Re: Anotrher 9.0 Earthquake in Japan
Steam rising from Japan's destroyed Fukushima nuclear power plant
By Antoni Slodkowski, Reuters
TOKYO --
Steam is rising from a destroyed building that houses a reactor at Japan's crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the operator of the plant, Tokyo Electric Power Co, said on Thursday.
The utility, widely known as Tepco, said the levels of radioactivity around the plant had remained unchanged and it was still looking into what triggered the emission.
"We think it's possible
that rain made its way through the reactor building and having fallen on the primary containment vessel, which is hot, evaporated creating steam," said Tepco spokeswoman Maymi Yoshida, adding it was still investigating the matter.
Few people are granted access to the radioactive Fukushima exclusion zone in Japan, which remains abandoned and frozen in time on March 11, 2011 — the day a massive earthquake and subsequent tsunami caused a triple nuclear meltdown in this Japanese city. Channel 4's Alex Thomson reports.
Each reactor is surrounded by a primary containment vessel. This is made of strengthened steel four to eight inches thick. It provides the most critical line of defense against leaking radiation from the reactor.
(So how did rain get in, hmmm?)snip
The steam rising from the reactor No.3 building was
spotted at 8:20 a.m. local time (7:20 p.m. ET Wednesday) by a subcontractor who was filming the destroyed building and preparing to remove rubble from the site. It was still visible some two hours later, Yoshida said.
snip
The latest findings underscore the difficulties Tepco is facing in trying to keep the ravaged plant under control.
About a week ago a huge spike in radioactive cesium was detected in groundwater 25 meters from the sea.
The operator has been flushing water over the damaged reactors to keep them cool for more than two years, but
contaminated water has been building up at the rate of an Olympic-size swimming pool per week.snip
Read more here:
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/07/18/19540341-steam-rising-from-japans-destroyed-fukushima-nuclear-power-plant?liteOh my word!