Posted on 03/13/2011 7:01:08 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
WASHINGTON — As the scale of Japan’s nuclear crisis begins to come to light, experts in Japan and the United States say the country is now facing a cascade of accumulating problems that suggest that radioactive releases of steam from the crippled plants could go on for weeks or even months.
The emergency flooding of two stricken reactors with seawater and the resulting steam releases are a desperate step intended to avoid a much bigger problem: a full meltdown of the nuclear cores in two reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. So far, Japanese officials have said the melting of the nuclear cores in the two plants is assumed to be “partial,” and the amount of radioactivity measured outside the plants, though twice the level Japan considers safe, has been relatively modest.
But Pentagon officials reported Sunday that helicopters flying 60 miles from the plant picked up small amounts of radioactive particulates — still being analyzed, but presumed to include Cesium-137 and Iodine-121 — suggesting widening environmental contamination. In a country where memories of a nuclear horror of a different sort in the last days of World War II weigh heavily on the national psyche and national politics, the impact of continued venting of long-lasting radioactivity from the plants is hard to overstate.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
What a pantload. If I remember right 97% of radioactive particles come from natural sources. This article has taken fearmongering to a new level.
Now I’m getting worried. Damn NYT.
Yet, the New York Times will do all it can to overstate the impact.....
I don’t care what anyone here says.
Three countries I had planned on going to within the next couple of years - Morocco, Egypt and Japan are now off my list.
The NYT is such a drama queen! If the Japanese really felt this way, I doubt that they would have built the reactors in the first place.
GE designed the plant in Japan
http://openchannel.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/03/13/6256121-general-electric-designed-reactors-in-fukushima-have-23-sisters-in-us
Here’s the latest report from Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO):
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/11031312-e.html
Yeah I was just thinking of high school science and the teacher putting a geiger counter near my arm and detecting radiation.
That Cockroach Whorealdo is on carping about Chernobyl,That brain dead America hating Fool.
Yes this will cut down on tourism, too. Sad.
Whenever I see somebody reading the NYT, I think "Useful Fool" and "Deluded."
Radiation is rather ubiquitous in modern societies, even smoke alarms. Dig the people out first IMO
a beeber like device?
The word was "particulates," not particles. What they're basically talking about here, is radioactive fallout.
Most of which does not come from natural sources.
Stick with Mexico. It's closer.
A big brown beeber.
I think the fact that we can detect radiation 60 miles from the plant has more to do with the sensitivity of our military gear than the severity of the leak. Just because the best radiation-detecting gear that money can buy can detect it does not mean that there is a danger even within 100 yards of the plant.
Exactly. But they're linking this to the plant. I'm betting you capture small amounts of particulates anywhere on earth.
I'm betting the DoD knows the difference. More to the point, they've got an "edge" of sorts for the detection. It's not natural.
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