The Japanese government more than doubled its estimate Monday for the amount of radiation released from the Fukushima nuclear plant during the first week of the atomic crisis in March, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA), a government nuclear watchdog, also said it believed that reactor cores at some of the units at the complex melted much more quickly than the plant operator previously suggested, in fresh evidence on the severity of the nuclear disaster.
NISA said that it now estimates the total amount of radiation released into the atmosphere in the first week of the crisis at 770,000 terabecquerels. That compares with NISA’s previous estimate, released April 12, of 370,000 terabecquerels for the first month of the crisis.
The latest radiation figure was still only about 10 percent of the radiation released from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, the agency said.
But the sharp upward revision showed that the failure to contain the crisis swiftly resulted in greater radioactive contamination of surrounding regions than previously thought, the WSJ said.
Meanwhile, traces of plutonium were also detected outside the plant’s No. 1 reactor and were confirmed to have come from the plant, Kyodo News reported.
A tiny trace of plutonium was previously reported found at the Fukushima plant, but authorities suspected that it was the result of “nuclear bomb tests elsewhere,” the report said.
(Source: Newscore)
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They are still NOT telling the anywhere near the full truth. The hydrogen gas explosions splattered material all over, including radioactive material- which is what a dirty bomb is. But there is MORE. As someone who understands a fair amount of nuclear science, I also agree with the following video explanation; radiaoctive fuel CHUNKS were thrown out over a mile- when one of the “spent fuel” storage pools, was radioactively detonated- like a real atom bomb, when subjected to the pressure of the hydrogen explosion with-out it’s required water cooling bath. Spent fuel is still highly radioactive- just not what the nuke needs and the pools are ~50′ x 50’x 50′; huge. This explosion would also explain why Japan suddenly discovered that 10s of tons of their recycled sewer sludge was so radiaoctive it needs to be disposed of as nuclear waste. After that explosion of radioactive fuel, there was a heavy rain, and lots of it rain into what was left of their tsunami ravaged sewer system. Pray for out planet. This is not done. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiNUpeODOEU&feature=related
Here is a video of that pool after the explosion http://www.nuclearfreeplanet.org/new-video-destroyed-spent-fuel-pool-sfp3-of-reactor-unit-3-at-fukushima-daiichi-8-may-2011.html