a power outage. So the accuracy of the data before any release is crucial and must be verified.Iwaki, Japan: Japan's top government spokesman says a partial meltdown is likely under way at second reactor affected by Friday's massive earthquake.Ĭhief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said Sunday that radiation at the nuclear power plant in Fukushima briefly rose above legal limits, but it has since declined significantly. “Once the water is released into the environment, it will be very difficult to follow up and monitor its movement. “At this point, it is difficult to predict a risk,” he told AP. Katsumi Shozugawa, a radiology expert at the University of Tokyo who has studied Fukushima’s groundwater, told the AP that long term, low-level radiation exposure in the food chain is poorly understood. Coastal nuclear plants commonly dump water that contains tritium, which occurs naturally in nature, and Japanese officials insist it is harmless when ingested in small quantities.īut many are not pleased with Tepco’s assurances. Tepco has attempted to remove most radionuclides - like cesium and strontium – from the excess water, but the technology does not exist to cleanse it of tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen. Other contaminated water – some of which was initially sprayed and dumped on the reactors while they were melting down – sit in other underground locations, leaking continuously into groundwater outside the plant. The groundwater then must be pumped out to keep it from leaking into the sea. Radioactive cooling water is leaking from the melted-down reactors and mixing with groundwater.
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The radioactive remains of the reactor buildings are, however, still off limits.īut areas underground beneath the plant remain extremely hazardous. Spent nuclear fuel stored in a pool at the No 3 reactor is being removed ahead of attempts to remove that reactor’s melted down fuel.Īs the Associated Press reported, most above ground areas at the Fukushima plant can now be visited with minimal protective gear and a Geiger counter. Remote control cranes are being used to dismantle the cooling tower of the No 2 reactor, the first from which molten nuclear fuel was removed. That wreckage is slated for removal by December 2021. Officials with Tokyo Electrical Power Co, or Tepco, say that the excess water they have collected must be disposed of so they can build facilities they need to begin the retrieval of radioactive debris within the reactors. Photo: Nils Bøhmer - Credit: Nils Bøhmer/BellonaĮver since then, the name of Fukushima has become synonymous with Chernobyl – the world’s other most notorious nuclear disaster – in connoting catastrophe, contamination and mass human evacuation. Millions of liters of water were pumped from the ocean to cool the overheating reactors, cascading contamination into the sea.Ī clock, found in debris on a beach in Fukushima, stopped at the exact time the Matsunami hit. In the days that followed the quake, the Fukushima-Daiichi plant was rocked by hydrogen explosions, which burst through the roofs of the three afflicted reactors, sending radioactive iodine, cesium and other fission by-products belching into the environment. A wall of water destroyed cooling capabilities at the Fukushima nuclear plant and three of its six nuclear reactors melted down, forcing the evacuation of 160,000 people. The dilemma over what do with the water is part of the complicated aftermath of the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami that hit on March 11, 2011.
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The other is to allow the water to evaporate over the course of several years.
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According to a government report released earlier this year, one possibility is that technicians could dilute the water to levels below the allowable safety limits, and then release it into the sea in a controlled way. Under discussion are two possible ways of disposing of Fukushima’s contaminated water.
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Stored in 1,000 special tanks on the site of the nuclear power plant’s ruins, it’s taking up needed space – which the Japanese government plans to free up by dumping it into the sea.īut local residents, especially fishermen are opposed to that plan, telling touring reporters on the nine-year anniversary of the disaster that the water release would further damage the already battered reputation of fisheries – where sales remain at only half of what they were before the catastrophe. That water, specifically 1.2 million tons of it, is still radioactive. Nine years after the Fukushima disaster shook the world, one of the biggest impediments to cleaning up the site in Northeastern Japan is coming from an unexpected source: The water. A waterlogged radiation and tsunami warning sign found on Fukushima beaches in 2013.