News From Japan: Water is leaking from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant

Some unsettling news out of Japan via ENENews.com:

NHK WORLD, Aug 19, 2013: Officials with Tokyo Electric Power Company say they will study storage tanks to find out why radioactive water is leaking from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The officials said on Monday about 120 liters of highly-radioactive water had leaked from a tank near the number 4 reactor. They detected 100 millisieverts per hour of radiation on the surface of puddles near the tanks. The maximum annual exposure limit for nuclear plant workers is 50 millisieverts. […] Officials from the Nuclear Regulation Authority assessed the problem as a level one incident on an 8-point international scale.

Also see this: ‘Water Storage Nightmare’: Bolts in Fukushima tanks will corrode in just a few years, plant workers reveal — “Tepco says it doesn’t know how long tanks will hold” -Reuters

Ugh… Not good at all. 🙁

Japan saw the metdown coming, documents show

Interesting….:

(Reuters) – Japan’s government foresaw the possibility of a meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear power plant hours after a huge tsunami smashed into it, according to cabinet minutes released on Friday, although it took officials more than a month to acknowledge it.

The earthquake and tsunami on March 11 knocked out cooling systems at Tokyo Electric Power Co’s (Tepco) Fukushima Daiichi plant, triggering the world’s worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986.

“Cooling functions still in service are those run by batteries. They will last eight hours,” a summary of the first emergency cabinet meeting, four hours after the quake, quoted an unidentified participant as saying.

“If core temperatures in the reactors remain on the rise for more than eight hours, there is a possibility that meltdown may occur.”

A Trade Ministry official who acted as a government spokesman after the disaster struck was replaced after he mentioned the possibility of meltdown on March 12.

via Japan foresaw possible Fukushima meltdown from day 1: documents | Reuters.

Wow…..just Wow. 😯

6.9 Quake Strikes Okenawa in Japan

Good.

Japan’s meteorological agency issued a tsunami warning tonight following a powerful undersea earthquake off the coast of the southern island of Okinawa.

The agency said the tremor, at about 8.30pm GMT, was centred about 50 miles east of the city of Naha. They said it measured 6.9 on the Richter scale.

The US Geological Survey reported the quake at a stronger 7.3.

The Japanese agency warned of a possible tsunami of up to 2 metres around the Okinawan coast, Reuters reported.

via Tsunami warning after undersea earthquake near Japan | World news | guardian.co.uk.

The Ghosts of Pearl Harbor have gotten their revenge. Could not have happened to a better bunch of people.

Some of us have not forgotten about 1941.