Japan quake, tsunami, nuke news 06

Continued from here ...

Ana's feed starting Friday 8 PM

TEPCO has raised the occupational limit of radiation for its workers to 150mSv/hr. Some workers have already been exposed in excess the old limit of 100mSv/hr. Workers who have been exposed to the limit will not be sent back in. -NHK morning broadcast

Saturday:

Those in the 20-30km evacuation zone have been advised that if they need to move, they should do so in vehicles, rather than on foot, they should cover their mouths, cover their bodies, and stay out of the rain. This new advisory was issued when it was learned that people thought they could not leave their homes. - NHK

Kyodo news, breaking: Spinach near nuke plant found with high radiation levels: gov't official 15:13 ... Radiation-contaminated spinach poses no immediate health risk: official 15:20 ... Edano to talk about contaminated food issue around 4 p.m.: vice minister 15:25 ...

Notes on water-spraying: 100 additional firefighters have been brought into the rotation. As of today, 60 tons of water have been sprayed at reactor no.3 - much of it is assumed to have evaporated already. In order to beat the evaporation curve, a 7 hour shift must be completed. ... The batteries of the water-cannon truck have been depleted - it is now drawing energy from the US pump truck which has "very strong batteries." ... A new vehicle, made in Germany and used for high-pressure concrete spraying, is on the way. It is the same type as was used at Chernobyl. ... (all above from NHK midday broadcast)

Edano presser: "I should mention milk and spinach." ... n Fuk. Pref. at 5:30pm yesterday, emergency monitoring detected high levels of radiation in milk production. This morning, 11am, in Ibaraki Pref., enviro. monitoring center detected high radiation levels in 6 samples of spinach. In both cases, amounts exceed the limit stipulated in health safety law. ... The ministry of health instructed that investigations should be conducted as to whether these products have been transported. ... A task force will collect data and send it to ministries to decide if limitations are necessary. ... If consumed for a year, total radiation taken into the body would be equal to a CT scan. If consumed for a lifetime, this may cause a health hazard. But only if consumed over a lifetime, "so I ask for your calm behaviors." ...

Details on contaminated food samples:

  • Milk samples were taken from Kawamata, just outside the 30km evacuation zone. All samples contained iodine 131, at 3-7.5 times the health standard of 300 becquerel.
  • Spinach samples were taken from 80-100km to the south of the Daiichi plant.
  • Cesium 137 was found in one of the samples.
  • TEPCO apologizes for high radiation levels in some food.
  • Also, traces of radioactive iodine were found in tap water in and around Tokyo.
  • Correction: Iodine 131 found 3-5 times over the limit in milk, 3-7.5 times the limit in spinach.
  • (NHK evening broadcast)

(Ana's Feed is a collection of Analiese Miller's facebook status entries posted as she takes in the news live in Japan.)

News and blog Links:

Fukushima: Situation improving all the time: Food, water samples OK, Hyper Rescue Super Pump in action

Was Japan's volcano eruption linked to it's earthquake?

Japan's nuclear crisis will be overcome: IAEA Chief

Fukushima's Organic Produce Hot, Hotter?

Japan Nuclear Crisis Prompts EU Calls for Atomic-Power Plant Stress Tests

Battle-proof Wind Farms Survive Japan's Trial by Fire

Buffett Sees 'Buying Opportunity' in Stricken Japan

U.S. makes potassium iodide available in Japan

Bid to 'Protect Assets' Slowed Reactor Fight
UPDATE 1-No doubt Japan will overcome crisis-IAEA chief

No world figure skating in Japan; alternate hosts sought

Spinach with radiation 27 times higher than limit found in Japan

Workers flee Japan nuclear plant as smoke rises

Markey: GOP Picks Risky Nukes Instead Of Clean Renewables

Japan's Nuclear Reactor Containment Intact, U.S. NRC Says

Radiation containment units at Japan's Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear reactors are intact and the situation at the plant "is on the verge of stabilizing," a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission official said.

For more information and essays about the Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Reactor problems in Japan CLICK HERE.

i-af727314bb91def34a44e4261c14ccca-PleaseClickOnThisStuff.jpg

More like this

Ana's Feed starting at about 2PM Thursday 24 March: Finally found some info on that simulation mentioned earlier: "...the model showed that areas where cumulative exposure over 12 days reached 100 millisieverts--the government's maximum for infants--extended beyond the evacuation zone. A map based…
Claims are being made that the situation at Fukushima is starting to improve, but there is no actual evidence of this. We probably (but not certainly) passed the point where nuclear fuel is likely to accumulate in such a way as to cause a major fission event or explosion, but there is still…
Tokyo Electric officials have noted that they can not rule out the possibility that fuel rods in the Fukushima reactors have melted, at least to some extent. No one else, as far as I can tell, thinks that fuel rods have not melted. A Question that is more important than that of Tokyo Electric's…
The most interesting and important current news, interesting if confirmed, is that plutonium has been discovered in soil near Fukushima. With all this talk about radiation, it is easy to forget that some of these elements are extremely poisonous in their own right. Plutonium is a very nasty…