The French company Areva SA is increasing the number of nuclear experts they’ve sent to Japan, to help deal with the Fukushima Daiichi crisis.
Areva SA now has 15 technicians in Japan. Some of the technicians specialize in removing contaminated water, and dismantling nuclear power plants.
France based Areva is also trying to get a uranium enrichment operation built in Idaho, U.S.A.
Despite efforts to stop the contaminated water from spilling into the Pacific Ocean, Tokyo Electric Power Company, and the Japanese government, say contamination levels just off the Fukushima coast are at highest point so far.
Iodine-131 has hit 88.5 becquerels per liter, 30km (18.6 miles) away from Fukushima Daiichi. Cesium-137 levels continue to climb as well, but are still under Japanese safe limits.
A Kyodo News investigation revealed that more than 100 evacuation sites were swept away by the March 11 tsunami.
Most of the evacuation sites were selected by local governments. One of the main reasons for selecting the site, even though many were near sea level, is that they were thought to be too far inland for any tsunami. Not only was the tsunami higher than expected, it reached much farther inland.
In Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, most elementary school students lost their lives, along with all but one of their teachers, no thanks to a vague manual about tsunami evacuations.
On March 11, 70% of students at Okawa Primary School were killed. 10 of the 11 teachers were also killed. When the 9.0 earthquake hit, teachers knew they needed to get the kids home, so they called the parents to come pick them up. But time was against them. Suddenly the tsunami warning sounded. The teachers looked in a manual to figure out what to do. The manual simply said “get to higher ground”.
Okawa Primary School is located on the edge of a large river that empties into the ocean. The only high ground is a steep mountainside that the teachers didn’t think the kids could climb, so they headed for a bridge. A 70 year old witness said he was amazed, they were going the wrong way! He ran towards the mountain and survived, only to witness the line of children, and their teachers, get hit by the tsunami.
One problem for the decision making of the teachers was a tsunami survey, which said that any tsunami that reached the school would be less than one meter (3.2 feet) high. The tsunami that hit the school, on March 11, was 10 meters (32.8 feet) high. “No one thought tsunami would even reach this area.”-witness
Toyota is suspending production at all its European factories.
Plants in Britain, France, Turkey and Poland will be closed for several days on April 21, 22, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29 and May 2.
Toyota also said they have yet to decide what they’ll do after that. The parts supply problem in Japan does not show signs of lessening. Toyota might be force to continue with sporadic factory shut downs, with all its plants.
President Benigno Aquino ordered all Filipinos living within 50km of Fukushima Daiichi, to leave the area. Any Filipinos living outside the 50 kilometers (31 miles) zone, can voluntarily leave.
The Philippine government said they would pay all the costs of bringing their citizens back to the Philippines. Any Filipinos who want to stay are ordered to move to the southern part of the big island of Honshu.
The order came when it was officially announced that Fukushima Daiichi was a level 7 nuke disaster (the highest level).
Ibaraki Prefecture hit with a 5.8 aftershock, Wednesday morning (Japan time). The day before Ibaraki suffered a 6.3 aftershock.
More info on the strontium contamination found more than 30km from Fukushima Daiichi.
Namie Town and Iitate Village have evidence of strontium 90 contamination, they are 30km (18.6 miles) from the reactors. Strontium 90 was also found in plant samples from Motomiya City, Ono Town and Otama and Nishigo Villages. They are between 40 to 80 kilometers (24.8 to 49.7 miles) from Fukushima Daiichi.
The strontium was detected between 16 & 19 March. One nuclear engineer points out that is immediately after Reactor 3 exploded. Strontium would only come from fuel rods, and it’s a possible indicator that the reactor itself was damaged.
Since the March 11 disasters, more than 560,000 hotel reservations have been canceled in Japan. It goes in hand with the recent report that tourism has dropped by 75%.
The Japan Tourism Agency expects hotel cancellations to continue, as Japan keeps getting hit with intense aftershocks. Also, hotel reservations for April and May are down as much as 45% from last year.
Radioactive strontium has been detected in soil and plants, beyond the 30km (18.6 miles) zone around Fukushima Daiichi.
Strontium 90 is produced by nuclear reactors. It’s half life is about 29 years. It is absorbed by your bones, leading to disorders such as bone cancer.
Officially, this is the first time the detection of strontium has been announced. The samples were taken on 15 & 16 March. There have been several nuclear analysts who said not all types of radiation where being reported to the public!