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Fukushima Daiichi Water Leak Raised To Level 3 Severity

Posted by samzenpus on from the when-leveling-up-is-bad dept.

AmiMoJo writes "Japan's nuclear regulators have raised the level of severity of the radioactive water leak from a tank at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. It is now a level-3 serious incident. The revision from level 1 is based on estimates of the volume of radioactive substances leaked. The International Atomic Energy Agency supports the revision. They say the tank leak can be assessed separately from the Fukushima Daiichi crisis as a level 3 incident. Japanese experienced a level-3 nuclear event in 1997 with the fire and explosions at a fuel reprocessing plant in Tokai Village, Ibaraki Prefecture. 37 workers there were exposed to the leaked radioactive substances."

9 of 92 comments (clear)

  1. The fate of the 1997 workers by vivaoporto · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Japanese experienced a level-3 nuclear event in 1997 with the fire and explosions at a fuel reprocessing plant in Tokai Village, Ibaraki Prefecture. 37 workers there were exposed to the leaked radioactive substances.

    What was the fate of the 1997 workers exposed like that? That would be a good way to assess what kind of consequences we could expect from the current incident,

    1. Re:The fate of the 1997 workers by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      frank grimes

    2. Re:The fate of the 1997 workers by quenda · · Score: 4, Insightful

      they were carrying uranium in a bucket and it went super-critical in 1999. That was a level 4. 2 people died of multiple organ failure.

      Starting with the brain failure that preceded the criticality. One doesn't simply throw another bucket of 18% enriched uranium into the tank.

    3. Re:The fate of the 1997 workers by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What was the fate of the 1997 workers exposed like that? That would be a good way to assess what kind of consequences we could expect from the current incident,

      That assumes that this incident won't be upgraded again. So far, every previous Tepco announcement has turned out to downplay the severity of the situation.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  2. *cident by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    thank god the level has not been raised from "incident" to "accident" (per the stupid pyramid graphic)

    these useless terms smell like (profusely reek of) the result of years expensive international negotiations by diplomats lawyers and politicians until they reached the exact level of imprecision to not inform anyone of anything that is actually going on in any useful way

  3. fail by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Sorry the leak is stopped and the clean up is nearly complete (of the water leak). Some people really enjoy spreading baseless fear.....

  4. Re:Capitalism SUCKS! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    And socialism worked so well at Cherynobl.

  5. Re:The spent fuel pool disaster clock is ticking by quenda · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Bollocks. TFA states the pools contain "85 times the cesium released" at Chernobyl, which tells us little by itself.
    How much cesium might be released into the atmosphere by a fire? An how much of the exposure at Chernobyl was caused by cesium? I thought most of the exposure was from iodine and other shorter-lived isotopes.
          To says an "85 times bigger disaster" is shameful dishonest scaremongering.

  6. Re:Zirconium by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Nonsense. What we need is the balls to admit that we wasted billions of cash and decades of research/engineering on something that's great in theory and horrible in reality and finally give it up; just like communism.