SIGHTINGS



Japan Tokai Nuclear
Accident Said Far
From Over
10-6-99
 
 
Criticality accident at Tokai uranium processing plant
 
15th REPORT
 
AT A LOSS WHAT TO DO WITH EXTREME CONTAMINATION; FALLOUT RADIOACTIVITY DETECTED; THE ACCIDENT FAR FROM OVER
 
10-6-99
 
Is the Tokai accident over?
 
No way!
 
First of all, nobody knows what is the physical condition inside the buildin g in which the criticality took place. The radiation (now mainly gamma) leve l is too high so that there is no access for the time being.
 
At least we are 100% certain that there is a good lot of fission products (i .e. radioactive materials) in that building, namely what JCO calls the Re-co nversion Test Building.
 
This means at least two things:
 
* We do not know whether there is physical destruction of the building struc ture through which the fission products can escape into atmosphere.
 
* A large number of workers prepared for radiation exposure is needed for li quidation of the site.
 
There is an alternative, of course, of doing no liquidation work and just sh ield the entire building with concrete and/or some other material, i.e. cons truction of a Chernobyl-type sacrophagus although the size is much smaller.
 
At the moment, the site has been walled with a make-shift shield of piled sa ndbags actuallyu containing alminium powder that absorbs neutrons and dry co ncrete that blocks gamma.
 
The following is an inventory of fission products detected within 3km of the accident site. The figures were taken from newspapers and TV reports, and ha s been compiled by CNIC.
 
* strontium-91 --- 0.021Bq/m*3 in air, 900m southeast of the site
* strontium-91 (krypton-91) --- unknown amount, location not specified
* iodine-131 --- 54.7Bq/kg from mugwort leaves, 100m from the site
* iodine-133 (krypton-91) --- unreported amount, 100m from the site
* cesium-137 --- unreported amount, 7 locations
* sodium-24 --- 64Bq/kg, 300m west from the site
* sodium-24 --- 1.7Bq/kg, 3km west from the site
* xenon-139 --- from the vomit of the exposed workers
* krypton-91 --- from the vomit of the exposed workers
 
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editor: Dr K. Hosokawa
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email: <hosokawk@cc.saga-u.ac.jp
snail mail: Faculty of Agriculture,
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