Worst nightmare for Japan nuclear meltdown fully exposes fuel rods at Fukushima
Worst nightmare for Japan nuclear meltdown fully exposes fuel rods at Fukushima Japan's PM says 4th reactor of Fukushima NPP on fire en.rian.ru/world/20110315/163008312.html New Explosion Heard at Troubled Japanese Nuclear Plant Damaged in Earthquake, Tsunami www.foxnews.com/world/2011/03/14/new-explosion-heard-troubled-japanese-nuclear-plant-damaged-earthquake-tsunami/ Meltdown Threat Rises at Japanese Nuclear Plant SOMA, Japan -- The fuel rods in all three of the most troubled Japanese nuclear reactors -- each of which lost its cooling system in Friday's massive earthquake and tsunami -- appear to be melting, the nation's chief government spokesman said Monday. "Although we cannot directly check it, it's highly likely happening," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters. www.foxnews.com/world/2011/03/14/second-explosion-stricken-japan-nuke-plant/ Container damaged, radiation leak feared at Fukushima No. 2 reactor search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110315x3.html Explosion at No. 4 reactor, radiation near plant poses health risk news.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Asia/Story/A1Story20110315-268149.html Accident levels for nuclear related events are scaled 1 -- 7 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Nuclear_Event_Scale UPDATE: 2-French nuclear agency rates Japan accident 5 or 6 www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/14/japan-quake-nuclear-france-idUKLDE72D2EG20110314?type=companyNews There are approximately 445 nuclear reactors around the world!!! The worst nuclear disaster ever was in 1986 at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in northern Ukraine. This wasn't the same kind of disaster as in Japan, as it was caused by a series of human and mechanical failures. The result was a series of explosions that shot a plume of radioactive materials into the air. Fallout from Chernobyl fell heavily on Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Austria, and Bulgaria. "The Chernobyl cloud technically covered a huge area. It did follow the jet stream and everything else," Williams says. "But radioactive particles have substance, they have weight. The bigger the particle, the quicker it falls out of the cloud. So the contamination area where you have risks from contamination are relatively close to the disaster site. As far as I am aware, the cancers from Chernobyl radiation occurred in and around Chernobyl itself." However, radioactive iodine from the Chernobyl cloud fell on fields where it was absorbed by grass, eaten by cows, and drunk as milk by children. Until 1998, there was a significant increase in thyroid cancer among children in the affected areas.
