Post date: Aug 21, 2013 11:16:34 AM
Japan debates issuing gravest Fukushima nuclear warning in two years.
TOKYO, JAPAN (AUGUST 21, 2013) (REUTERS) - Japan said on Wednesday (August 21) that it would look into dramatically raising the severity of a toxic water leak at the Fukushima nuclear plant, its most serious action since the plant was destroyed by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011.
The deepening crisis at the Fukushima plant may be upgraded from a level 1 "anomaly" to a level three "serious incident" on an international scale for radiological releases, a spokesman for Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority(NRA) said."Normally the INES (International Nuclear Event Scale) scale is used but, in this case, we need to debate about whether its necessary or using these numbers is appropriate as it may be taken a certain way and cause people to jump to the wrong conclusion. So we are still discussing what to do," Japanese Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) chairman Shunichi Tanaka said, adding they will be consulting with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) before coming to a final decision.
If they do that will mark the first time Japan has issued a warning on the INES since three reactor meltdowns after the massive quake in March 2011.
A maximum level 7 was declared at the battered plant after explosions led to a loss of power and cooling two years ago, confirming Fukushima as the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl a quarter of a century earlier.
"It's not a situation now where if we increase our monitoring structure that there won't be any accidents. Prediction is well, I don't know if this way of saying it is appropriate, but it's like a haunted house (at an amusement park) and, as I've said before, things keep happening one after the other," Tanaka told reporters.
He said that all they can do now is look to prevent something even worse from happening.
"So we have look into how to reduce the risk and how to prevent it from becoming a fatal or serious accident," he said.
Contaminated water with dangerously high levels of radiation is leaking from a storage tank at Fukushima, the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co said on Tuesday. The leak was classified as an "anomaly" earlier this week.
The leak, which has not been plugged, is so contaminated that a person standing 50 cm (1.6 feet) away would, within an hour, receive a radiation dose five times the average annual global limit for nuclear workers.
After 10 hours, a worker in that proximity to the leak would develop radiationsickness with symptoms including nausea and a drop in white blood cells.
The Japanese government said that the situation regardless of whatever level it is classed as, the situation needs to be dealt with.
"Any way you look at it, this is deplorable. The government will make every effort to halt the leak of contaminated water as soon as possible," Japanese chief cabinetsecretary and government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said.
Each one-step INES increase represents a tenfold increase in severity, according to a factsheet on the website of the International Atomic Energy Agency.