Search
JOIN OUR NETWORK

     

     

 

 

ARTICLE ARCHIVE
« Fukushima radiation equals 20 nuclear bombs but will stay dangerous much longer | Main | Two Fukushima Daiichi workers drowned by tsunami had been ordered to inspect basement »
Tuesday
Aug022011

Highest radiation dose rate yet recorded indoors detected at Fukushima Daiichi

The Mainichi Daily News reports that, just a day after the highest radiation dose rate yet recorded outdoors at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (1,000 rems per hour, enough to kill a person after just 30 minutes exposure time), Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has reported that the highest radiation dose rate yet recorded indoors has been detected, on the second floor of the Unit 1 reactor building: 500 rems per hour, enough to kill a person after just one hour's exposure time from radiation poisoning. However, such measurements have simply "maxxed out" the radiation monitoring equipment, so represent minimum radiation dose rates -- actual figures could be much higher. TEPCO not explained why it has taken five months to detect such high radiation fields, nor why it does not have the proper radiation monitoring equipment to determine how high the dose rates actually go. It also has said it plans no in depth study on the contamination, as supposedly no workers will go nearby those specific danger zones. Its explanation that the high dose rates likely result from radioactive debris, residue, or contamination from the failed attempt to vent the primary and secondary containment structures so they would not breach or explode in the earliest hours and days of the catastrophe seems to indicate that TEPCO intended to discharge such high level radioactivity into the environment on purpose, only it never made it completely out of the ventilation duct and smokestsack system. The Japanese federal government's point person on the nuclear catastrophe, State Minister Goshi Hosono, has called for comprehensive analysis of contamination levels and dose rates.