#Fukushima I Nuke Plant: Reactor 3's Basement Water Highly Radioactive

(UPDATE: I've got the numbers. See my post above.)

Yesterday three workers working in the basement of the Reactor No.3 turbine building were exposed to radiation as they laid power cables in 18-centimeter high water.

It turns out that, not surprisingly, that water was highly radioactive.

Yomiuri Shinbun (in Japanese, emphasis added; 7:38AM JST 3/25/2011):

TEPCO announced on March 25 that the level of concentration of radioactive materials in the basement water was 10,000 times the normal level in the cooling water in the reactor during normal operation.

Radioactive materials, which are not detected in normal operation, were found the basement water in high concentration. According to TEPCO, the radioactive materials may have been leaked after the fuel rods in either the Pressure Vessel or the Spent Fuel Pool of the Reactor No.3 got damaged.

I am looking for the numbers, and will post when I find it.

Yesterday, I wrote TEPCO was insane when they ordered the work to be resumed in the Reactor No.3 after the black smoke. It was indeed almost clinically insane, because it didn't even test the radiation level in the basement before it sent the workers (two of them non-TEPCO, who were hospitalized).

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