A second hydrogen explosion rocked a crippled Japanese nuclear reactor Monday, spewing a giant cloud of smoke into the air and injuring 11 workers, officials said.
The blast was so large it could be felt 25 miles away.
The plant's operator, however, insisted that radiation levels around the facility remained within legal limits.
Video:
For more information and essays about the Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Reactor problems in Japan CLICK HERE.
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Nine of ten nuclear reactors at two locations at Fukushima, Japan, have problems ranging from damaged cooling systems to partial meltdowns, and spent fuel storage facilities at several of these reactors are severely damaged. In some cases, facilities seem to have been shut down safely.
It will probably be some years before we get the full story of what happened at the Fukushima Daiichi reactor complex after the earthquake.
Information has not exactly been put out coherently or comprehensively, but we can make some inferences from the data that is out there.
There are new fires at the Fukushima Daichi nuclear power plants. There was a fire on the roof of Reactor Unit 3. It burned for several hours causing workers to pull out of the area to have radiation levels tested. The radiatoi levels did not, however, change.
NISA has a concise summary of the status of the reactors at Fukushima Daiichi (pdf)
Includes temperatures on reactor vessel surface where available.
Greg, I thought you were a more rational blogger than this; you are inadvertently feeding into the hysteria around this situation with the Fukushima nuclear plants by referencing shoddy media reporting. I suggest you and others here take a look at my blog post on the matter:
Know Nukes: The Japanese Earthquake & Anti-Nuclear Hysteria
http://skepticalteacher.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/know-nukes-the-japanes…
Please take some time to read up on information regarding the Fukushima incident from reputable sources that understand the nuclear physics & engineering involved. Otherwise, you are merely feeding the hysteria.
Nuclear Power plants boon or curse?
Please donate if you can to help out families in Japan
Matt's site #1 is good. It is accurate and it cites other accurate sources.
I do not understand the objective of warning people to stop talking about Chernobyl when no one has yet done so. This is not a good time to be erecting straw men and sock puppets.
Merely pointing to a video showing the explosion is not feeding hysteria. And merely suggesting that the risk analysis of nuclear power is drastically undercautious is not being anti-nuke.
Greg's mentioned elsewhere that there appears to be a pro-nuke crowd that's downplaying everything that's happening, and no matter how accurate or measured anyone's response is, no matter how technically knowledgeable they happen to be, if they come out against nuclear power, they're obviously fearmongerers and luddites.
To them I say, get fucked.
Enoch, at least one French nuclear official is now talking about Chernobyl: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/15/japan.nuclear/?hpt=T2#
Be aware that this is a rating of the severity of the failure, not a measure of danger to the population. That's still unknown.
The nuclear reactor situation does not seem to be improving. Hope it will soon. They are now teaching kids in Japan about the situation through this cartoon
http://www.japansugoi.com/wordpress/cartoon-explaining-the-fukushima-nu…
In the mid 1990's the Japanese govt made a cartoon saying Plutonium was safe!!! Talk about brainwashing propaganda!!
http://www.japansugoi.com/wordpress/japanese-pluto-kun-plutonium-is-saf…