TOKYO, April 15 (Kyodo) — The total level of radioactive materials in water dumped in the sea from the crippled nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture earlier this month was lower than previously estimated, the nuclear safety agency said Friday. But the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency instructed the operator of the plant, Tokyo Electric […]
By Richard Black 14 April 2011 Just how …….d are the world’s oceans? I’ve put the dots in that sentence so you can insert the word of your choice. According to a high-level seminar of experts in Oxford earlier this week, there’s one word starting with the letter S that would fit quite well, a […]
TOKYO, April 14 (Kyodo) — The government’s nuclear safety agency on Thursday continued to grapple with pools of highly radioactive water at the crisis-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, as the level of polluted water filling an underground trench edged up again after it finished pumping out around 660 tons of water. The removal of […]
14 April 2011 (Asahi Shimbun) – Officials of Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, are considering a plan to remove spent fuel rods from storage pools at its reactors, sources said. TEPCO workers began collecting samples of water from a storage pool at the plant on […]
By Ian Sample, science correspondent, www.guardian.co.uk12 April 201 Radioactive contamination from the Fukushima power plant has been carried around the world and far out to sea, adding to fear and confusion over the danger posed by the leaked material. Japanese officials have taken steps to evacuate residents from five villages outside the exclusion zone around […]
TOKYO, April 12 (Kyodo) — Japan on Tuesday raised the severity level of the accident at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant to the maximum 7 on an international scale, up from the current 5 and matching that of the 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe. The previous evaluation of 5 on the International Nuclear Event Scale provisionally […]
TOKYO, April 11 (Kyodo) – Japan on Monday expanded evacuation areas around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which was crippled by the killer earthquake and tsunami a month ago, due to high amounts of cumulative radioactive materials beyond the evacuation zone of a 20-kilometer radius from the plant. The government’s decision comes amid persistent […]
BY SATOSHI OTANI STAFF WRITER10 April 2011 The government plans to prohibit rice planting in fields where the concentration of radioactive cesium exceeds 5,000 becquerels per kilogram of soil. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said Friday that the new bans would apply to areas beyond the current 30 kilometer exclusion zone around the stricken Fukushima […]
By Richard Gray, Science Correspondent 09 Apr 2011 Researchers have been left puzzled by the appearance of “naked” penguins on both sides of the South Atlantic. The condition, which is known as feather-loss disorder, has been found to afflict penguin chicks in colonies in both South Africa and on the coast of Argentina. Dee Boersma, […]
By Brian Walker and Matt Smith, CNNApril 9, 2011 4:02 p.m. EDT Tokyo (CNN) — A brief video clip released Saturday captures the massive tsunami that crippled Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi power plant, showing the wall of water that slammed into the facility and created an ongoing crisis. The video shows the giant wave generated by […]
