Another Fire breaks out at Fukushima Daiichi Reactor

Unit 4 (This one has Plutonium & Uranium too & there
is no containment area!!)

TOKYO — The world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl rose to a new level Wednesday as a
fire flared up at Japan's stricken nuclear complex and engineers worried about the possibility of
blasts at two other reactor buildings. In addition, two workers were reported missing after an
earlier fire.

Flames were reported Wednesday morning at Unit 4 of the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant in what was
described by the operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., as a flare-up from a fire there nearly 24
hours earlier. The flames were inside the structure covering the containment vessel for the unit's
nuclear reactor, TEPCO spokesman Hajimi Motujuku said.

www.Zimvi.com
The earlier blast and fire at Unit 4 opened two holes in the outer building, emitting radiation from
overheating spent fuel in a storage pool.

Two workers inside the unit were missing after the first fire, Japan's nuclear safety agency said.
The status of the nuclear reactor and storage pool inside the building was not known.

Officials were also concerned about the reactors in Units 5 and 6.

"Plant operators were considering the removal of panels from units 5 and 6 reactor buildings to
prevent a possible buildup of hydrogen," the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a
statement.

"It was a buildup of hydrogen at units 1, 2, and 3 that led to explosions at the Dai-ichi facilities
in recent days," it added.

Units 5 and 6 were loaded with nuclear fuel but not producing when Friday's quake and tsunami
struck. They had been considered stable, but on Tuesday a senior Japanese official said
temperatures there were also slightly elevated.

"The power for cooling is not working well and the temperature is gradually rising, so it is
necessary to control it," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters.

Japanese officials told the IAEA that the spent fuel storage area had caught fire and that
radioactivity was "being released directly into the atmosphere."

Advertise | AdChoices
Breaking News
previous

next
Dozens of sources, all in one place.
After the first Unit 4 fire was extinguished, a Japanese official said the pool used to cool the
spent fuel rods might still be boiling, though the reported levels of radiation had dropped
dramatically by evening.

Experts noted that much of the leaking radiation was apparently in steam from boiling water. It
had not been emitted directly by fuel rods, which would be far more virulent, they said.

www.Zimvi.com
"It's not good, but I don't think it's a disaster," said Steve Crossley, an Australia-based radiation
physicist.

The fuel rods are encased in safety containers meant to prevent them from resuming nuclear
reactions, nuclear officials said. But they acknowledged that there could have been damage to the
containers.

Tuesday night, Japan ordered the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power, to inject water into the
pool "as soon as possible to avert a major nuclear disaster."

her options were under consideration, including fire engines.

The IAEA also said Tuesday that an explosion Monday at the plant, this one within Unit 2, "may
have affected the integrity of its primary containment vessel." That means radioactivity could be
leaking from the containment vessel.

After the first Unit 4 fire, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan said low levels of radiation had
spread from the complex along Japan's northeastern coast.

"The possibility of further radioactive leakage is heightening," a grim-faced Kan said in an

address to the nation.

Levels of 400 millisieverts per hour had been recorded near unit 4 after the first fire, the
government said. Exposure to over 100 millisieverts a year is a level which can lead to cancer,
according to the World Nuclear Association.

The radiation releases prompted Japan on Tuesday to order 140,000 people to seal themselves
indoors and a 30-kilometer (19-mile) no-fly zone was imposed around the site for commercial
traffic.

Advertise | AdChoices
Breaking News
previous

next
Dozens of sources, all in one place.

www.Zimvi.com
Weather forecasts for the Fukushima area were for snow and wind Tuesday evening, blowing
southwest toward Tokyo, then shifting and blowing east out to sea. That's important because it
shows which direction a possible nuclear cloud might blow.

'Clearly in a catastrophe'
Soon after the latest events, France's nuclear safety authority ASN said the disaster ranks as a
level 6 on the international scale of 1 to 7.

Level 7 was used only once, for Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986. The 1979 accident at the Three
Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania was rated a level 5.

"It is very clear that we are at a level 6," ASN President Andre-Claude Lacoste told a news
conference in Paris. "We are clearly in a catastrophe."

"Right now it's worse than Three Mile Island" but it's nowhere near the levels of radioactivity
released during Chernobyl, added Donald Olander, a professor emeritus of nuclear engineering at
the University of California at Berkeley.

At Three Mile Island, the radiation leak was held inside the containment shell — thick concrete
armor around the reactor. The Chernobyl reactor had no shell and was also operational when the
disaster struck. The Japanese reactors automatically shut down when the quake hit.

The IAEA said about 150 people in Japan had received monitoring for radiation levels and that
measures to "decontaminate" 23 of them had been taken.

Clearing up nuclear questions

Though Japanese officials urged calm, Tuesday's developments fueled a growing panic amid
widespread uncertainty over what would happen next.

In the worst-case scenario, one or more reactor cores would completely melt down, a disaster
that would spew large amounts of radioactivity into the atmosphere.

Video: At least 15,000 people missing in Japan (on this page)

Officials in Tokyo — 150 miles to the south of the plant — said radiation in the capital was 10
times normal by evening but there was no threat to human health.

How much radiation is dangerous?

www.Zimvi.com
 1. Radiation is measured using the unit sievert, which quantifies the amount of radiation
absorbed by human tissues. One sievert is 1,000 millisieverts (mSv). One millisievert is
1,000 microsieverts.
The average person in the United States is exposed to about 6.2 millisieverts a year,
mostly from background radiation and medical tests.
Some facts about radiation exposure:

◦ A person would need to be exposed to at least 100 mSv a year to have an increase
in cancer risk. Exposure to 1,000 mSv (1 sievert) over a year would probably
cause a fatal cancer many years later in five out of every 100 people who receive
that much radiation.
◦ A total body CT scan exposes a person to about 10 mSv.
◦ A mammogram exposes a woman to about 0.7 mSv.
◦ CT colonography is about 5 to 8 mSv.
◦ A CT heart scan is about 12 mSv.
◦ A typical chest X-ray involves exposure of about 0.02 mSv
◦ A dental X-ray can be 0.01 mSv.
◦ Coast-to-coast airplane flight exposes a person to about .03 mSv. Airline crews
flying the New York-Tokyo polar route are exposed to 9 mSv a year.
2. Sources: Reuters; New England Journal of Medicine; American Cancer Society; World
Nuclear Association and Taiwan's Atomic Energy Council

Closer to the stricken nuclear complex, the streets in the coastal city of Soma were empty as the
few residents who remained there heeded the government's warning to stay indoors.

Interactive: How a nuclear plant works

Advertise | AdChoices
Breaking News
previous

next
Dozens of sources, all in one place.
Officials just south of Fukushima reported up to 100 times the normal levels of radiation Tuesday
morning. While those figures are worrying if there is prolonged exposure, they are far from fatal.

Officials warned there is danger of more leaks and told people living within 19 miles of the Dai-
ichi complex to stay indoors.

www.Zimvi.com
"Please do not go outside. Please stay indoors. Please close windows and make your homes
airtight," Edano told residents in the danger zone.

"These are figures that potentially affect health. There is no mistake about that," he said.

Some 70,000 people had already been evacuated from a 12-mile radius from the Dai-ichi
complex. About 140,000 are in the new warning zone.

Friday's 9.0-magnitude earthquake and the ensuing tsunami have killed more than 10,000 people.

70 workers at plant
Workers were desperately trying to stabilize the three reactors at Units 1, 2 and 3 that were
working when the quake and tsunami struck. Releases of hydrogen gas caused explosions that
destroyed the outer structures at each unit.

Fourteen pumps have been brought in to get seawater into those three reactors.

There was also possible core damage at the Unit 2 reactor, estimated at less than 5 percent of the
fuel, and there might also be damage to the unit's primary containment structure.

"Is it a crack? Is it a hole? Is it nothing? That we don't know yet," IAEA chief Yukiya Amano
told reporters.

But he said the pressure in the containment vessel had not fallen. "If there is a huge damage the
pressure should go down."

Advertise | AdChoices
Breaking News
previous

next
Dozens of sources, all in one place.
Unit 4, where the pool is, had been under maintenance and was not operating at the time of the
quake and tsunami.

www.Zimvi.com
With power out and the regular coolant gone, engineers are now injecting seawater into the
reactors as a last-ditch coolant. Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the plant, said it would
try to inject seawater inside the pool area within three days.

Officials said 70 workers were at the complex, struggling with its myriad problems. The workers,
all of them wearing protective gear, are being rotated in and out of the danger zone quickly to
reduce their radiation exposure.

About 800 other staff were evacuated. The fires and explosions at the reactors have injured 15
workers and military personnel.

Prime Minister Kan himself lambasted TEPCO for taking so long to inform his office about one
of the blasts, Kyodo news service reported.

"The TV reported an explosion. But nothing was said to the premier's office for about an hour," a
Kyodo reporter quoted Kan as telling power company executives. "What the hell is going on?"

The death toll from last week's earthquake and tsunami jumped as police confirmed the number
killed had topped 2,400. Officials say that at least 10,000 people may have died in Miyagi
province alone, but those deaths are not confirmed.

Story: Millions in Japanese cold struggle without electricity, heat

The Dai-ichi plant is the most severely affected of three nuclear complexes that were declared
emergencies after suffering damage in Friday's quake and tsunami, raising questions about the
safety of such plants in coastal areas near fault lines and adding to global jitters over the industry.

The Fukushima Dai-ichi complex was due to be decommissioned in February but was given a
new 10-year lease on life.

Its reactors were designed by General Electric. (Msnbc.com is a joint venture between NBC
Universal and Microsoft. GE is a part owner of NBC Universal.)

Japan has a total of 55 reactors spread across 17 complexes nationwide.

GE-designed reactors in Fukushima have 23 sisters in U.S.

Advertise | AdChoices
Breaking News
previous

www.Zimvi.com
next
Dozens of sources, all in one place.
The impact of the earthquake and tsunami dragged down stock markets. The benchmark Nikkei
225 stock average plunged for a second day Tuesday, nose-diving more than 10 percent to close
at 8,605.15 while the broader Topix lost more than 8 percent.

To lessen the damage, Japan's central bank made two cash injections totaling $98 billion Tuesday
into the money markets after pumping in $184 billion on Monday.

Initial estimates put repair costs in the tens of billions of dollars, costs that would likely add to a
massive public debt that, at 200 percent of gross domestic product, is the biggest among
industrialized nations.

www.Zimvi.com