Press Release (Mar 13,2011)Impact to TEPCO's Facilities due to Miyagiken-Oki Earthquake

tepco.com ^ | Press Release (Mar 13,2011) | Toyko Electric Power Company

[dynoman]

Below is major impact to TEPCO's facilities due to the Miyagiken-Oki Earthquake that occurred yesterday at 2:46PM. *new items are underlined

[dynoman]

Straight from the source without commentary.

[dynoman]

And without speculation!

[mrsmith]

That first “Mar. 12” in the underlined area must be a misprint.

And here’s the latest dosimetry at the troubled No. 1 plant per NISA:
MP4(Moitoring car data at the site boundary, North-west of Unit1):
40microSv/h(03:08, March13)
MP6 (at the main gate) 0.07microSv/h ->3.1 micro Sv/h
(04:00, March12->02:50, March 13)
MP8 (at the observation platform) 0.07microSv/h ->4.5 micro Sv/h
(04:00, March 12->02:50, March 13)

[arrogantsob]

So it dropped and is now fluctuating?

[mrsmith]

The only significant readings I saw were this one and that high one yesterday. Not enough to say they were fluctuating.

http://www.nisa.meti.go.jp/english/

[justa-hairyape]

Drudge has a link to this Reuters story about levels climbing to unsafe again.

(Reuters) - Radiation levels have risen above the safety limit around Tokyo Electric Power Co's (TEPCO) nuclear plant hit by a massive earthquake and the company has informed the government of an "emergency situation," Kyodo agency reported on Sunday.

The company said earlier that it had started releasing steam from a reactor at the plant. A similar rise in radiation levels occurred after the company released radioactive steam from another reactor to let go of pressure. Then again the company was obliged to inform the government of an "emergency situation."

Radiation levels rise above limit at quake-hit plant: Kyodo

[justa-hairyape]

If they are releasing steam from the second reactor, and they are, radiation levels around the plant have to be climbing.

[justa-hairyape]

Found this in their press release. Apparently one death at the second plant that was successfully shut down. They also noted they are venting the reactors at the second plant to relieve pressure.

* The operator trapped in the crane operating console of the exhaust stack was transferred to the ground at 5:13PM and confirmed the death at 5:17PM.

[dynoman]

This thread isn’t as popular as the speculative ones, imagine that! That’s a good link mrssmith, I like going straight to primary sources if possible. Yesterday I saw a RT (Russia Today) clip where the head was talking about the nuclear plants over a background video of the huge refinery fire, I *hate* that because a lot of people wouldn’t know the difference, it seems the media deliberately does that.

Here’s some perspective on the radiation numbers. The radiation went from something like .7 micro Sv/h to 5 micro Sv/h and is now 40Sv/h.

Radiation exposure from flying can be up to 13.8 micro Sv/h; http://www.firstselfhealing.com/tti/radiation01.pdf

The highest number being thrown (1000) around is 1/3 the amount the operators of some medical equipment get exposed to (3,500 microSv/h); http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15122474

This is Toyko Electric Power’s main press release page; www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/index-e.html

[dynoman]

That link confirms an earthquake/aftershock might have triggered the explosion. Also noteworthy was the 500 microSv/h radiation spike at the time of the earthquake/explosion - that location is apparently back down to 40 now;

-A radiation level exceeding 500 microSv/h was monitored at the site boundary(15:29, March 12). A large motion occurred due to an earthquake with close epicentre and an large sound was issued near Unit1 and smoke was observed.

[dynoman]

Looks to me like all the troubled units are at teh Fukushima Dai-ichi station. What happened to unit 3 was this;

-Unit 3: As the automatic trip of the HPCI, coolant injection using other systems tried but failed. The reactor injection function was lost. (05:10, March 13)

That’s from the link in post 5, the tepco.com site is down right now but I did read there the HPCI on unit 3 had tripped.

[mrsmith]

There’s a good thread, like this one, this morning- thank goodness.

I wish TEPCO and nISA put out more info more frequently.

I suspect they are doing a good job of informing but Americans expect more than Japanese and translation difficuties obstruct us getting the info.
I’ve never seen a transcript of any of their press conferences!

And the press loves the phrase “partial meltdown”...
Could mean anything from a scratch on a fuel rod to the core containment starting into the earth towards London.
And the reader/viewer can interpret it as he pleases!