#Fukushima I Nuke Plant: Just How High Is the Radiation Level of Reactor 3 Operating Floor?

Just how high is the radiation level on the (what used to be) operating floor of Reactor 3? TEPCO has released only one measurement of the Reactor 3 operating floor, and it was on one location only (above the reactor well). While I am still looking for that TEPCO's PDF document, there is an indirect indication of how high it could be.

Kyodo News reporters visited Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant on April 4, and wrote up a detailed article for the 2nd anniversary of the nuclear accident. The article, judging by the number of retweets, doesn't seem like it's been read widely. But in it, there is a reference to radiation levels of Reactor 4 and Reactor 3, located 100 meters apart.

From Kyodo News "Current situation at Fukushima I Nuke Plant: 2 years after the accident, uncertainty still reigns, guarding against trouble 24/7" (4/8/2013; part):

(On the operating floor of Reactor 4)

「長くとどまることはできません。もうここを離れましょう」。同行の東電社員から声をかけられた。オペフロの放射線量は毎時２６２マイクロシーベルト。北側で無残な姿をさらす３号機建屋の線量が極めて高く、約１００メートル離れているのに影響を受ける。オペフロでは、作業員数人が全面マスクに防護服姿で黙々と働いていた。

"We can't stay here long. Let's go back down." The TEPCO employee who accompanied us called to us. The air dose level on the [Reactor 4] operating floor is 262 microsieverts/hour. The wrecked Reactor 3 building, located north of the Reactor 4 building, has extremely high radiation, and the Reactor 4 building [operating floor] is affected even though it is 100 meters away. On the Reactor 4 operating floor, several workers with full-face masks and protection gear were working quietly.

The article is accompanied by a picture indicating the locations of their reporting and radiation levels in microsievert/hour.

From the top left of the picture, clockwise:

• ALPS: 4.5 microsieverts/hour

• Dry cask temporary storage area: 5

• Outside the Anti-Seismic Building: 20

• Ocean-side of Reactor 3 (beyond the Reactor 3 turbine building): 1300

• Plugged hole where the highly contaminated water leaked into the ocean: 250

• At the wall to shield ground water: 130

• Reactor 4 Operating Floor: 262

• Control room for Reactor Cooling System (indoors): 7.4

Kyodo News also has the video news, showing the locations that they visited:



0:20 Anti-Seismic Building, the plant's headquarter for day-to-day operation of the plant "restoration" work

0:55 Construction of walls to block the flow of groundwater, at the water intake for Reactors 1-4, due for completion in April next year

1:10 ALPS (Multi-nuclide removal system) building

1:34 Control room for the reactor cooling system

2:20 Reactor 4 building

2:40 Reactor 4 Operating floor (they went up in an elevator)

3:09 Reactor 4 narrow stairway to descend from the operating floor

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