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A leak occurred when workers accidentally detached a pipe connected to a desalination system and as much as 10 tons of radioactive water may have spilled, hitting workers and covering the floor.
Shunichi Tanaka, chairman of Japan's nuclear watchdog, the Nuclear Regulation Authority, said that while he did not believe the workers were exposed to "a seriously troubling dosage," he said that "the fact that there has been a string of incidents occurring on a daily basis that could have been avoided--I think that is the large problem."
Wednesday's mishap was the second to hit the plant this week.
On Monday, a worker at Fukushima accidentally turned off power to pumps for a water cooling system.
And just days before that, on Thursday of last week, TEPCO announced another spill at the crisis-hit plant released water 6,700 times more radioactive than the legal limit.
The list of problems contributing to the ongoing Fukushima disaster are far from solved, as anti-nuclear activist Harvey Wasserman recently wrote:
Massive quantities of heavily contaminated water are pouring into the Pacific Ocean. Hundreds of huge, flimsy tanks are also leaking untold tons of highly radioactive fluids.
At Unit #4, more than 1,300 fuel rods, with more than 400 tons of extremely radioactive material, containing potential cesium fallout comparable to 14,000 Hiroshima bombs, are stranded 100 feet in the air.
All this more than 30 months after the 3/11/2011 earthquake/tsunami led to three meltdowns and at least four explosions.
A group of nuclear experts issued a letter "in urgency" to UN head Ban Ki-moon last month imploring him to coordinate international action to deal with the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.
____________________
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |

A leak occurred when workers accidentally detached a pipe connected to a desalination system and as much as 10 tons of radioactive water may have spilled, hitting workers and covering the floor.
Shunichi Tanaka, chairman of Japan's nuclear watchdog, the Nuclear Regulation Authority, said that while he did not believe the workers were exposed to "a seriously troubling dosage," he said that "the fact that there has been a string of incidents occurring on a daily basis that could have been avoided--I think that is the large problem."
Wednesday's mishap was the second to hit the plant this week.
On Monday, a worker at Fukushima accidentally turned off power to pumps for a water cooling system.
And just days before that, on Thursday of last week, TEPCO announced another spill at the crisis-hit plant released water 6,700 times more radioactive than the legal limit.
The list of problems contributing to the ongoing Fukushima disaster are far from solved, as anti-nuclear activist Harvey Wasserman recently wrote:
Massive quantities of heavily contaminated water are pouring into the Pacific Ocean. Hundreds of huge, flimsy tanks are also leaking untold tons of highly radioactive fluids.
At Unit #4, more than 1,300 fuel rods, with more than 400 tons of extremely radioactive material, containing potential cesium fallout comparable to 14,000 Hiroshima bombs, are stranded 100 feet in the air.
All this more than 30 months after the 3/11/2011 earthquake/tsunami led to three meltdowns and at least four explosions.
A group of nuclear experts issued a letter "in urgency" to UN head Ban Ki-moon last month imploring him to coordinate international action to deal with the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.
____________________

A leak occurred when workers accidentally detached a pipe connected to a desalination system and as much as 10 tons of radioactive water may have spilled, hitting workers and covering the floor.
Shunichi Tanaka, chairman of Japan's nuclear watchdog, the Nuclear Regulation Authority, said that while he did not believe the workers were exposed to "a seriously troubling dosage," he said that "the fact that there has been a string of incidents occurring on a daily basis that could have been avoided--I think that is the large problem."
Wednesday's mishap was the second to hit the plant this week.
On Monday, a worker at Fukushima accidentally turned off power to pumps for a water cooling system.
And just days before that, on Thursday of last week, TEPCO announced another spill at the crisis-hit plant released water 6,700 times more radioactive than the legal limit.
The list of problems contributing to the ongoing Fukushima disaster are far from solved, as anti-nuclear activist Harvey Wasserman recently wrote:
Massive quantities of heavily contaminated water are pouring into the Pacific Ocean. Hundreds of huge, flimsy tanks are also leaking untold tons of highly radioactive fluids.
At Unit #4, more than 1,300 fuel rods, with more than 400 tons of extremely radioactive material, containing potential cesium fallout comparable to 14,000 Hiroshima bombs, are stranded 100 feet in the air.
All this more than 30 months after the 3/11/2011 earthquake/tsunami led to three meltdowns and at least four explosions.
A group of nuclear experts issued a letter "in urgency" to UN head Ban Ki-moon last month imploring him to coordinate international action to deal with the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.
____________________