More obstacles impede crews in Japan nuke crisis (spikes in reactor 2 readings were WRONG)

The day began with company officials reporting that radiation in leaking water in the Unit 2 reactor was 10 million times above normal, a spike that forced employees to flee the unit. The day ended with officials saying the huge figure had been miscalculated and offering apologies.

"The number is not credible," said Tokyo Electric Power Co. spokesman Takashi Kurita. "We are very sorry."

While the water is contaminated with radiation, officials are unsure about the actual levels. They planned to take another sample, but Kurita did not know when the results would be known.

Officials acknowledged there was radioactive water in all four of the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex's most troubled reactors, and that airborne radiation in Unit 2 measured 1,000 millisieverts per hour, four times the limit deemed safe by the government.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110327/ap_on_bi_ge/as_japan_earthquake

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The lesson from this is that news is fluid and verify through more than one INDEPENDENT source, especially when readings spike this high.

yup

for years when discussing this crisis. It will be gospel.

That is no accident.

are believed to be inaccurate, they believe that it is not Iodine 134 but another radioactive isotope with a longer half-life. The initial report was that thay found 2.9 million Becquerels per cubic meter of Iodine 134 in the water. This is the figure that they are questioning.

Live reporting here:

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/index.html

indicate fission was occurring in the reactor core which would be VERY bad news.

is radiating over the maximum quantity of militurdets of information.

But then again, who gets to decide what is bullshit?

And while they keep taking those readings and figuring out which end is up, are the Japanese people getting the relief help they need? Let's not forget that!

can not determine what is real and what is lumpen masses of bullshit.

then Tepco is back to lying

and they were the source for this.

The problem is there isn't more than one source for that information, only the one official source.

so we will soon have another source for some of the numbers for some areas.
From their site, they are compiling and checking the numbers before releasing them:

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/news-and-blogs/campaign-blog/from-our-radiation-sampling-team-in-japan/blog/33956
Jacob Namminga, one of our radiation safety advisors, spoke to me via Skype about today's sampling trip in a rural area of Japan, to the north west of the Fukushima nuclear plant. We'll be reporting the details of our findings once they are compiled and have been checked, but I asked Jacob to provide some reflections on what today's trip was like. This is what he had told me.


Back to the number from last night, the most the news sources can do is double check to ensure the numbers inside or adjacent to the plant come from Tepco, the only source for those readings. So, all the reports were based on the official readings. I'm not sure how that could have been reported differently, other than reporters questioning Tepco's own readings each time they are announced.

in the turbine room of Reactor 2. What they think they have erroneously reported on is exactly WHAT is in the water. They originally reported Iodine 134 which has a very short half-life (under 1 hour) and would seem to indicate re-criticality.

for readings inside the plant.

That's an area where multiple, independent sourcing is not possible.

And yeah, looks like they have only retracted that one reading.



http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/top/all/7493328.html

Officials acknowledged there was radioactive water in all four of the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex's most troubled reactors, and that airborne radiation in Unit 2 measured 1,000 millisieverts per hour, four times the limit deemed safe by the government.
Those high airborne readings — if accurate — would make it very difficult for emergency workers to get inside to pump out the water.

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Just outside the coastal Fukushima nuclear plant, radioactivity in seawater tested about 1,250 times higher than normal last week — but that number had climbed to 1,850 times normal by the weekend.