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‘Serious
radiation incident’: Japan to radically raise the severity level of
Fukushima leak
Japan
will drastically raise the gravity of the latest Fukushima leak to
Level Three, which is considered a “serious radiation incident”
on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES) for radiological
releases.
20
August, 2013, approx 7.00 am GMT
"Judging
from the amount and the density of the radiation in the contaminated
water that leaked...a Level Three assessment is appropriate,"
read the document used during Wednesday’s weekly meeting of Nuclear
Regulation Authority (NRA) commissioners.
Earlier
on Tuesday, TEPCO reported that another tank with highly radioactive
water had leaked at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant. The
NRA first classified the leak as a Level One "anomaly.”
The
contaminated water contains an unprecedented 80 million Becquerels of
radiation per liter – compared to the normal level of around 150
Bq/l.
This
is considered to be the most serious setback to date for the clean-up
of the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.
The
increase to ‘Level Three’ will be formally adopted later on
Wednesday after a meeting that is currently under way, a spokesman
for the agency told Reuters by phone.
This
is the first time Japan has issued an INES rating for Fukushima since
the accident, which was caused by a massive earthquake and tsunami,
took place in 2011.
The
most dangerous ‘Level Seven’ has only been applied twice - for
the Chernobyl catastrophe in 1986 and for the meltdown of three
reactors at the Fukushima plant.
According
to the International Atomic Energy Agency, each increase on the INES
scale represents a 10-times increase in radiation severity.
TEPCO
must keep the melted uranium fuel rods of the three destroyed
reactors awash with water using a jerry-rigged system in order to
keep the melted debris cool and relatively stable. To establish a
closed cycle of the process, the operator stores huge amounts of
radioactive water at the Fukushima plant.
It
is believed that more than 350,000 tons of radioactive water is
stored at the Fukushima plant in special tanks and the drainage
system, without special protection in the basements of the devastated
facility. At the beginning of 2013, TEPCO drained most of the
basement galleries, pumping radioactive water into newly delivered
tanks.
TEPCO
insists that the puddle from the damaged tank has not escaped into
the Pacific Ocean since the tanks are located on elevated ground some
500 meters from the seashore. However, the level of contaminated
water in the tank continues to lower, the company stated.
At
the same time, the ruined reactors of the Fukushima nuclear facility
are located practically on the coast. And while the melted cores of
the three destroyed reactors have burnt through the concrete basement
of the reactor zone, radioactive water is soaking down into soil,
eventually getting into the Pacific Ocean – a fact confirmed by
radiation samples.
Leakage
of radiation-contaminated water has been a major threat to Japan’s
population and environment from the very beginning of the Fukushima
disaster. But until recently, TEPCO has flatly denied that
radioactive waste is escaping into the Pacific.
The
company acknowledged only in late July that contaminated water is
escaping from basements and trenches of the Fukushima plant into the
ocean.
Fukushima
Worst Nuclear Water Leak Since Disaster Update 8/20/13
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