That assessment by U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials is based on the sequence of events since the earthquake and information provided by key American contractors who were in the plant at the time, said government officials familiar with the evaluation. It was compelling evidence, they said, that the wall of the No. 4 reactor pool has a significant hole or crack.
Wie schlimm ist Fukushima? - eine Online-Vorlesung
Wind directions in Japan are currently blowing radiation from the troubled Fukushima nuclear power plant eastwards out to the Pacific Ocean (see Figure 1), but a shift in directions Sunday risks sending the radiation plume towards Tokyo (see Figure 2). These models have just been published in a bulletin [ac.at] by Austria's weather service, the Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics in Vienna.
On the colour scale, red represents 100 millisieverts per hour (100 mSv/hr), and purple a maximum of 100 nanosieverts per hour (.0001 mSv/hr). For an explanation of the units see "Radiation exposure, beyond the numbers [nature.com]". In terms of dose, an exposure of 100mSv is enough to slightly increase the chances of developing cancer later in life; a dose of 100 nanosieverts is neglegible.
Eine Station hat nun doch etwas Barium-140 gemessen, wenig, aber es ist da!
Was vielen entgangen sein dürfte ist der zweite Teil nach ca 45min, wenn einer der Experten, der die japanische Regierung berät erzählt, was bei Reaktor 4 los ist.
Kurz: Er hat vorgeschlagen, das verwüstete Dach räumen zu lassen, um an die Brennstäbe in dem Abklingbecken heranzukommen, das sei nur durch menschliche Arbeitskraft möglich.
Wir sollten uns klar machen, was dies für die Arbeiter bedeuten wird.
Overwhelmed: Tokyo Electric Power Company Managing Director Akio Komiri cries as he leaves after a press conference in Fukushima
Japan Earthquake Update (18 March 2011, 12:25 UTC)
Japanese authorities have informed the IAEA that, prior to the earthquake of 11 March, the entire fuel core of reactor Unit 4 of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant had been unloaded from the reactor and placed in the spent fuel pond located in the reactor's building.
Auch verschiedene Yakuza-Organisationen helfen im Katastrophengebiet, wollen das aber nicht an die große Glocke gehängt sehen:
The Inagawa-kai has been the most active because it has strong roots in the areas hit. It has several "blocks" or regional groups. Between midnight on March 12th and the early morning of March 13th, the Inagawa-kai Tokyo block carried 50 tons of supplies to Hitachinaka City Hall (Hitachinaka City, Ibaraki Prefecture) and dropped them off, careful not to mention their yakuza affiliation so that the donations weren't rejected. This was the beginning of their humanitarian efforts. Supplies included cup ramen, bean sprouts, paper diapers, tea and drinking water. The drive from Tokyo took them twelve hours. They went through back roads to get there. The Kanagawa Block of the Inagawa-kai, has sent 70 trucks to the Ibaraki and Fukushima areas to drop off supplies in areas with high radiations levels. They didn't keep track of how many tons of supplies they moved. The Inagawa-kai as a whole has moved over 100 tons of supplies to the Tohoku region. They have been going into radiated areas without any protection or potassium iodide.
The Yamaguchi-gumi member I spoke with said simply, "Please don't say any more than we are doing our best to help. Right now, no one wants to be associated with us and we'd hate to have our donations rejected out of hand."
Bei den Robotern handelt es sich um Maschinen, die aus sicherer Entfernung in verstrahlte Anlagen gesteuert werden können. Ihr Aufgabenbereich erstrecke sich auf "alles, was in verstrahlten Bereichen bewegt werden muss", erklärte der Ministeriumssprecher. Sobald eine Entscheidung in Japan getroffen und über die IAEA übermittelt sei, könnten die Roboter in kurzer Zeit nach Fukushima geflogen werden.
Dort sind wegen der teilweise hohen Strahlung einzelne Bereiche für Techniker und Einsatzkräfte kaum noch zugänglich.
