TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) officials say sea water entering the suppression chamber (containment vessel?) might be causing the pressure build up in reactor 3.
They noticed when spraying of sea water the pressure increased, also, when they stopped the pressure went down, but it is still higher than before the sea water was sprayed.
Honda is suspending May orders from U.S. Honda dealers.
Typically, dealers order cars six weeks in advance. Honda hopes to resume partial production in Japan by Wednesday, but doesn’t know when production will return to full capacity due to the developing nuclear disaster.
This will affect the availability of the Fit, CR-Z, Civic Hybrid, Insight, Acura TSX, Acura RL and a small number of CR-Vs.
Japanes Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, said milk & spinach from Fukushima & Ibaraki Prefectures.
Edano says they believe that none of the contaminated products made it into the supply chain, and down played any health risks.
Radioactive iodine and cesium have been detected in tap water, rain and air as far south as Tokyo. The announcement was made by scientists and the Ibaraki prefectural government, but down played any health risk.
Earlier TEPCO officials were worried about pressure building in reactor 3 containment chamber.
There were concerns that they would have release radioactive air from the chamber.
Now they say simpler attempts to relieve pressure is working, and pressure has dropped.
Japanese officials are now saying the height of the tsunami was at least 13 meters (43 feet).
Originally officials put the waves between 4 & 10 meters high. It became clear the tsunami was higher than 10 meters when sea walls, all along the coast line at ground zero, had been crested and destroyed. The sea walls, some of them ‘double walls’, were 10 meters high.
Many people in ground zero areas of Japan’s state of Honshu, who have not been able to evacuate, are using cars as shelter. There are no shelters available for them.
One woman said the cars do not have enough fuel to drive, so they are running the engines periodically to use the vehicle’s heaters to keep warm. Even if a vehicle has enough fuel to drive, all roads in and out of the area have been destroyed.
Reactor 3 has been sprayed for several hours, before spraying switched to reactor 4. Holes had been drilled into the outer walls of reactor 4. Water sprayed into holes for about an hour.
Radiation levels lower (officials saying it is not a “dramatic” reduction). Water spraying throughout the night.
Spraying operations include one truck from the U.S. military, and 10 trucks from Japanese form departments.
Trying to connect power to central control room, and reactors 5 & 6. Hoped to run reactors 5 & 6 on outside power. Reactors 3 & 4 can not be connected to outside power due to high radiation levels around the reactors.
Doctors working at overwhelmed hospitals in the tsunami hit areas of Honshu were surprised to see so many hypothermia cases.
This is because most of the medical personnel were in “earthquake survivor” mode, meaning they were expecting conditions related only to the earthquake. They did not think about “tsunami survivors”. It is now clear that, despite the 9.0 quake, the victims coming into shelters and hospitals are suffering from the effects of the tsunami.
The water off Japan is cold, it is winter there. The water in the Indian Ocean, where the 2004 Sumatra tsunami hit, is much warmer so hypothermia did not become a major issue there.
Dozens of people died after being take to emergency shelters, probably from hypothermia, because the shelters were NOT prepared for what happened.
In a press conference Japanese Fire Fighting officials have expressed sorrow for the literal sacrifice that fire crews, at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, are making.
They stated that many of the fire fighters insisted they were willing to endure high levels of radiation if it would help solve the crisis. One official said his own wife understood that it could be necessary for him to become a “savior” for Japan.
Officials are now saying that some workers at the plant have radiation exposure equivalent of 10 chest X-rays every hour.