Fukushima catastrophe ‘already more serious than Chernobyl’

TOKYO, April 25 (UPI) – Radiation leaks remain a health threat for areas around Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant, officials said. The crisis at the plant resulted from an earthquake and tsunami March 11. Some experts believe the Fukushima crisis is more serious than that resulting from an explosion at Ukraine’s Chernobyl power plant […]

TEPCO begins unprecedented procedure to fill containment vessels with water; experts raise doubts

By Ichiro Matsuo, Tatsuyuki Kobori, and Hidenori Tsuboya26 April 2011 Tokyo Electric Power Co. started the unprecedented and potentially risky measure of allowing water to flood the containment vessels of three troubled reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, company sources said. It is the world’s first attempt to saturate the entire containment […]

Tsunami and radiation quicken ‘terminal decline’ of Northern Japan’s fishing industry

By Stuart Biggs, Kanoko Matsuyama, and Frederik Balfour 25 April 2011 The wreckage of a 379-metric ton tuna boat blocks the road to the deserted fish market in Kesennuma, once Japan’s largest port for bonito and swordfish. Even after the debris from last month’s tsunami has been cleared away, the industry may never recover. “Thirty […]

Graph of the Day: Distribution of Radioactive Contamination at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, April 2011

Measured distribution of radioactive contamination at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in millisieverts/hour. Asahi Shimbun / www.ex-skf.blogspot.com   The official TEPCO map of radioactive contamination at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in millisieverts/hour, 24 April 2011. Sankei Shinbun / www.ex-skf.blogspot.com #Fukushima I Nuke Plant “Contamination Map” Emerges, Sort Of… Technorati Tags: Fukushima,Japan,Asia,pollution,infrastructure failure

Fukushima nuclear plant’s radioactive emissions six times higher than thought: 154 terabecquerels per day, 90 days to reach Level 6 event

By arevamirpal::laprimavera23 April 2011 Fukushima I nuke plant: 154 terabecquerels per day, every day, of radioactive iodine and cesium are still spewing out of the plant, Japan’s Nuclear Safety Commission now admits. On April 12, during the joint press conference with Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) where they jointly announced the Fukushima I Plant […]

French nuclear industry report on Fukushima

French nuclear conglomerate AREVA presented this slide deck during an invitation-only meeting at Stanford University on 21 March 2011. The Fukushima Daiichi Incident outlines the probable course of events, from the earthquake to the meltdowns. Most of this information hasn’t received widespread media coverage, but Arnie Gunderson and the folks at Fairewinds have liberated it […]

Fukushima no-entry zone sealed, residents fear they will never return home – ‘It is better to just die’

April 23 (Asahi Shimbun) – The 83-year-old man spoke with tears in his eyes. “It’s all over. It is better to just die.” He had just learned his small farm would be sealed off at midnight April 21 inside the government’s no-entry zone around the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. Like many with properties […]

Workers locked in battle at Fukushima, exposure to radiation rising

TOKYO, April 23 (Kyodo) – Workers at a nuclear power plant damaged by last month’s earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan’s northeast continued battling to deal with radioactive water Saturday as their exposure to radiation is constantly increasing. One more worker is found to have been exposed to radiation of more than 100 millisieverts, bringing […]

25 years after Chernobyl, we don’t know how many died

By Roger Highfield 21 April 2011 A quarter of a century after the world’s worst nuclear accident, experts still can’t agree how many people it killed. Two people died immediately as a result of the blast at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine – then part of the Soviet Union – on 26 April 1986. […]

Iraq has doubled its electricity capacity, but still far short of demand

By Jim Michaels, USA TODAY Iraq has doubled its electricity capacity over prewar levels, making dramatic headway in a critical benchmark that had plagued U.S. leaders and frustrated Iraqis since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Iraq’s supply of electricity is 7,900 megawatts, about double the levels before the war, according to the U.S. Embassy in […]

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