Special Radio Ecoshock Bulletin #3 The real news about the unfolding nuclear disaster in Japan. A second reactor blows up, while a third may have total melt down. U.S. Navy hit by radiation. And more.
Various news agencies. Compiled by Alex Smith, of Radio Ecoshock
Japan's nuclear crisis on Monday is now more serious than ever before.
This is Alex Smith, host of the weekly program Radio Ecoshock, with Japan Atomic Emergency Bulletin #3, at noon Pacific Time, Monday March 14.
As you know from spectacular news footage, the outer containment shell of Reactor #3 at the Fukushima Daiichi plant exploded on Monday Japan time, Sunday in Europe and North America. This is the second explosion at the site, after Reactor #1 also suffered a hydrogen gas explosion the day before.
The second explosion was even more violent, with an orange fireball not seen in the first. It is a strain to imagine that nothing on the inner shell of the reactor was damaged, as the Japanese government continues to claim. The shell may not have been punctured, even though heavy pieces of concrete can be seen raining down, but it seems likely surrounding cooling tubes, outside pressure valves, and connecting wiring must have been damaged by such a powerful blast.
The government denied any significant radiation escaped, beyond the purposeful venting of radioactive gas they allowed for days, trying to reduce pressure building inside the out-of-control reactor #3.
While Tepco reactor workers were busy dealing with that problem, reliable news sources say in the confusion - the company failed to notice that water was dropping in Reactor #2 next door. Then a simple failure occurred: a fire truck that was being used ad hoc to assist pumping sea water into that reactor ran out of fuel. There is a shortage of fuel in the area.
Apparenly unknown to the company, BBC top correspondent Richar Black is reporting the fuel rods in the reactor were mainly, if not completely exposed to the air, for an unknown period of time, without any cooling at all. That, Black says, was confirmed by a local government official.
That makes a real meltdown very possible. The fuel rods will have melted. It is possible extremely radioactive material has breached through the bottom of the reactor vessel. We don't know, and more worryingly, the reactor owners don't know.
Read more here: http://www.ecoshock.info/2011/03/japan-atomic-emergency-bulletin-3_14.html
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