ELEANOR HALL: To Japan now where nearly three months after the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster, Japan's nuclear authority has dramatically revised up its estimates of the amount of radiation emitted from the Fukushima nuclear plants in the week after the earthquake.
In a statement overnight, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency more than doubled its original estimate of the radiation in the atmosphere.
Plutonium has also been found for the first time in soil just a few kilometres from the plant. Tests have confirmed the plutonium came from the plant, but researchers say the levels are not a cause for alarm.
A short time ago I spoke to Tokyo correspondent Mark Willacy.
ELEANOR HALL: Mark this is an extraordinary admission from Japan's nuclear safety agency isn't it, that the earlier estimates of the danger were out by more than 100 per cent?
MARK WILLACY: Well the safety agency says that it was taking on board figures that were provided to it by TEPCO because they're based on basically water injection assumptions. Now that's quite technical but that water was pumped in to try and stop the meltdown - as we know now there were partial meltdowns in three of the reactors.
Now the nuclear safety agency is saying it's pushing up - it's doubling the amount of radiation released in the week after the crisis. It's more than doubling it to 770,000 terabecquerels. Now that probably doesn't mean much to people but it is quite a lot of radiation escaping into the atmosphere.
Read More
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2011/s3237652.htm
In a statement overnight, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency more than doubled its original estimate of the radiation in the atmosphere.
Plutonium has also been found for the first time in soil just a few kilometres from the plant. Tests have confirmed the plutonium came from the plant, but researchers say the levels are not a cause for alarm.
A short time ago I spoke to Tokyo correspondent Mark Willacy.
ELEANOR HALL: Mark this is an extraordinary admission from Japan's nuclear safety agency isn't it, that the earlier estimates of the danger were out by more than 100 per cent?
MARK WILLACY: Well the safety agency says that it was taking on board figures that were provided to it by TEPCO because they're based on basically water injection assumptions. Now that's quite technical but that water was pumped in to try and stop the meltdown - as we know now there were partial meltdowns in three of the reactors.
Now the nuclear safety agency is saying it's pushing up - it's doubling the amount of radiation released in the week after the crisis. It's more than doubling it to 770,000 terabecquerels. Now that probably doesn't mean much to people but it is quite a lot of radiation escaping into the atmosphere.
Read More
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2011/s3237652.htm
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