Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Update on 27/11/12

Reactor 4's spent fuel pool has been unstable since the Fukushima disaster, and another big earthquake of magnitude 7 or more, which could happen any time, might cause the whole structure to collapse, leading to a fire and more explosions.  There are some other ongoing problems as well.  Because of the very high level of radioactivity on the site, workers can only stay there for a short time and can only manage to do quick temporary jobs.  They have also been using cheap materials for things such as the tubes for containing radioactive water, so these are not going to last for long.  Another problem concerns the storage space for radioactive water; the tanks are 89.2% full already.  Because all of the reactors need to be kept cool all the time, lots of water is being poured over and injected into the cooling pipes.  However recent reports have suggested that the level of water has been decreasing.  Tepco (the company that owns the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plants) says they don’t know why this is happening, but I think *Prof. Koide’s answer is right – lots of water has been leaking through many cracks in and around the reactors and their buildings since the earthquake last year.  He kept suggesting that a huge underground dam should have been built before the radioactive water could leak into the sea and contaminate underground water sources, but Tepco decided to postpone it because it was too costly.

*Prof. Koide - The Truth About Nuclear Power http://www.japanfocus.org/-Koide-Hiroaki/3582
Recent measurement shows the level of radiation is getting very high at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plants.
According to Tepco’s report on 27/11/12, an atmospheric dose on the first floor of Reactor 3 building is getting very high - One location showed 4.78Sv/h (=4780mSv/h). The robot was sent to investigate the damaged pipe for contaminated air from the turbine building.
On 11/7/12 it was 360mSv/h when the survey robot stopped working when it was sent to the basement floor of reactor 3 building in order to record the sound of the area where they thought water had been leaking.  It was 1.3Sv/h a year ago.
(Link) For more details: http://fukushima-diary.com/2012/11/reactor3-got-worse-than-last-year-5-svh-on-the-first-floor-of-reactor3-3-6-times-worse-than-last-year/ 

1mSv per year is a legal limit of ionized radiation dose in Japan. This regulation was set up to meet compromising level after the amount of ionized radiations that were released into the air by nuclear bomb experiments.     Therefore 20mSv per year is very high for our everyday life, especially vulnerable children.  People in Fukushima have been forced to live in such high radiation area.  Therefore it’s well beyond the imaginable level how dangerous it is for Tepco workers to be on the site even if they wear special clothes to protect them.

4780mSv per hour is equal to 41872.8mSv per year! 

Those workers who work at very high radiation area are often homeless people and people who lost their jobs.  I heard that 60% of the Tepco workers are from Fukushima prefecture that lost their jobs and houses after earthquake and tsunami.  I also heard that yakuza (Japanese mafia) get involved to find workers in Osaka and Tokyo poor area.  When people are in crisis financially, they prefer paying off their debts rather than taking care of their body. Some of them didn’t know what kind of job they are getting till they arrive. 　Some reports said that some of them developped  radiation relative symptoms such as losing hair and teeth and white blood cell counts going down, etc. Nobody would know if they die by receiving high dose of radiation.  Those people are not registered properly with Tepco company.  Therefore there is no record to show and prove how much radiation dose they have been getting. This is one of the examples how nuclear energy is relying on people who are in the weak social position for dealing with such a dangerous energy source.

Report: Japan failing at health checks for Fukushima workers

http://enenews.com/fox-news-japan-failing-health-checks-fukushima-workers-report-tv-fine-fukushima-theyre-audio