5/9/2011 | Canada and U.S. cut back radiation reporting

Source: CBC News
Date: May 9, 2011 12:00 PM PT
Last Updated: May 9, 2011 2:21 PM PT
by: By Mike Laanela

Radiation monitors like these in Sidney, B.C., did detect minuscule increases in radiation from the troubled Japanese reactors. (CBC)

 

Canadian and U.S. authorities have both cut back radiation reporting after detecting only minuscule increases following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear crisis, despite ongoing clean-up efforts in Japan.

"The quantities of radiation reaching Canada are very small and do not pose any health risk to Canadians," said a statement posted by Health Canada online.

"We have seen very slight increases in radiation across the country, smaller than the normal day-to-day fluctuations," said the website.

As a result the daily reporting of radiation levels has been rolled back to weekly reporting by Health Canada.
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5/9/2011 | Operator: Radiation leaked from Japan's Tsuruga nuclear plant

Source: R&C News
Date: May 9, 2011, 6:58 GMT

Tokyo - The operator of the Tsuruga nuclear power station in central Japan said Monday a 'minute amount' of radiation leaked from the plant, a news report said.
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5/9/2011 | Japan nuclear crew may need lead shields - official

Source: Herald Sun
Date: AFP May 09, 2011 6:56PM

THE operator of Japan's stricken nuclear power plant may need to use lead sheets and metal tunnels to protect workers seeking to stabilise its reactors, the nuclear safety agency said today.

Before dawn today, Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) sent a team to measure radiation inside the building housing reactor one and detected levels between 10 and 700 millisieverts per hour in different parts of the structure.

Japanese nuclear workers are only allowed to be exposed to cumulative radiation of 250 millisieverts - meaning they could only stay in reactor one's most contaminated areas for about 20 minutes before hitting their limit.

"An area with a double-digit millisievert level, let alone three-digit figures, is quite tough as a working environment," said Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, Kyodo News reported.

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"So we have to do the work by using some shielding."
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5/9/2011 | Japanese MP: It's Time to Tell the Truth

Source: theREALNews.com
Date: May 7, 2011


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5/9/2011 | Deadly Silence on Fukushima

Source: Huffington Post
Date: Posted: 05/ 9/11 05:05 AM ET
by: Vivian Norris

Phd, Based in Paris-Globalization Studies

I received the following email a few days ago from a Russian nuclear physicist friend who is an expert on the kinds of gases being released at Fukushima. Here is what he wrote:

About Japan: the problem is that the reactor uses "dirty" fuel. It is a combination of plutonium and uranium (MOX). I suspect that the old fuel rods have bean spread out due to the explosion and the surrounding area is contaminated with plutonium which means you can never return to this place again. It is like a new Tchernobyl. Personally, I am not surprised that the authority has not informed people about this.

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5/9/2011 | Japan detects radiation up to 700 milliserverts at Fukushima nuke plant

Source: English.news.cn  
Date: 2011-05-09 19:03:21


TOKYO, May 9 (Xinhua) -- Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) on Monday detected radiation levels in the building housing the faltering No. 1 reactor that far exceeded expected levels reaching as high as 700 millisieverts per hour, the utility firm said.

The latest readings for the troubled reactor has lead Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency to embark on new radiation shielding measures so that work to bring the crisis under control can go ahead with risks of massive doses of deadly radiation poisoning hopefully being lessened for the TEPCO workers and their affiliates as they attempt to embark on a massive project to install a nuclear fuel cooling system.
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5/9/2011 | Chubu Electric OKs Hamaoka shutdown

Source: Japan Today
Date: Monday, May 9, 2011

Utility grants Kan's request, plans new sea walls

Chubu Electric OKs Hamaoka shutdown

Kyodo

NAGOYA — Chubu Electric Power Co. on Monday decided to shut down the Hamaoka nuclear power station in Shizuoka Prefecture in response to a request made by Prime Minister Naoto Kan.

At a press conference, Chubu Electric President Akihisa Mizuno admitted that Kan's request was not legally binding but said that the prime minister's judgment carries significant weight.

The utility, which serves the central Chubu region around Nagoya, will suspend Hamaoka's No. 4 and No. 5 reactors and delay resumption of No. 3.

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5/9/2011 | Radiation to restrict work on No. 1

Source: Japan Today
Date: Monday, May 9, 2011

Kyodo

The operator of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant found the radiation level of the building housing the No. 1 reactor stood as high as 700 millisieverts per hour, the government's nuclear agency said Monday, citing the need for radiation shielding to proceed with work to bring an end to the nuclear crisis.

The radiation level, which was around 10 millisieverts per hour at its lowest, was measured as Tokyo Electric Power Co. workers and agency officials entered the No. 1 reactor building early Monday as part of preparations to start full-scale work to create a stable system to cool the damaged fuel inside.

"An area with a double-digit millisievert level, let alone three-digit figures, is quite tough as a working environment. So we have to do the work by using some shielding," Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency spokesman Hidehiko Nishiyama said.

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5/9/2011 | Radiation still a problem - Don't be fooled by reassurances

Source: NaturalNews.com
Date: Monday, May 09, 2011
by: Randall Neustaedter OMD

(NaturalNews) The New York Times and other mass media publications have been publishing articles that downplay the dangers of radioactive fallout from nuclear disasters like the Fukushima and Chernobyl disasters. And the Environmental Protection Agency has now stopped testing air, water, and milk samples for radiation despite the continuing release of radioactive materials into the environment from Japan.

The Fukushima disaster has resulted in a nuclear meltdown that has no end in sight. That reactor is still spewing fallout into the ocean and the atmosphere. It may never be brought under control. Chernobyl is still leaking dangerous radioactive materials. Nuclear reactors are fundamentally unsafe. Every one of them is subject to a meltdown situation in multiple unforeseen and even predictable scenarios. Chernobyl resulted in at least one million deaths. How many will Fukushima claim?
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5/9/2011 JST | Job seeker says ending up at nuclear plant not mentioned in ad

Source: Japan Today
Date: Monday 09th May, 11:30 AM JST

OSAKA — An Osaka man was made to work at the crippled nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture for about two weeks, when he had been expecting to work in neighboring Miyagi Prefecture, said a job placement center in Osaka on Monday.

The worker in his 60s received daily wages of about 24,000 yen, double the sum he was initially promised, but complained that the pay undervalued the work he did at the Fukushima plant, the Nishinari labor welfare center said after interviewing the man and the company that hired him.

‘‘I was finally issued with a radiation dosimeter on my fourth day of work there,’’ he was quoted as saying.
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5/9/2011 JST | Radioactive strontium detected at Fukushima plant

Source: NHK World
Date: Monday, May 09, 2011 06:04 +0900 (JST)

Tokyo Electric Power Company has detected high levels of radioactive strontium in soil inside the compound of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Strontium can cause cancer and like calcium it tends to collect in bones once humans inhale it.
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5/9/2011 | Japan, U.S. plan nuclear waste storage in Mongolia -paper

Source: Reuters
Date: Sun May 8, 2011 10:18pm EDT

May 9 (Reuters) - Japan and the United States plan to jointly build a spent nuclear fuel storage facility in Mongolia to serve customers of their nuclear plant exporters, pushing ahead despite Japan's prolonged nuclear crisis, the Mainichi daily said on Monday.
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5/9/2011 | Japanese workers measure radiation in Fukushima reactor

Source: English.news.cn
Date: 2011-05-09 11:02:44

Junichi Matsumoto, an official from Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), shows a picture showing a worker working at the Reactor Building of Unit 1 of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in Fukushima prefecture at the TEPCO headquarters in Tokyo, Japan, May 9, 2011. Japanese workers measured radiation inside one reactor building of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant early Monday, paving way for full-scale work to stabilize the country's worst-ever nuclear emergency after the twin disasters of earthquake and tsunami. (Xinhua/Kenichiro Seki)

TOKYO, May 9 (Xinhua) -- Japanese workers measured radiation inside one reactor building of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant early Monday, paving way for full-scale work to stabilize the country's worst-ever nuclear emergency after the twin disasters of earthquake and tsunami.
The move came after the plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) opened the doors linking the No. 1 reactor building to its adjacent turbine building Sunday evening, and confirmed that the resultant release of radioactive materials into the air had not raised radiation levels on the premises, according to the firm.
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