Highly radioactive seawater

Amplify’d from www3.nhk.or.jp

Reactors may create highly radioactive seawater

Tokyo Electric Power Company has said it will do its best to learn how water contaminated with radioactive substances leaked from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant following the earthquake on March 11th. The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said on Saturday that iodine 131 in excess of 1,250 times the regulated standard was found in seawater collected 330 meters south of a plant water outlet. The radioactivity level of the water in the turbine building of the No.3 reactor on Thursday was about 10,000 times higher than that in the operating reactor. The power company thinks fuel rods in the reactor may have been breached and radioactive materials leaked. The calculation is based on the detection of short radioactive half life iodine 131. The company is trying to restore the No.2 reactor's cooling function and began injecting fresh water instead of seawater on Saturday, following the same move for the No.1 and No.3 reactors one day earlier. Cooling functions deteriorate when salt from seawater disrupts water circulation in the pipes. It said it hopes to begin injecting fresh water into the spent fuel rod pools from Sunday. It added that it successfully connected interior cables to outside power sources and was able to turn on the lights of the central control room of the No.2 reactor on Saturday evening. But it said it is struggling to continue other work as it is detecting high levels of radioactivity in the plant. Read more at www3.nhk.or.jp

 

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