21 August 2013 (16:09 UTC-07 Tango)/14 Shawwal 1434/30 Mordad 1392/15 Geng-Shen (7th month) 4711
“If a leak occurred in one tank, we should assume that the same thing could happen at other tanks as well.”-Tanaka Shunichi, Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NRA)
Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCo) has revealed yet another radiation leak pouring into the Pacific Ocean! The new leak was found in a runoff ditch about 50 meters (164 feet) from a contaminated water storage tank farm (complex), located on a hillside. This is not in connection to the discovery on 19 August of a massive leak coming from the Reactor 4 tank farm. TEPCo admits that this new leak is draining into the Pacific Ocean. The water tested at six millisieverts per hour of radiation.
In another example of corporate incompetence, TEPCo admitted they have not been monitoring leaking contaminated water storage tanks at the Reactor 4 tank farm! Awhile back they knew about 350 1-thousand metric tons capacity tanks were leaking, but they dealt with it by building a short retaining wall around the tank farm, and then they basically forgot about it!
That is until 19 August when underpaid and undertrained workers discovered a 300 metric tons leak outside of the retaining wall! Now workers, under guidance of the NRA, have confirmed at least four of the 1-thousand metric tons capacity tanks are leaking!
“The water is believed to contain thousands of trillions of becquerels of radioactive substances.”-NHK (Nippon Housou Kyoukai/Japan Broadcasting Corporation)
Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority has now declared the leaking storage tanks near the GE designed Reactor 4 to be a Level Three Incident, which is considered a “Serious incident” on the zero to seven level international Nuclear Event Standard. The NRA is now asking the International Atomic Energy Agency for help!
The contamination detected on 19 August was at 100 millisieverts per hour! The safe limits for nuclear industry workers in Japan are set at 50 millisieverts per year!
Here’s some more examples of incompetence: Many of the water tanks have no way of gauging how much water is in them, which would make it easier to know if they were leaking, and by how much! The tanks are not welded, they consist of steel panels that are bolted together! Realize that TEPCo simply built a retaining wall around the tank farm, because they knew the tanks were leaking, another question is how much of that leaked water held withing the retaining wall has seeped into the ground, and for how long?
In a bid to gain some confidence, TEPCo officials announced that their Vice President, Aizawa Zengo, will take direct command of the ongoing nuke disaster. Aizawa’s office will be moved to Fukushima Daiichi.