As officials tout 'ice wall' experiment, more lethal levels of radioactivity detected
Record high radiation levels were detected at the disaster-stricken Fukushima nuclear plant, Japan's nuclear regulator and plant operator TEPCO said on Wednesday, raising more concerns that the spiraling catastrophe has no end in sight.
Image taken by operator TEPCO on August 26, 2013 shows Toshimitsu Motegi, Japan's Economy, Trade and Industry Minister, inspecting the Fukushima plant.Officials said they had detected radiation of levels of 2,200 millisieverts per hour on Tuesday near contaminated water storage tanks. That's a rise of 20% from the previous high, theGuardian reports.
The announcement comes just days after officials said they had detectedlethal radiation levels 18 times higher than previously documented because the testing equipment they were using could only read measurements of up to a maximum of 100 millisieverts per hour.
Reuters notes that "both [the 2,200 and 1,800] levels would be enough to kill an unprotected person within hours."
Also festering at the plant is the buildup of contaminated water, which has proven an unsustainable crisis. There has also been as a series of leaks from storage tanks and pipes.
Mycle Schneider, lead author for the World Nuclear Industry status reports, told BBC News last month that the problem of water leaks "is much worse than we have been led to believe, much worse." There are leaks "not just from the tanks. It is leaking out from the basements, it is leaking out from the cracks all over the place," he said. Further, the head of Japan's nuclear regulatory body warned on Monday that there may be no other option than to dump radioactive waste water into the Pacific.
In a desperate attempt to stop the leaks, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announcedTuesday the government plans to invest nearly $500 million in a giant "ice wall" surrounding the plant.
Nuclear engineer Arjun Makhijani of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research called the wall of ice plan a "risky experiment." Speaking on PBS Newshour, Makhijani explained: ...
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