Fukushima nuclear reactor radiation at highest level since 2011 meltdown
by Justin McCurry, The Guardian
Friday 3 February 2017
The facility’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), said atmospheric readings as high as 530 sieverts an hour had been recorded inside the containment vessel of reactor No 2, one of three reactors that experienced a meltdown when the plant was crippled by a huge tsunami that struck the north-east coast of Japan in March 2011.
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The recent reading, described by some experts as “unimaginable”, is far higher than the previous record of 73 sieverts an hour in that part of the reactor.A single dose of one sievert is enough to cause radiation sickness and nausea; 5 sieverts would kill half those exposed to it within a month, and a single dose of 10 sieverts would prove fatal within weeks.
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In December, the government said the estimated cost of decommissioning the plant and decontaminating the surrounding area, as well as paying compensation and storing radioactive waste, had risen to 21.5tn yen (£150bn), nearly double an estimate released in 2013.
For those keeping score at home 200,000 years is the longest estimate of homo sapiens existence as a separate species and a mere 60,000 years the current best guess of a common human ancestor migrating out of Africa.
100,000 years is simply the amount of time Fukushima will be fatally radioactive based on half life decay which is not at all random or subject to scientific debate.
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Vent Hole