“a TEPCO official told a news conference that checks of 22,000 drums containing nuclear waste at a warehouse had found about 100 had fallen over and “several” lost their lids.
Only about half the drums had been inspected so far, and it was not immediately clear from the official’s comments whether there was any impact on the environment or people.”
this might turn out to be really bad.....only half of 22,000 have been checked......
Might have to lay off the sushi for a while...
Maybe that’s why they’re using the word ‘slosh’.
Drums like that most likely have only low-level waste in them - stuff like contaminated tools, rags, protective clothing, sludge from the water chemistry system. There isn’t enough activity there to be of much concern outside of a few meters away.
The high-level waste would be in the spent fuel pools. This is probably the most vulnerable part of the plant, and the source of any ‘sloshed’ water. The water from the fuel pool isn’t extremely radioactive, but is is contaminated with some isotopes such as they describe, cobalt, strontium, tritium, radon - all decay daughters or induced radiation products.