Fukushima Nuclear Crisis Update for June 18th to June 20th, 2013

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  • #Fukushima #Nuclear Crisis Update for June 18th to June 20th, 2013 | Greenpeace International
    http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/nuclear-reaction/fukushima-nuclear-crisis-update-for-june-18th/blog/45670

    #TEPCO said this week that it has discovered high levels of radioactive #strontium-90 and tritium in a well located just 27 meters from the Pacific Ocean, and was forced to admit that it sat on the information for nearly a month before revealing the news to the public. The new evidence confirms that groundwater near the Fukushima Daiichi #1 and #2 nuclear reactors is highly radioactive, but officials said that they do not believe that the contamination has reached the ocean yet. Samples contained 1,000 Bq/liter of strontium-90, which has a half-life of 28.8 years and can lodge in human bones and lead to cancer if it enters the food chain and is ingested. That level is 33 times the legal limit, and is 100 times higher than measurements of the same water collected in December, which showed just 8.6 Bq/liter.

    Workers also discovered 500,000 Bq/liter of #tritium, which has also been linked to increases in cancer and which has a half-life of 12.3 years. The tritium level exceeds the legal limit by 8.3 times; water collected in December contained only 29,000 Bq/liter of tritium. Four wells were originally dug there at the end of 2012 to measure radiation levels in groundwater; they are separate from 12 other wells currently being built to divert groundwater from flooding basements of the reactor buildings.