The powers that be are stepping cautiously around what seems to be a forthcoming admission that at least one of the reactor cores at Daiichi is damaged. Officials talked about that when they found the water the plant workers had been standing in was/is radioactive. Now we talking about the ocean water near the plant.
Radioactivity levels soared in the seawater outside the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, safety officials reported Saturday, igniting fresh concerns about the spread of highly radioactive material and the risks involved in completing an already dangerous job.
Samples taken 360 yards offshore from the plant Friday showed radioactive iodine levels 1,250 times the legal safety limit. Earlier in the week, the levels of iodine-131 in the water had been closer to 100 times the limit. ...WaPo
This is sounding like a speeded-up version of what we experienced during the BP mess: admission creep. The Japanese are doing a more honest job of assessing the damage and the potential for prolonged disaster.
Taken altogether, we humans have tossed one s-load of killer material into our oceans over the past 12 months. Usually we just leak it in from thousands and thousands of ships, coastal manufacturing plants, upland spills into rivers, and a huge amount of agricultural run-off. Now we getting serious about killing all life that depends on the oceans -- and that includes you and me.
All that is quite apart from the initial kill caused the earthquake/tsunami/nuclear breakdown.
The government reported that as of Saturday, 10,102 people were listed as dead, 17,053 were missing, 26,646 had been rescued and 246,109 had been displaced from their homes after the March 11 earthquake and the ensuing disasters.
Yessiree! We're determined to add millions and billions to those little numbers. If you want to speed the process up, vote for either Republican or Democratic candidates!
