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meanwhile, in fukushima

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Toronto, 2011.08.02

Another new record-high radioactivity reading at the stricken Fukushima power plant today, according to NHK.

"Highest radioactivity level detected at nuke plant

The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says it has detected 10,000 millisieverts of radioactivity per hour at the plant. The level is the highest detected there since the nuclear accident in March.

Workers of Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, on Monday measured the extremely high level of radioactivity near pipes at the bottom of a duct between the No.1 and neighboring No.2 reactor buildings.

According to the science ministry's brochure, if a human received 10,000 millisieverts, they would likely die within a week or two.

TEPCO has restricted access to the site and the surrounding area.

The utility says the workers taking measurements on Monday were exposed to up to 4 millisieverts.

The utility says the high level of radioactivity was detected because the pipes were used to vent air containing radioactive substances from the crippled No.1 reactor on March 12th.

The utility had detected a maximum of 1,000 millisieverts per hour outdoors in debris, and also found a maximum of 4,000 millisieverts per hour indoors in one of the reactor buildings.

Tuesday, August 02, 2011 06:33 +0900 (JST)"

rand()m quote

Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

—Michael Crichton