MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

Key details:

• Water dropped by helicopters seems to blow away in wind
• At least 19 workers hurt, 20 exposed to radiation
• Four of the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant’s six reactors have faced serious crises
• U.S. says Americans should consider leaving Japan
• Aid workers, victims, regional officials appeal for help
• More than 5,300 officially listed as dead, but toll expected to top 10,000

Japan tried high-pressure water cannons, fire trucks and even helicopters that dropped batches of seawater in increasingly frantic attempts Thursday to cool an overheated nuclear complex as U.S. officials warned the situation was deteriorating.

Two Japanese military CH-47 Chinook helicopters began dumping seawater on the complex’s damaged Unit 3 at 9:48 a.m. (8:48 p.m. EDT), defense ministry spokeswoman Kazumi Toyama said. The choppers dumped at least four loads on the reactor in just the first 10 minutes, though television footage showed much of it appearing to disperse in the wind.  Read more.

I’m still skeptical that the lower continental states are at risk, but this has been reported as a possibility immediately following the quake and tsunami …

All 50 emergency workers who had been fighting to keep overheating reactors cool were this morning pulled back 500 yards from the complex as radiation levels became too dangerous.

And in an extraordinary attack, the French government accused the Japanese of losing control of the situation and hiding the full scale of the disaster.

“FUKUSHIMA, Japan – Japan suspended operations to keep its stricken nuclear plant from melting down Wednesday after surging radiation made it too dangerous to stay.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the workers dousing the reactors in a frantic effort to cool them needed to withdraw.

‘The workers cannot carry out even minimal work at the plant now,’ Edano said. ‘Because of the radiation risk we are on standby,’ he said.

The nuclear crisis has triggered international alarm and partly overshadowed the human tragedy caused by Friday’s earthquake and tsunami, which pulverized Japan’s northeastern coastline, killing an estimated 10,000 people and severely damaging the nuclear plant.

Since then authorities have tried frantically to avert an environmental catastrophe at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex in northeastern Japan, 170 miles (270 kilometers) north Tokyo.

Edano said the government expects to ask the U.S. military for help. He did not elaborate. He said the government is still considering whether and how to take up the various offers of help from other countries.”  Read more.

“(CNN) — The explosion Tuesday at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has elevated the situation there to a ‘serious accident’ on a level just below Chernobyl, a French nuclear official said, referring to an international scale that rates the severity of such incidents.

The International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale — or INES — goes from Level 1, which indicates very little danger to the general population, to Level 7, a ‘major accident’ in which there’s been a large release of radioactive material and there will be widespread health and environmental effects.

‘It’s clear we are at Level 6, that’s to say we’re at a level in between what happened at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl,’ Andre-Claude Lacoste, president of France’s nuclear safety authority, told reporters Tuesday.”  Read more.

“The situation at the quake-hit Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant in northeastern Japan ‘has worsened considerably,’ the Institute for Science and International Security said in a statement released Tuesday.

Referring to fresh explosions that occurred earlier in the day at the site and problems in a pool storing spent nuclear fuel rods, the Washington-based think tank said, ‘This accident can no longer be viewed as a level 4 on the International Nuclear and Radiological Events scale that ranks events from 1 to 7.’

Noting that a level 4 incident involves ‘only local radiological consequences,’ it said the ongoing crisis is ‘now closer to a level 6, and it may unfortunately reach a level 7’ — a worst case scenario with extensive health and environmental consequences.

‘The international community should increase assistance to Japan to both contain the emergency at the reactors and to address the wider contamination. We need to find a solution together,’ it said.”  Source.

“The operator of Japan’s stricken Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant says a fire has broken out again at its No. 4 reactor unit.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. spokesman Hajimi Motujuku says the blaze erupted early Wednesday in the outer housing of the reactor’s containment vessel. Fire fighters are trying to put out the flames. Japan’s nuclear safety agency also confirmed the fire, whose cause was not immediately known.

On Tuesday, a fire broke out in the reactor’s fuel storage pond – an area where used nuclear fuel is kept cool – causing radioactivity to be released into the atmosphere.”  Read more.

• Radiation leaking directly into the air from stricken Fukushima nuclear plant
• Power station has now suffered three reactor explosions and one fire
• Radiation levels up to ten times higher than normal in Tokyo
• Experts warn of cancer risk
• Stock markets in chaos as Nikkei plummets 10.5% in one day

“A nuclear crisis at the quake-hit Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant deepened Tuesday as fresh explosions occurred at the site and its operator said water in a pool storing spent nuclear fuel rods may be boiling, an ominous sign for the release of high-level radioactive materials from the fuel.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said the water level in the pool storing the spent fuel rods at its Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant’s No. 4 reactor may have dropped, exposing the rods.

The firm said it has not yet confirmed the current water level or water temperature in the pool and will try to pour water into the facility from Wednesday through holes that were created following an explosion earlier Tuesday in the walls of the building that houses the reactor.

Unless the spent fuel rods are cooled down, they could be damaged and emit radioactive substances. The government’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency urged TEPCO to inject water into the pool soon to prevent heating of the fuel rods.

TEPCO said Tuesday night that its workers were unable to remain in the central control room at the Fukushima No. 1 plant due to high radiation levels and retreated to a remote site to monitor data on the reactors.”  Read more.

“The Fukushima reactor building that exploded March 12 is one of a series of identical General Electric reactors constructed in Japan and the US. In this reactor design, the used nuclear fuel rods are stored in pools of water at the top of the reactor building. These “spent” rods are still highly radioactive: the radioactivity is so great the rods must be stored in water so they do not combust. The explosion at Fukushima Daiichi reactor unit 1 apparently destroyed at least one wall and the roof of the building: some reports stated the roof had collapsed into the building.

Two days later, the nearby building containing the plutonium-uranium (MOX) fueled Fuksuhima Daichii reactor unit 3 exploded. So why bother about the rubble of reactor No 1? The WaPo quotes a nuclear engineer who knows the answer:” Read more.