Panic Evacuations Strike Tokyo Where Radiation Levels Are Ten Times Normal

[stockholmer]

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/panic-evacuations-strike-tokyo-food-hoarding-empties-stores-capital-fallout-projected-blow-p

"Simply surreal news out of Tokyo (which unfortunately we predicted http://www.zerohedge.com/article/tokyo-exodus-beginning once again) which is now reported to have ten times normal http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/15/japan-quake-levels-idUSTKB00736420110315 radiation levels.

From Reuters:

Radiation wafted from an earthquake-stricken nuclear power plant towards Tokyo on Tuesday, sparking panic in one of the world's biggest and most densely populated cities.

Women and children packed into the departure lounge at an airport, supermarkets ran low on rice and other supplies and frightened residents, tourists and expatriates either stayed indoors or simply left the city.

"I'm not too worried about another earthquake. It's radiation that scares me," said Masashi Yoshida, cradling his 5-month-old daughter Hana

The nail-biting eased in the afternoon after Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano appeared on national television saying radiation levels at the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear-power complex had fallen dramatically since morning.

But confidence in the government is shaken and many decided not to take chances, especially after radiation levels in Saitama, near Tokyo, were 40 times normal -- not enough to cause human damage but enough to stoke fears in the ultra-modern and hyper-efficient metropolis of 12 million people.............................."

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All 6 reactors at Fukushima Dai-Ichi are now in various states of meltdown and/or systemic cooling/containment failure, the two to watch most closely are Unit 2 (probable pooling-floor vessel breach) and Unit 3, due to the plutonium/uranium MOX fuel (this is one of only 2 MOX fueled reactors in Japan). All but Unit 6 are the weakest type (Mark 1) of GE containment systems. Unit 6 is Mark 2.

[Teaser]

1. 10x baseline is not a problem

according to any sources I've talked to.

[daleo]

5. Still, when three reactors seem to be melting down

Two hundred odd kilometers away, it is reasonable to worry.

This situation doesn't seem to be getting better and at some point it might well be uncontrollable. I have read that the radiation levels in one control room are well past safe levels and people can only work there a short time. That seems like a vicious spiral situation to me - radiation levels go up, making it too dangerous to stay in an area, making it more difficult to control the meltdown, which makes radiation levels go up, etc.

[Teaser]

6. Yeah, worry is very reasonable.

My other worry is panic.

People in this country are buying potassium iodide tablets, because they have no idea how to assess risk. A run on KI here could cause supply problems where it's really going to be needed.

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. Already supply problems.

Read last night many places are out of KI.
Tis true that the online place I buy my herbs are out.

[Teaser]

9. so many selfish scared people

.

[stockholmer]

12. maybe not,especially if 1 or more of the units has a vessel floor breach,the world will get large...

varying dispersement doses of radiation. The super-reactive pile of fuel pellets will congeal into a nuclear fire-fueled mass, and bore into the containment building floor, then continue boring into the earth, until it hits the water table. At this point, the water is instantly turned into a super-charged radioactive steam jet that will blow upwards with such force that it shoot through the borehole, then the building and up into the atmosphere at jet stream level.

This will be dispersed world wide, and the radiation levels will be extreme. A nuclear steam kettle, if you will.

The true nightmare is if the floor breach occurs in Unit 3 (the MOX plutonium/uranium fueled one), as not only will the force of meltdown be greater but the deadly plutonium will increase the radioactivity by exponential levels. And if any of this plutonium, even at infinitesimal levels, gets into a person, they are a dead man/woman/child walking.

With all this a distinct possibility, I cannot blame anyone anywhere for buying potassium iodide.

Those who don't prepare, when the reaper of misfortune happens to beat the odds and pays a visit of this potential level, usually die. We here in the Nordic got a pretty high dose from Chernobyl in 1986, and that was not a floor breach, and certainly was not MOX-fueled.

The bad thing is that KI tablets only protect your thyroid from radioactive iodine, nothing else in terms of other types of radioactive material, no other parts/organs of your body, and most definitely not plutonium.

[Rex]

13. Yeah, they are worried about dying...so selfish.

I see you won't forgive them of their ignornace...may you never be as unlucky as an uninformed citizen, evidently people are more than ready to shit in your face.

[Teaser]

15. please post again

but make sense this time.

[LiberalEsto]

2. All SIX reactors?

and three of those were supposedly on cold shutdown. Then one of the shut down units, No. 4, had an explosion last night. Now the other 2 shut-down units are having problems?

How is this happening? Anyone know?

[Statistical]

3. I haven't heard anything about problems at unit #5 or #6

however even shutdown plants have spent fuel in the cooling pond.

Not confirmed but the most likely scenario at #4 (shutdown reactor) is that something caused water level in cooling pond to drop partially or fully exposing the spent fuel there. They have much less heat than in the reactor but without cooling eventually they will ignite. The fire at #4 plant may have been spent fuel fire. Latest news would indicate that the fire is out.

[stockholmer]

4. Edano Press Conf.erence - Reactors #5 and #6 Now Heating up - Cooling Failure Due to Power Loss

Edano announced that all power is not functioning on cooling pumps reactors in Units 5 and 6. Both units are filled with spent fuel (far more harmful in case of meltdown due to increased isotope levels) and other radioactive materials. They are preparing for hydrogen-caused blasts of 5 and 6.
Over 11,000msv detected at front gate earlier. He called this a lifetimes worth of Radiation in one hours time.

He also said temp have been rising in both units as well. They have just now started trying to ascertain a way to keep Units 5 and 6 cool, as their previous focus was on the other 4 units.

http://yokosonews.com/live/ (english trans)

http://cpswire.com/ie/live-video-streams.html

[marions ghost]

7. don't know how

they get people who will stay where they get a lifetime of radiation in one hour. It's a dirty job and somebody has to do it?

Heroes...or victims? :shrug:

[stockholmer]

11. I say anyone still in that proximity zone is both

:dilemma:

[northernlights]

10. the cooling ponds where waste is stored lost their cooling

Each reactor has a cooling pond with as much as 20 years worth of spent fuel rods stored under water. Those rods are hotter than active fuel and if uncovered by cooling water they can heat up quickly and catch fire. They are a greater risk of spewing radiation into the atmosphere than the reactors are. And the pool at Reactor #2 is said to be boiling. The cooling pond there failed and the rods were exposed for a number of hours (12? 24? I forget now...).

A nuclear engineer who works in an identically designed plant in Vermont yesterday told the WaPo in an interview that they have the potential for "Chernobyl on steroids."

[dixiegrrrrl]

14. Excellent article on the cooling pond problem here: frightening.

"The pools “contain very large concentrations of radioactivity, can catch fire, and are in much more vulnerable buildings,” he warns. If the pools lose their inflow of circulating cooling water, the water in the pools will evaporate. If the level of water drops to five or six feet above the spent fuel, Alvarez calculates, the release of radioactivity “could be life-threatening near the reactor building.”

Since the total amount of long-lived radioactivity in the pool is at least five times that in the reactor core, a catastrophic release would mean “all bets are off,” he says.

( and, as of yesterday:Third explosion reported, 3 cooling systems failing, 3 meltdowns can’t be ruled out, 1 spent fuel pool boiled over)

Highly recommended read:

http://climateprogress.org/2011/03/14/third-explosion-reported-3-cooling-systems-failing-3-meltdowns-cant-be-ruled-out-spent-fuel-risk-also-great/#more-44532