Thousands evacuate as Fukishima nuclear emergency is declared

[Peter Lemkin]

TEPCO just announced the radiation levels around the Fukashima plant are 18! times higher than they reported [incredibly, because the radiation monitors stopped (maxed out) at 1/18th the values on site!]. At this higher level, what was assumed to be a 'tolerable' dose for those working on the cleanup is now a highly DANGEROUS daily dosage - and work hours will have to be drastically cut and persons only allowed to work once every few days*...even so, they are lab mice in a radiation experiment. It is not just the reactors themselves that seem to be in 'meltdown', but TEPCOs credibility...if it still has any...I think not! They really need to either nationalize the plant or have some international nuclear expert team supervising this.....it only gets WORSE and we keep finding out that they have minimized the damage and the radiation levels, leaks and so on..... But, that's a very bad error or clever trick to use radiation meters that don't go 'too' high! Hey guys, this is not a simulation, this is a World-Class Nuclear Disaster...stop playing games!

* The 'new' rate is considered enough to kill an unexposed person in four hours - and that would result in damage and death over a longer period if taken in 'smaller' time-spaced doses!

1 September 2013 Last updated at 09:09 GMT


Fukushima radiation levels '18 times higher' than thought

Japanese Economy Minister Toshimitsu Motegi inspected the site on MondayRadiation levels around Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant are 18 times higher than previously thought, Japanese authorities have warned.
Last week the plant's operator reported radioactive water had leaked from a storage tank into the ground.
It now says readings taken near the leaking tank on Saturday showed radiation was high enough to prove lethal within four hours of exposure.
The plant was crippled by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
The Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) had originally said the radiation emitted by the leaking water was around 100 millisieverts an hour.
However, the company said the equipment used to make that recording could only read measurements of up to 100 millisieverts.
The new recording, using a more sensitive device, showed a level of 1,800 millisieverts an hour.
The new reading will have direct implications for radiation doses received by workers who spent several days trying to stop the leak last week, the BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes reports from Tokyo.
In addition, Tepco says it has discovered a leak on another pipe emitting radiation levels of 230 millisieverts an hour.
The plant has seen a series of water leaks and power failures.
The 2011 tsunami knocked out cooling systems to the reactors, three of which melted down.
The damage from the tsunami has necessitated the constant pumping of water to cool the reactors.
This is believed to be the fourth major leak from storage tanks at Fukushima since 2011 and the worst so far in terms of volume.
After the latest leak, Japan's nuclear-energy watchdog raised the incident level from one to three on the international scale measuring the severity of atomic accidents, which has a maximum of seven.
Experts have said the scale of water leakage may be worse than officials have admitted.