.- Japan warned on Sunday that the danger of a nuclear catastrophe is far from being discarded in the plant in Fukushima, where there were leaks more radioactive than the day before. A very high radioactivity was measured on Sunday in a layer of water that escaped from the reactor two troubled nuclear plant in Fukushima (northeast), so we proceeded to stop pumping operations and evacuate staff, announced the news agency Jiji.
The level measured in the water found in the basement of the turbine room behind the reactor is a thousand mSv per hour, told AFP a spokesman for operator Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO). After announcing at the outset that this figure was "10 million times higher" than normal, TEPCO called an urgent press conference to admit he was wrong and explained that the error caused by confusing the radioactive elements analyzed .
Instead, TEPCO confirmed the level of "thousand mSv per hour." This means that the fuel in the reactor core probably was damaged during an early merger that took place just after the earthquake and tsunami of 11 March, he added. "We detected in water samples with high rates of cesium and other substances not usually found in water in the reactor.
There is a strong likelihood that the fuel rods have been damaged," he said. "This very high level of radioactivity is just a direct proof that the reactor core has melted," confirmed Olivier Isnard, expert of the French Institute of Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN). "But the polluted water will be difficult to treat because it can not be put in tank trucks, and while there's work can not be restarted," he said.
He said the high level of radioactivity in the sea indicates that contaminated water has begun "escape." And levels of radioactivity were detected several hundred mSv per hour around the damaged reactor of the plant, forcing a temporary evacuation of staff. The three workers last Thursday, only shoes with rubber boots, suffered radiation walking in a pool of highly radioactive water during a speech in the turbine room of the reactor three, where the radiation level was 180 mSv per hour.
Two of them were hospitalized with burns on his feet. About 500 technicians, firefighters and soldiers are working day and night in Fukushima to try to cool a reactor with water cannons, waiting it can start again the cooling circuit, damaged by the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the region on March 11, killing at least 668 die a thousand deaths and 17,072 missing, according to the latest tally.
For nearly two weeks, the plants were irrigated with water rough sea by water cannons and electric pumps run by giant cranes. Due to the risk of corrosion from salt, TEPCO decided to use from now on freshwater. However, these operations were constantly hampered by increases of radioactivity and technical difficulties in constant danger due to ionizing radiation.
"Japan is far from out of the accident" that affected central Fukushima said the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Japanese Yukiya Amano, in an interview published Saturday by the New York Times . After insisting that no action was critical of Nipponese authorities to these extraordinary circumstances, Amano should be noted that "further efforts" to avoid the danger of a major disaster.
Yukiya Amano said he thought the Japanese authorities did not retain information. But he added that his recent visit to Japan was aimed at getting the Prime Minister Naoto Kan to commit to a "total transparency." 
The level measured in the water found in the basement of the turbine room behind the reactor is a thousand mSv per hour, told AFP a spokesman for operator Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO). After announcing at the outset that this figure was "10 million times higher" than normal, TEPCO called an urgent press conference to admit he was wrong and explained that the error caused by confusing the radioactive elements analyzed .
Instead, TEPCO confirmed the level of "thousand mSv per hour." This means that the fuel in the reactor core probably was damaged during an early merger that took place just after the earthquake and tsunami of 11 March, he added. "We detected in water samples with high rates of cesium and other substances not usually found in water in the reactor.
There is a strong likelihood that the fuel rods have been damaged," he said. "This very high level of radioactivity is just a direct proof that the reactor core has melted," confirmed Olivier Isnard, expert of the French Institute of Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN). "But the polluted water will be difficult to treat because it can not be put in tank trucks, and while there's work can not be restarted," he said.
He said the high level of radioactivity in the sea indicates that contaminated water has begun "escape." And levels of radioactivity were detected several hundred mSv per hour around the damaged reactor of the plant, forcing a temporary evacuation of staff. The three workers last Thursday, only shoes with rubber boots, suffered radiation walking in a pool of highly radioactive water during a speech in the turbine room of the reactor three, where the radiation level was 180 mSv per hour.
Two of them were hospitalized with burns on his feet. About 500 technicians, firefighters and soldiers are working day and night in Fukushima to try to cool a reactor with water cannons, waiting it can start again the cooling circuit, damaged by the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the region on March 11, killing at least 668 die a thousand deaths and 17,072 missing, according to the latest tally.
For nearly two weeks, the plants were irrigated with water rough sea by water cannons and electric pumps run by giant cranes. Due to the risk of corrosion from salt, TEPCO decided to use from now on freshwater. However, these operations were constantly hampered by increases of radioactivity and technical difficulties in constant danger due to ionizing radiation.
"Japan is far from out of the accident" that affected central Fukushima said the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Japanese Yukiya Amano, in an interview published Saturday by the New York Times . After insisting that no action was critical of Nipponese authorities to these extraordinary circumstances, Amano should be noted that "further efforts" to avoid the danger of a major disaster.
Yukiya Amano said he thought the Japanese authorities did not retain information. But he added that his recent visit to Japan was aimed at getting the Prime Minister Naoto Kan to commit to a "total transparency."
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