Fukushima Update: Long Overdue November Edition..

Short answer?  The slow motion nightmare continues to unfold.  Have you noticed an uptick of "allergies," "colds," "I feel like shit!," "I don't know what this is, but I just don't feel right" creeping up in your everyday conversations?  I have.  If you haven't been paying attention; start.  The minor precursor effects have already started..

TEPCO: Reactor may have gone critical  NHK.  Excerpts:

The operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says it found in the facility's No.2 reactor radioactive substances that could have resulted from continuous nuclear fission.



The Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, said on Wednesday that it detected xenon-133 and xenon-135 in gas taken from the reactor's containment vessel on the previous day. The substances were reportedly in concentrations of 6 to more than 10 parts per million becquerels per cubic centimeter.


Xenon-135 was also detected in gas samples collected on Wednesday.


Radioactive xenon is produced during nuclear fission.


The half-life of xenon-133 is 5 days, and that of xenon-135 is 9 hours.
 
Children and the elderly will begin to show effects first..
Smaller increase in children's weight in Fukushima  NHK.  Excerpts:
 
A survey shows that some children in Fukushima Prefecture have smaller average weight gains this year compared to the year before. A pediatrician says the results indicate the negative effects of the nuclear plant accident in March.



Doctor Shintaro Kikuchi tracked the weights of 245 children aged from 4 to 6 in 2 kindergartens in Koriyama City, Fukushima Prefecture. The results show an average weight increase of 0.81 kilograms over the past year through June. The increase for children in the same age group the previous year was 3.1 kilograms.


The average increase for children aged 5 to 6 in the survey was 0.84 kilograms. But a nationwide health ministry survey conducted last year for children of the same age group showed an average gain of 1.8 kilograms.

Shilling has its price..  From Ex-SKF.  Excerpts:

No, not in a young child in a high radiation spot that is often talked about on Twitter. A 63-year-old TV newscaster has been diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia and is now hospitalized, getting ready for chemo. He felt a strange lump in his neck on October 28, he says. (Various news sources including: Zakzak 11/7/2011, Yomiuri Shinbun 11/6/2011)



In his morning program on Fuji TV he's been promoting Fukushima produce by eating them in the show. He also happened to be in Fukushima in March 15. Just a coincidence. Never mind that ALL is predominant in small children, and an adult case is one in 100,000 annually in Japan.

JP Gov officially admitted that Japanese food is harmful  Fukushima Diary.  Excerpts plus bonus follow up information regarding the previous newscaster in question.  Bonus bonus:  Now chilling photos of newscaster eating irradiated food.  I bet the other news gals are a bit freaked out right now..

Since 311, every time it turned out a kind of food is contaminated, they made “safety” limit, such as 500 Bq/Kg for vegetables, and allowed them to distribute.



However, at today’s meeting of the Lower House Budget Committee, Edano former chief cabinet secretary, current minister of Economy, Trade and Industry admitted that it is harmful for your health if you keep having it for one year.


Edano former chief cabinet secretary is famous for his trade mark phrase, “In short term,it is not harmful”.


He was even called “Short term fraud” by some people.


It is not a small number of people who trusted his word and didn’t evacuate or kept eating food under the “safety limit”. (In other words, LOTS of people trusted him.)


At today’s meeting of the Lower House Budget Committee, he “explained”.


He held 39 press conferences in the first 2 weeks after 311.


BUT he said “In short term, it is not harmful” ONLY 7 times.


OF those, 5 “In short term, it is not harmful”s were for food and drink.


By this he “meant”, you will be sick if you keep having it for one year, but if you have it once or twice, it doesn’t hurt your body.

Japanese emperor to be admitted to the hospital on bronchitis fears  Radiation cares not of your position in life..  The China Post.  Excerpts:

Japanese Emperor Akihito is due to be hospitalized on Sunday with a cold, fever and symptoms of bronchitis, Kyodo news agency reported, citing the Imperial Household Agency.

Akihito, who will turn 78 next month, will be admitted to the University of Tokyo Hospital as a precaution because the fever worsened the bronchitis symptoms and he appeared fatigued and has lost some resistance to fight his illness, Kyodo said.
And:
Five days after the devastating earthquake and tsunami struck Japan's northeast, Akihito made a rare public televised address and in April traveled to the disaster-struck area with Empress Michiko, 77.
 
Still think this is a Japanese problem?  California nuke plant detected 4,000% more iodine-131 than UC Berkeley during Fukushima peak
 
Highest detection of iodine-131 was March 23, 2011 @ 4.3e-06 Bq/liter (0.0000043 Bq/liter of iodine-131) -Source



The Diablo Canyon iodine-131 peak was 0.000188 Bq/liter of iodine-131, or 43.7 times higher than the 0.0000043 Bq/liter peak observed by UC Berkeley.

This was MARCH 23.  November 11 marks Eight Months of essentially non-stop nuclear disbursement.  I wonder what those levels are now?

Look after yourself  Fukushima Diary.  Short answer?  Start taking Calcium and Magnesium.  Especially Calcium.

Scientist Marco Kaltofen Presents Data Confirming Hot Particles  Latest video from Arnie Gundersen and Fairewinds.  Don't have six minutes?  Here's the beef:

Now Mr. Kaltofen did not just look at Japan. He set up monitoring stations in the United States as well. Two of the three monitoring stations in the United States did show hot particles in the air in April. Since then, there have not been any hot particles. But in April, it is clear that, at the worst of the accident, hot particles were wafted across the Pacific and deposited in Seattle and in Boston at least. There is also data that indicates contamination on the ground in the Cascades, which are a mountain range right up against the Pacific Ocean.



So I think we have two problems here. In Japan, there is a personal health issue and what that means is that individuals have received enough radiation that there is going to be a statistically meaningful increase in cancers in Tokyo and especially in Fukushima Prefecture.

In the United States, it is a different story. It is a public health issue and not a personal health issue. What that means is that we will never know who is the individual who got cancer from Fukushima. But we can be sure that the radiation did reach here and that there will be an increase in cancers, especially on the West Coast where the Rocky Mountains stopped most of the radiation and deposited it on the ground.

The costly fallout of tatemae and Japan's culture of deceit  Japan Times.  Excerpts:

There is an axiom in Japanese: uso mo hōben — "lying is also a means to an end." It sums up the general attitude in Japan of tolerance of — even justification for — not telling the truth.

First — defining "telling the truth" as divulging the truth (not a lie), the whole truth (full disclosure) and nothing but the truth (uncompounded with lies) — consider how lies are deployed in everyday personal interactions.



Let's start with good old tatemae (charitably translated as "pretense"). By basically saying something you think the listener wants to hear, tatemae is, essentially, lying. That becomes clearer when the term is contrasted with its antonym, honne, one's "true feelings and intentions."
..
Now extrapolate. What becomes of a society that sees lying as a justifiably institutionalized practice? Things break down. If everyone is expected to lie, who or what can you trust?
And:
..Radiation has no media cycle. It lingers and poisons the land and food chain. Statistics may be obfuscated or suppressed as usual. But radiation's half-life is longer than the typical attention span or sustainable degree of public outrage.



As the public — possibly worldwide — sickens over time, the truth will leak out.

Our near-term and long-term future?  Bleak.

Japan Update, August 19, 2011

Fukushima radiation alarms doctors  Al-Jazeera  Found it on Godlike Productions.  Excerpts:

Scientists and doctors are calling for a new national policy in Japan that mandates the testing of food, soil, water, and the air for radioactivity still being emitted from Fukushima's heavily damaged Daiichi nuclear power plant.

"How much radioactive materials have been released from the plant?" asked Dr Tatsuhiko Kodama, a professor at the Research Centre for Advanced Science and Technology and Director of the University of Tokyo's Radioisotope Centre, in a July 27 speech to the Committee of Health, Labour and Welfare at Japan's House of Representatives.

"The government and TEPCO have not reported the total amount of the released radioactivity yet," said Kodama, who believes things are far worse than even the recent detection of extremely high radiation levels at the plant.

There is widespread concern in Japan about a general lack of government monitoring for radiation, which has caused people to begin their own independent monitoring, which are also finding disturbingly high levels of radiation.

And:

Recent readings taken at the plant are alarming.

When on August 2nd readings of 10,000 millisieverts (10 sieverts) of radioactivity per hour were detected at the plant, Japan's science ministry said that level of dose is fatal to humans, and is enough radiation to kill a person within one to two weeks after the exposure.

10,000 millisieverts (mSv) is the equivalent of approximately 100,000 chest x-rays.

It is an amount 250 per cent higher than levels recorded at the plant in March after it was heavily damaged by the earthquake and ensuing tsunami.

The operator of Japan's crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), that took the reading, used equipment to measure radiation from a distance, and was unable to ascertain the exact level because the device's maximum reading is only 10,000 mSv.

TEPCO also detected 1,000 millisieverts (mSv) per hour in debris outside the plant, as well as finding 4,000 mSv per hour inside one of the reactor buildings.

And:

Jyunichi Tokuyama, an expert with the Iwate Prefecture Agricultural and Fisheries Department, told Al Jazeera he did not know how to deal with the crisis. He was surprised because he did not expect radioactive hot spots in his prefecture, 300km from the Fukushima nuclear plant.

"The biggest cause of this contamination is the rice straw being fed to the cows, which was highly radioactive," Tokuyama told Al Jazeera.

Kamada feels the Japanese government is acting too slowly in response to the Fukushima disaster, and that the government needs to check radiation exposure levels "in each town and village" in Fukushima prefecture.

And:

More than 11,000 tonnes of radioactive water has been released into the ocean from the stricken plant.

"Those radioactive elements bio-concentrate in the algae, then the crustaceans eat that, which are eaten by small then big fish," Caldicott said. "That's why big fish have high concentrations of radioactivity and humans are at the top of the food chain, so we get the most radiation, ultimately."

Magnitude 6.3 - NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN  USGS.

Twi from Ex-SKF..

Radioactive Beef Conundrum: High Level Cesium Detected from Beef Not Fed with Radioactive Rice Hay

Oops. There goes the lifting of the shipping ban for Fukushima.

So where did the cow get the dose of radioactive cesium? Air? Water? No one knows, because everyone in the government and the producers have been looking only at radioactive rice hay.


From NHK News Japanese

 

According to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, radioactive cesium in the amount exceeding the national provisional limit has been detected from the beef from a cow raised in Fukushima Prefecture. This meat has been stored at a meat processing facility, and according to the investigation so far the cow was never fed the radioactive rice hay. The national government was going to lift the shipping ban on meat cows in Fukushima Prefecture today (August 19) but instead has instructed the Fukushima prefectural government to continue to halt shipping for the time being and conduct further investigation.

Now that they can't blame radioactive hay, what will they do?  What will those still in denial cling to?  People are starting to realize this monster is much, much bigger than they wanted to believe..

 

Another "Baseless Rumor": Cicadas in Japan This Summer Have Been Awfully Quiet

 

This is one of those bits of information that people in Japan have been exchanging on the social media since the beginning of summer: "I don't hear cicadas this year".

A typical summer in Japan is hot and humid (except in a few lucky places like Hokkaido), and the air is filled with the "singing" of cicadas.

But this year, people report that cicadas are either extremely quiet or totally silent in large part of Japan. The exception seems to be the Kansai area, but almost everywhere else people say they don't hear cicadas, and it's been a strangely quiet summer.

It is quite possible that it's been like that every year and people have started to pay heightened and nervous attention to the nature around them after the nuclear accident.

But some people have started to post the photos of cicadas they've found this summer. No wonder they don't "sing". Again, it is quite possible that cicadas in Japan have been malformed for a long time and people have just started to notice, and it's nothing to do with radiation.

Maybe, but they're probably related.

Hiroshima to Fukushima, Finishing the Job  Veterans Today via Rense.  Excerpts:

What’s more: the atomic reactors spilled their burning guts into the basements and there is evidence the melted reactor cores are still “reacting” 160 days out. Shutting them down is mostly just plain impossible. The burning, radioactive gates of hell are still open wide. Breathe deep everyone. Breathe your own poisoned Fuku tainted air.

I like articles like this as they make me feel less hyperbolic.  Good morning!

Japan Update, August 18, 2011

Cracked Fukushima: Radioactive steam escapes danger zone  Found it on Godlike Productions.  Video from Russia Today via You Tube.  Scary.

Fukushima I Nuke Plant Worker: No Steam Gushing From Cracks, But There Are Many 10-Plus Sieverts/Hr Locations  Ex-SKF.  Excerpts:

The anonymous Fukushima I Nuke Plant worker whom I featured before several times tweets on the information, yet to be substantiated, related by an independent journalist Kota Kinoshita on his blog on August 15. Mr. Kinoshita related the information only because he had heard the similar information from his government source.

What is that information? That there is steam gushing out of cracks on the ground, and that there are 6 locations that exceed 10 sieverts/hr radiation.

..

About locations that exceed 10 sieverts/hr:

In Mr. Kinoshita's blog:

[The same worker] also told [his contact] that there are 6 locations that exceed 10,000 millisievert/hr [10 sieverts/hr], unlike what TEPCO has announced.

Fukushima worker's tweet:

I think that is true. But those are the locations that have been measured. I think there are many more.

Mr. Kinoshita's blog has this bit of "rumor" from his worker at the plant

There are several cracks on the ground near the Containment Vessel, and the steam is coming out from them, not on a regular basis but sporadically.

Wait, does that mean the floor of the reactor building is cracked? He doesn't say which reactor.

And Fukushima worker has another tweet that says:

 

In the reactor buildings of Reactors 1, 2 and 3, there are many spots that measure even higher [than 10 sieverts/hr] and we can't go near them.

 

Now granted, this is speculation and hasn't been confirmed.  Keeping with TEPCO's previous information dribs and drabs, we should have confirmation when the Southern Hemisphere is thoroughly contaminated three to six months from now, long after the Upcoming Event..

Japan Update, August 12, 2011

Clusterfukushima  Washington's Blog.  Excerpts:

Arnie Gundersen notes that there are currently lethal radiation levels at Fukushima, that even higher measurements are to still come, and that the nuclear core has leaked out and is on floor like a pancake working its way down.

And nuclear regulators only thought about worst case scenarios only involving a single nuclear plant. They totally ignored the fact that power loss to complexes of nuclear reactors - like the cluster of 6 reactors at Fukushima - could lead to multiple simultaneous meltdowns.

And then there's a cluster of cover ups.

As the New York Times reports:

In interviews and public statements, some current and former government officials have admitted that Japanese authorities engaged in a pattern of withholding damaging information and denying facts of the nuclear disaster — in order, some of them said, to limit the size of costly and disruptive evacuations in land-scarce Japan and to avoid public questioning of the politically powerful nuclear industry. As the nuclear plant continues to release radiation, some of which has slipped into the nation’s food supply, public anger is growing at what many here see as an official campaign to play down the scope of the accident and the potential health risks.

And:

Meltdowns at three of Fukushima Daiichi’s six reactors went officially unacknowledged for months. In one of the most damning admissions, nuclear regulators said in early June that inspectors had found tellurium 132, which experts call telltale evidence of reactor meltdowns, a day after the tsunami — but did not tell the public for nearly three months. For months after the disaster, the government flip-flopped on the level of radiation permissible on school grounds, causing continuing confusion and anguish about the safety of schoolchildren here in Fukushima.

And:

The timing of many admissions ... suggested to critics that Japan’s nuclear establishment was coming clean only because it could no longer hide the scope of the accident.

Japan government prepares plan to flee Tokyo  ABC News (Australia) via Rense.  Excerpts:

Japan is considering the possibility of creating a back-up capital city in case a major natural disaster, like the March 11 earthquake, strikes Tokyo.

A new panel from Japan's Ministry of Land and Infrastructure will consider the possibility of moving some of Tokyo's capital functions to another big city, like Osaka.

Osaka it is, then.

Radioactive Beef Consumed in School Lunches in 296 Schools in 12 Prefectures in Japan  Ex-SKF.  Excerpts:

According to the ministry, as of August 9, the meat from the cows that may have eaten radioactive rice hay was used in school lunches in 278 elementary schools, junior high schools, high schools, and special education schools, and 18 kindergartens, in 20 cities and towns in Japan. 127 schools in Yokohama City used it, so did 53 schools and kindergartens in Gifu City [in Gifu Prefecture], and 30 schools and kindergartens in 4 cities in Miyagi Prefecture. The schools are mostly located in eastern Japan, but 40 schools in 4 cities in Mie, Shimane, Kagawa Prefectures also used the meat.

30 schools were able to test the remaining meat, and radioactive materials were detected at 8 schools. Of the 8 schools, two schools - a special education school for students with disabilities in Miyagi Prefecture and an elementary school in Chiba, had the meat that exceeded the provisional safety limit (500 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium), testing 1,293 to 649 becquerels/kg. The municipalities say the amount of contaminated beef per person is small, and it won't affect the health.

Japan's Foreign Minister: Stop Claiming Food is Safe  Japan Times via Before It's News.  Excerpts:

Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto has committed an about-face on policy by telling his ministry to refrain from vouching for the safety of Japanese food.

The ministry stance changed after radiation-tainted beef was found to have been sold to consumers nationwide, sources said.

The contaminated meat is coming from cattle that were fed rice straw contaminated with cesium isotopes ejected by the disaster-crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

Japanese Utilities Select Nuclear Power As Energy Of Future - Questions About The Integrity Of Japanese Officials - Safety is important but the advancement of nuclear power must not be slowed  Lucas Whitfield Hixson.  Comprehensive. 

Strong 5.9 quake jolts Japan disaster zone  Raw Story.  Excerpts:

A 5.9-magnitude earthquake shook northeast Japan Friday, jolting the area devastated by a quake and tsunami in March, but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties and no tsunami warning.

The quake hit at 3:22 am (1822 GMT Thursday) at a depth of 38 kilometres (24 miles), with its epicentre 18 kilometres from Iwaki city in Fukushima prefecture, the United States Geological Survey said.

..

Tokyo Electric Power Company, operator of the crippled plant, said it had noticed no additional problems resulting from the latest quake, which also shook buildings in Tokyo.

Study says nuclear fuel at Fukushima reactor possibly melted twice  Mainichi Daily News.  Excerpts:

Fuel inside one of the reactors at the crippled nuclear complex in Fukushima Prefecture, which was believed to have been kept cool at the bottom of the pressure vessel after its core suffered a meltdown, has possibly breached the vessel after melting again at the bottom of the vessel, an expert's study showed Monday.

The study by Fumiya Tanabe, an expert in nuclear safety, said most of the fuel at the No. 3 reactor may have fallen into the containment vessel underneath, and if so, the current method used to cool the reactor would need reviewing, which could force the plant operator to revise its schedule to contain the five-month-old disaster.  (My how time flies when you're doomed!)

The plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co. earlier said the Nos. 1 to 3 reactors' cores are assumed to have suffered meltdowns, although the melted fuel is believed to be kept cool and solidified at the bottom of each reactor pressure vessel after water was injected into the vessel as an emergency measure.

Fukushima Radiation Highest Ever, Exceeding Capacity of Measuring Device ... Fuel Likely Leaking Out Of Containment Vessel

Washington's Blog has the full roundup.  A few scary headlines..

Tepco Says Highest Radiation Yet Is Detected at Fukushima Dai-Ichi

Tepco: Ultra-high radiation levels may be from melted fuel that leaked out of containment vessel

Experts: Melt-through scenario means even higher radiation readings to come — Likely many more reports of deadly radiation in future

Japan gov’t: Agency funding project to monitor online info about Fukushima crisis — Around the clock monitoring of “blogs on nuclear power” and “Twitter accounts”

Ticktick glow..  Earth's radioactive monster continues to grow..

Japan Update, August 3, 2011

5+ Sieverts An Hour Found On Reactor 1 Second Floor  From Ex-SKF via Rense.  Excerpts:

TEPCO announced on August 2 that the radiation level in the air conditioning room on the 2nd floor of the reactor building of Reactor 1 was over 5 sieverts/hr (or 5,000 millisieverts/hr). It is the highest indoor radiation ever recorded at the plant, higher than 4 sieverts/hr recorded also in the Reactor 1 reactor building on June 3. TEPCO closed off the room.

The vent duct that releases pressure inside the Containment vessel and the emergency gas processing pipe meet inside the room, which is upstream from the main exhaust stack where over 10 sieverts/hr radiation was measured on August 1. According to TEPCO, it is possible that the high concentration of radioactive materials got stuck inside the pipes when the venting was done on the next day after the March 11 earthquake.

Fatal Radiation Level Found at Japanese Plant  New York Times via Godlike Productions.  Excerpts:

The operator, Tokyo Electric Power, said that workers on Monday afternoon had found an area near Reactors No. 1 and 2, where radiation levels exceeded their measuring device’s maximum reading of 10 sieverts per hour — a fatal dose for humans.

..

The company said the workers who found the reading were safely protected by antiradiation clothing. Tokyo Electric said it has closed off an area of several yards around where the lethal radiation level was found. The company said this would not hamper efforts to build a new cooling system and remove contaminated water.

The plant has continued to spew radiation since the disaster, though levels have been dropping. The operator is working to install a new makeshift cooling system by early next year that will allow it to finally shut down the plant’s three damaged reactors.

Fukushima Catastrophe - Disaster Beyond Imagining  You Tube via Before It's News. 

Japan Update, July 23, 2011

Fukushima: Still Dire For Japan ... Still Threatening the U.S. and Canada  Washington's Blog does the heavy lifting here.  Excerpts:

Things are not getting better in Japan.

As a nuclear expert said recently, the "reactors are almost in the same situation they were in the early days of the accident":

Click the link, then just scan the selected headlines. It becomes apparent this contamination event continues to spread radioactivity, a growing ominous-ness born of growing awareness, and fear, of a deadly and unsure, yet glowing, near-and-long-term future..

Japan Update, July 14, 2011

The Conspiracy Theorists Were Right!  or:  Validation!  We're Dead..  The End!


Contaminated Water System: Leak Was from the Same Joint  It really seems like they're just flailing and reacting, creating more chaos.  I didn't know that ferric sulfates could corrode cast iron, but I'm not paid to know things like these, either.  Amazing..


"During April, The People In Seattle Could Have Just As Easily Been In Tokyo For The Amount Of Hot Particles That Were There"   Washington's Blog.


Arnie Gundersen: What the Nuclear Industry Doesn't Want You to Know - July 10, 2011  New video.


Radiation in Japan: As It Is Being Spread Almost Willfully, The Country Is Getting Unhinged  Ex-SKF.  Wow..


*4,320 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium found from the beef from Minami Soma City, Fukushima: the cattle farm that shipped cows found with radioactive cesium far exceeding the already loose provisional safety limit of 500 becquerels/kg is located in the "emergency evacuation-ready zone" - not even "the planned evacuation zone" or plain "evacuation zone", both of which do exist in Minami Soma City.


*Fukushima Prefecture has announced it will shut down the official shelters within Fukushima, which will force the evacuees to go back to their own homes.


*Minami-Soma City has issued a notice to all 32,000 city residents who have been living in the shelters, temporary housing outside Fukushima Prefecture that they must return to Minami-Soma, high radiation or not.


*The national government will spend 100 billion yen (US$1.26 billion) to observe the health of 2 million Fukushima residents for 30 years, instead of evacuating them ASAP. About 1600 yen (US$20) per year per resident. Life is cheap. Since the national government is utterly broke, it will be ultimately paid for by the taxpayers of Japan.




Fast and furious. Shock and awe. I think most people in Japan still cannot fathom how their elected officials and government workers with high education from distinguished schools (Tokyo University, Kyoto University, Oxford University...) could do such things to them. Better wake up really, very quickly.


People say that the Japanese are law-abiding citizens. The Japanese say that to themselves. The truth, as has been slowly revealed over the past 4 months, is that they are followers of the arbitrary and capricious orders, as long as the orders are given to them from the government sources. Never mind if those orders are very much counter to the law itself or the natural law or the common sense.


52,547 Bq/Kg Off Cesium Radiation Found In Soil Just Outside Tokyo  Alexander Higgins/Examiner.  Excerpts:


52,547 Bq/Kg of of Cesium radiation measured in soil samples collected just outside of Tokyo over 135 miles south of the Fukushima nuclear power plant.


A reader from Japan has sent me a copy of his official Lab results for nuclear radiation soil samples collected in Kashiwa, Japan, which is on the outskirts of Tokyo and over 135 miles south of the Fukushima nuclear reactor. The lab results show that 52,547 Becquerels Per Kilogram Of Cesium Radiation was found in the sample. 23,663 Bq/Kg of Cesium 134 radiation was found. 28,884 Bq/Kg of Cesium 137 was detected.
And:
During Chernobyl the threshold for declaring an area a permanent dead zone and issuing a mandatory evacuation was 500,000 Bq/kg so this test, which is by far the highest result for soil yet that I am aware of outside of the area already evacuated around Fukushima, comes in about 1/10th of the permanent Chernobyl "dead zone" threshold.  (And we're only four months into this multiple year marathon..)


Nuclear scientists working at the University of Berkeley in California, who are doing their own radiation testing in the United States, have also pointed out radioactive substances accumulate in broad green leafy plants at a factor of 5-6 times above the surrounding soil. That would indicate the grass or other green plants growing in this soil may have radioactive contamination up to 250,000 Bq/Kg which is extremely high and approaching over half of the 500,000 kilogram permanent "dead-zone"threshold.


This soil sample is also over 50 times higher than the 2,000 Bq/Kg threshold for international nuclear waste.
..
This reading is also startling because as shown in the official nuclear fallout readings from the Government of Japan, as shown on the map on this page, show the highest levels of radiation to the northwest of the Fukushima power plant. The reason for that is most of the prevailing winds have blown to the northwest, north and to the northeast out over the pacific. So far that has spared Tokyo and central Japan as the radiation has been blowing away from these locations. This high of a reading so close to Tokyo makes the situation much more dire as we can clearly see radiation levels very close to Tokyo now building up to permanent "dead-zone" levels.


This high of a level of contamination so close to Tokyo also directly contradicts all official government tests done in the area so far. Those tests so far have shown no "levels of concern" in anything except for sewage slag.

Radioactive Beef from Fukushima Update: Already Been Sold in At Least 9 (not 5) Prefectures  Ex-SKF.  Excerpts:

Beef from 6 cows from the same cattle farmer in Minami Soma City in Fukushima Prefecture have already been sold at least in 9 (not 5) prefectures, according to Mainichi Shinbun Japanese latest update (1:28AM, 7/12/2011).

Unlike the 11 cows whose meat all tested cesium exceeding the provisional limit of 500 becquerels/kg, the meat from these 6 cows had never been tested and allowed to circulate in the market.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries is in charge of testing live cattle, and the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare is in charge of testing meat. They do not talk with each other.

No one in power here is learning anything constructive or applicable.  And even if they are, they are not behaving as such..

Japan Update july 10, 2011

Japan: Strong earthquake rattles tsunami-weary Japan  From Before It's News. 


A strong earthquake with a magnitude of 7.3 hit Japan‘s northeastern coast on Sunday, prompting a brief tsunami warning for the area still recovering from a devastating quake and killer wave four months ago.


Residents in coastal areas were warned to evacuate for about two hours after the quake, but there were no immediate reports of damage.
And:
Sunday’s quake registered 4 on the Japanese scale of 7, meaning it was felt as moderately strong. Because of the damage from the March quake and tsunami, however, many buildings in the area are structurally weak and seawalls have been destroyed, making the region more vulnerable to relatively weaker quakes.


Scandal: Japan Arrests People For Collecting Radioactive Rubble While Claiming No Radiation In The Area
Before It's News.  Excerpts:


As Japan insisted Fukushima was not leaking radiation into the surrounding environment in March, the government was arresting people over 60 kilometers from Fukushima for collecting radioactive rubble without a license, claiming the collection of radioactive material violated the Waste Disposal and Public Cleansing Law.


According to the Government of Japan and TEPCO, as of March 26th they official story was there was the pressure vessels at the Fukushima nuclear reactor were still intact and radiation was not leaking into the environment.
..
Yet while assuring the public radiation was not leaking into the environment, the Government of Japan was busy arresting citizens who were collecting radioactive rubble over 60 kilometer from the Fukushima Nuclear plant.


It would have been nice had they used all that energy towards a dumb ass cover up and directed it towards containment and cleanup.  But they were trying to protect their Bottom Line, which has since gone away.  TEPCO has to stay alive to pay damages to..  essentially everyone in Japan(By the time this bullshit wraps up!), but how can it stay afloat without nationalization?


If anyone is left to read them, there's like.. twenty thousand books about The Earthquake and Nuclear Nightmare just dying to be written..


#Fukushima I Nuke Plant Reactor 3: Humans Entered Reactor Bldg and Did What Bots Couldn't Do  From Ex-SKF via Rense.  Does this sound like anything close to "contained" to you?


TEPCO seems to be in a great hurry to start the nitrogen injection into the Containment Vessel of the Reactor 3. At first I thought it was just a window-dressing effort for the national government who had decided, on some inexplicable reason or unreason, it would be safe enough for people to come back to their homes in the planned evacuation zone as long as the nitrogen gas was pumped into the Reactor 3 Containment Vessel, just so that the government could tell the citizens "See what we've done for you? It's now so much safer you can go back!"


Or, the Reactor 3 is actually in danger of blowing up in a hydrogen explosion.


They have hardly done any work on other reactors. The Reactor 1's basement water, last seen as gushing out 4 sieverts/hour steam through to the 1st floor, hasn't been touched. That water doesn't even go to the water treatment system. I haven't heard any news of TEPCO sampling the water for analysis. There's hardly any news on the Reactor 2, after they opened the double door and supposedly drove out the radioactive materials and moisture inside. They still don't know the water level (if any) inside the Reactor 2's Pressure Vessel, because the pressure gauge and water gauge don't work. As for the Reactor 4, they've been injecting water into the Reactor well and the equipment pool from the bottom of the Reactor Pressure Vessel, which seems peculiar. Other than that, and the photo of a hot-spring-like Spent Fuel Pool on the 5th floor, there's not much information coming out.


Govt., TEPCO draw roadmap to reactor decommission  Story/Video courtesy of NHK World...


A roadmap toward decommissioning of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant indicates that the removal of melted nuclear fuel rods at the plant may begin in 10 years.


NHK has obtained the mid- and long-term roadmap which was presented when officials from the operator of the Fukushima plant, government officials in charge of nuclear safety, and manufacturers of nuclear reactors met last week.
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The work is considered to be the most important phase in the decommissioning process. The roadmap indicates that removal will start in 2021 if technology essential for the work has been developed before that.


If not, then the timeline pushes back.  At the earliest, the containment process ends in ten years.

japan update july 5, 2011

French nuclear power lobbyists used Fukushima smear campaign to promote own businesses  If this were a movie, this would be disgusting and ironically hilarious!  Since it's real, it's just tragic.  Mainichi Daily News.  Excerpts:

The 33-page brochure underscored that General Electric Co. (GE)'s Mark I containment system was employed at the Fukushima plant, while containing speculation and describing fuel melting in the spent fuel storage pool, which never took place. On its last page, the brochure concluded that Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) apparently had not released most of the information it held.  (And yet, it's hard to get worked up about someone smearing TEPCO..)

The leaflet sent shockwaves around Tokyo and Washington, as well as GE officials, who were busy responding to the nuclear crisis. Areva lobbyists stressed that the accident was peculiar to Japan when they handed out the leaflets, hinting that similar accidents would never occur with nuclear plant systems provided by Areva. It was obvious to the recipients of the brochures that they were part of Areva's maneuvering to quash its competitors in the nuclear power business.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy's visit to Japan on March 31 almost coincided with the distribution of the leaflets. During a meeting with Prime Minister Naoto Kan, Sarkozy made assurances that Japan will recover from the crisis and promised to offer the country his full support. He further requested Kan to deliver the opening speech at the G8 summit meeting starting on May 26 in Deauville, France -- marking the first time for a Japanese prime minister to do so.
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Japanese nuclear reactor manufacturers were also overwhelmed by France's marketing strategies. They were effectively overtaken by Areva when the company appealed to TEPCO that it has a better purification system to decontaminate radioactive water released from the Fukushima plant than any other manufacturers and that it could deliver the system swiftly. "We had no choice but to put up with the unendurable," lamented a senior official with a Japanese manufacturer.

After successfully receiving an order from TEPCO, Areva's Lauvergeion stated that the era of low-price competition in the nuclear power business was over, signaling her confidence in Areva's products. She subsequently resigned in late June.

Areva proves they are soulless.  Kinda funny, then(if this were a movie, mind you..) that their decontamination system is a piece of shit..  Yup.  Here in the real world, the joke's on us.

What Really Happened At Fukushima?  From Before It's News.  Excerpts:

Throughout the months of lies and misinformation, one story has stuck: “The earthquake knocked out the plant’s electric power, halting cooling to its reactors,” as the government spokesman Yukio Edano said at a March 15 press conference in Tokyo. The story, which has been repeated again and again, boils down to this: “after the earthquake, the tsunami – a unique, unforeseeable [the Japanese word is soteigai] event - then washed out the plant’s back-up generators, shutting down all cooling and starting the chain of events that would cause the world’s first triple meltdown to occur.”

But what if recirculation pipes and cooling pipes, burst, snapped, leaked, and broke completely after the earthquake -- long before the tidal wave reached the facilities, long before the electricity went out? This would surprise few people familiar with the 40-year-old Unit 1, the grandfather of the nuclear reactors still operating in Japan.

The authors have spoken to several workers at the plant who recite the same story: Serious damage to piping and at least one of the reactors before the tsunami hit.
And:
The reason for official reluctance to admit that the earthquake did direct structural damage to reactor one is obvious. Katsunobu Onda, author of TEPCO: The Dark Empire (東京電力・暗黒の帝国), who sounded the alarm about the firm in his 2007 book explains it this way: “If TEPCO and the government of Japan admit an earthquake can do direct damage to the reactor, this raises suspicions about the safety of every reactor they run. They are using a number of antiquated reactors that have the same systematic problems, the same wear and tear on the piping.”
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Onda notes, “I’ve spent decades researching TEPCO and its nuclear power plants and what I’ve found, and what government reports confirm is that the nuclear reactors are only as strong as their weakest links, and those links are the pipes.”

Have they told the truth about anything?

File Under:  More evidence of The Worst Case Scenario.  Cesium 137 Found in Tokyo Drinking Water

Radioactive cesium-137 was found in Tokyo’s tap water for the first time since April as Japan grapples with the worst nuclear disaster in 25 years. The level was below the safety limit set by the government. (Which, I'm sure, is comforting..)

Cesium-137 registered at 0.14 becquerel per kilogram in Shinjuku ward on July 2 and none(?!!) was discovered yesterday, compared with 0.21 becquerel on April 22, according to the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Public Health. No cesium-134 or iodine-131 was detected, the agency said on its website.
And:
Products including spinach, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, tea, milk, plums and fish have been found to be contaminated with cesium and iodine as far as 360 kilometers (224 miles) from the station. Prolonged exposure to radiation in the air, ground and food can cause leukemia and other cancers, according to the London-based World Nuclear Association.

#Fukushima I Nuke Plant Reactor 5 Cooling Stopped for 3.5 Hours Due to Ruptured Pipe  Ex-SKF via Rense.  Excerpts:

A worker doing the routine inspection of the site in the morning of July 3 noticed the seawater gushing from the pipe that connects to one of the two temporary RHRS (residual heat removal system) pumps for the Reactor 5. The rupture on the pipe was 30 centimeters long and 7 centimeters wide.
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TEPCO called it "leakage", just like a "puddle" that turns out to fill the turbine basement or reactor building basement. An understatement.

#Radiation in Japan: Radioactive Cesium from Ashes from Household Garbage at Waste Disposal Plant in Edogawa-Ku, Tokyo  Ex-SKF/Rense.  Excerpts:

Not a water purification plant or at a waste water treatment plant, but a plant that burns regular, household garbage in eastern Tokyo was found with a high level of radioactive cesium in the fly ashes caught in the incinerator filter.

Edogawa-ku is located at the eastern end of Tokyo. Along with its northern neighbor Katsushika-K, Edogawa-ku seems to have been in denial of the elevated radiation levels throughout the ward, and has only recently (June 18) started to measure the radiation at multiple locations within the ward.

The Edogawa waste disposal plant is located by the Edogawa River that separates Edogawa-ku and Chiba Prefecture. The plant can burn 600 tonnes of garbage per day with 24-hour operation, with 2 incinerators. It's in a mixed residential/commercial neighborhood, with 2 elementary schools nearby, and a nursery school right next to the plant, according to the Google Map.
And:
As I said above, a nursery school is right next to the plant, and there are 2 elementary schools nearby.

Ashes, ashes, we all fall down...