Daniel Korski

Meltdown danger

The situation in Japan is deteriorating further. In the early hours of this morning, the last workers are said to have left the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant as the danger of a nuclear meltdown grew. There have been explosions in three of the plant’s reactors and a fourth one is on fire. Everyone within a 30 kilometre radius has been told to stay indoors, and the U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet, stationed more than 100 miles away to help earthquake victims, sailed farther away from the stricken plant after detecting unusual levels of radioactivity in the air.

The Japanese Prime Minister, Naoto Kan, has confirmed that, “substantial amounts of radiation are leaking in the area”. And Tokyo Electric reported that a reading of 8,217 microsieverts per hour of radiation was taken at the plant’s gates after the latest explosion: a fourfold increase from 40 minutes earlier, and three times more than a person absorbs all year.

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