TEPCO balks at constructing underground dam to save groundwater and sea from radiation

By Takao Yamada, Expert Senior Writer, Mainichi Japan20 June 2011 […] One figure who has entered the public spotlight in the wake of the nuclear crisis is 61-year-old Hiroaki Koide, an assistant professor at the Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute and a controversialist in the anti-nuclear debate. A specialist in nuclear power, Koide has garnered […]

Video: Fukushima worker speaks out: ‘We are Kamikaze’

By Marga Ortigas, AlJazeera English 19 June 2011 The nuclear plant at Japan’s Fukushima may be leaking radiation, but people are still going there daily to look for employment where about 2,200 of the 2,500 working there are subcontractors. In the last three months, at least eight workers have been exposed to high levels of […]

Video: China food prices spike as floods ruin farmland

By Sabrina Mao and David Stanway; Editing by Nick Macfie19 June 2011 ZHUJI, China (Reuters) – Torrential rain across southern and eastern China which has killed more than 100 people and triggered the evacuation of half a million has left large areas of farmland devastated as food prices surge, state media said on Sunday. Weeks […]

Improvised Fukushima water decontamination system fails at first ‘skid’

By arevamirpal::laprimavera18 June 2011 According to TEPCO’s handout for the press for June 18, TEPCO stopped the entire water processing system manually when the surface radiation at the “skid” for removing oil and technetium exceeded 4 millisievert/hour, the limit set for replacing the zeolite cylinders (which TEPCO calls “vessel”) inside the skid. That “skid” contains […]

Fukushima timeline hours after the earthquake – New TEPCO documents show problems encountered in venting, pumping water to damaged reactors

June 18 (Asahi Shimbun) – The Asahi Shimbun has obtained TEPCO documents that provide a timeline of events from 2:46 p.m. on March 11 when the magnitude-9.0 Great East Japan Earthquake struck, and includes the explosions that occurred at the No. 1 to No. 3 reactors until March 15. Despite the orders of Masao Yoshida, […]

Japan’s radiation sleuths toil with borrowed Geiger counters – TEPCO response characterized by ‘ineptitude, negligence’

By Shigeru Sato, Sachiko Sakamaki, and Tsuyoshi Inajima13 Jun 2011 Makoto Tonami starts his workday by slipping on a white surgical face mask and then drives around with a borrowed Geiger counter, taking radiation readings. Three months ago, he was sorting garbage claims in Minami Soma, a city north of the Fukushima nuclear plant. “It’s […]

Graph of the Day: Citizen-measured Radiation Levels in Japan, June 2011

By FishOutofWater, for Japan Nuclear Incident Liveblogs16 June 2011 […] A map of citizen-measured radiation levels shows radioactivity is distributed in a complex pattern reflecting the mountainous terrain and the shifting winds across a broad area of Japan north of Tokyo, which is in the center of the of bottom of the map. Radiation limits […]

Video: Japan prayers for disaster closure

By Hideyuki Sano18 June 2011 TOKYO (Reuters) – A rise in radiation halted the clean-up of radioactive water at Japan’s Fukushimi nuclear power station on Saturday hours after it got under way, a fresh setback to efforts to restore control over the quake-stricken plant. The power plant has been leaking radiation into the atmosphere ever […]

Fukushima nuclear plant: Contaminated water treatment system may not restart for another week, as trench water rises

By arevamirpal::laprimavera17 June 2011 More on the news that TEPCO halted the system due to higher than expected radiation level in the cesium absorption subsystem by Kurion: The radiation limit of 4 millisieverts/hour was reached in 5 hours, instead of one month as anticipated. New information from Jiji News Japanese (12:47PM JST 6/18/2011): The radiation […]

China’s drought threatens farm income, drinking water, wildlife, and hydropower

By COCO LIU of ClimateWire14 June 2011 SHANGHAI — It is an annual tradition for Chinese to race dragon boats at the end of each spring, but this year, the tradition has run aground. Many streams and lakes along the Yangtze River have almost dried up. The world’s third-largest river — stretching from the Himalayas […]

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