(UPDATE: There seems to be transcription error in the soil contamination numbers at the Okuma-machi official website, so I corrected them: 4.5 million --> 450K, 295 million --> 29.5 million. I've alerted the Okuma-machi HP.)
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It was in the vicinity of the 1.3 sievert/hr spot it found on November 14. Mainichi Shinbun reports that the cleanup operation by the Packbot is not going well.
Mainichi Shinbun (11/20/2011):
東京電力は２０日、福島第１原発３号機の原子炉建屋１階で毎時約１６００ミリシーベルトの放射線量を計測したと発表した。３号機では最も高い。１４日にも付近で毎時１３００ミリシーベルトが検出されていた。原子炉格納容器内から漏れたとみられる少量の水のふき取り作業とともに再計測した。ロボットによるふき取り作業は難航しているという。
TEPCO announced on November 20 that 1600 millisieverts/hour radiation was measured on the 1st floor of Reactor 3 reactor building at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant. It is the highest measurement [so far] in Reactor 3 building. On November 14, 1300 millisieverts/hour radiation was detected nearby. The measurement was conducted as [the robot] tried to wipe off the small amount of water which may have leaked from the Containment Vessel. According to TEPCO, the cleaning operation by the robot is not going well.
On a separate note, Quince, who got lost in October somewhere in the high radiation upper floors of Reactor 2, remains lost. As if as an obituary, NHK had a special program detailing the development of Quince.
On yet another note, Okuma-machi, where part of Fukushima I Nuke Plant is located, just re-elected the mayor who ran on the platform of "Let's all return to our home town", demanding thorough decontamination and rehabilitation of the infrastructure so that people can return as soon as possible.
Okuma-machi's highest air radiation level at 1 meter off the ground exceeds 100 microsieverts/hour. Soil contamination? About 454K becquerels/kg, or 29.5 million becquerels/square meter (numbers corrected; wrong number given at the official HP of the town). Nothing compared to the Fuku-I compound, I'm sure.
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6 comments:
4.5 million becquerels/kg soil
goddamn, that's dosed !
I thought that was way too high. I checked the numbers at the official website, and I think they made a mistake when they transcribed the numbers from the Ministry of Education numbers. One order of magnitude less.
Ultra - maybe they are intentionally making this kind of error so later, when it is revealed that sometimes in the past they have intentionally under reported by a factor of 10 or 100 they can say it was the same kind of clerical error.
Either way, this soil would be considered as high level waste in most other countries.
Remember, even if it was only 450kBq/m2, this means 450GBq/square kilometer, or 12 curies. Or maybe even 120 curies.
And, we have to be aware that there will be much "hotter" spots for sure.
In Russia and elsewhere everybody would consider this as nuclear wasteland that has to be abandoned forever.
I have to admit that I really do not understand how the japanese people feel and think.
Maybe they are so bound with their homes and land that they'd insist to stay at their accustomed places like the few old people that moved back to the exclusion zone in Chernobyl, because they had no other place where they feel home.
I can somehow understand them.
It's the choice of being at home, even at the cost of possibly getting very sick some time later, and not being a homeless refugee.
But a majority voting for returning and living in this intense irradiation - I simply don't understand this.
Maybe they believe that radiation is harmless, and factually become guinea pigs like the people living at River Techa.
Regarding the robots, they also will die eventually.
Radiation degrades/destroys electronics, and they'll stop working, either due to crashing of their control electronics because of radiation noise, or even permanent latch-up of the electronics.
Some time in the future "carbon-based robots" will have to enter and carry away the then-highly radioactive packbots and quinces that died in the radiation areas and clog the passageways.
Well, what the mayor is saying is "let's decontaminate and then move back home" - he's not saying he wants to live in intense radiation. Whether or not decontamination is feasible or practical is another matter. He is, after all, a politician, and he is saying what he thinks the people want to hear. But at 15 trillion becquerels of Cs137 per square kilometer, that section of Okuma-machi is most definitely a no-go zone. (I do notice that there are places in Okuma-machi with much lower readings, but still, damn).
that mayor is not for the welfare of the people...hoping for nothing.
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