Monday, March 21, 2011

#Fukushima I Nuke Plant: Sound of Near-Silence in Japan on Damage to Fuel Rods

Since I posted the Asahi Shinbun article yesterday on the damage to the fuel rods now confirmed by the air sample test, I've been looking for the similar article from other Japanese news sources. I've found only one, by Jiji News.

Jiji News' article is even briefer than Asahi's. It doesn't say where the air sample was taken, how much iodine and cesium and what type of iodine and cesium was detected, except for iodine-131. It does say these radioactive materials are thought to have been released from the damaged fuel rods.

Jiji's article says one interesting thing that wasn't in Asahi's article. According to Jiji,

The analysis of air samples [at the plant] is normally done once a month. March 19 was the first time the analysis was done after the earthquake. TEPCO now plans to do the analysis every day.

So it didn't occur to the employees at TEPCO to measure the air quality at the plant until 8 days after the earthquake.

But the world is being told there's nothing to worry about, move along, the stock market is going up, don't you know? This US fund manager even demands that the US media apologize for "over-hyping" the Japan's nuclear crisis.

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