BNC Fukushima Daiichi nuclear saga - 2 to 9 April overview

Fukushima Daiichi nuclear saga - 2 to 9 April overview Barry Brook | 9 April 2011 at 10:45 PM | Categories: Hot News, Nuclear | URL: http://wp.me/piCIJ-18V

The nuclear crisis at Fukushima Daiichi has, alas, now evolved into more of a saga. The last seven days of events has been acted out in slow motion compared to the first dramatic week (dating back to almost a month ago), but there continues to be plenty of headaches for TEPCO -- and no clear sign of things being locked down any time soon. The economic cost of the earthquake and tsunami has now been put at ~$300 billion, and will probably rise further in the coming months.
I last wrote an update post a week ago (although I've also been providing daily updates in the comments section), so it's best to start this one by looking at what's happened, day by day, since then. Here is my somewhat potted update summary, with just the main points highlighted.
It was 2nd of April (Saturday) that it was first reported that a stream of contaminated water was flowing into the ocean, leading to extremely high radiation levels immediately offshore of the plant. The water appeared to be coming from the vicinity of Unit 2, and after some diagnostics, including the use of a coloured tracer (dye), the source was identified as a 20 cm crack in a maintenance pit which lies between Unit 2 and the sea. The pit is used to hold cables to power the seawater pumps. Its radiation was measured as ~1 Sv/hr.
In the evening of 2 April, concrete injection was trialled as a means to seal the crack, but this failed. Throughout 3 April, a second attempt was made,  this time via  injection of a water-absorbing polymer, mixed with sawdust and shredded paper (to aid in the swelling process). This also did not set. To mitigate the leaks to the ocean, plans were then made to try and pump a large amount of the contaminated water out of the pit and into storage, including some barges that had been anchored offshore.

It was also announced by TEPCO that the bodies of the two workers who had been missing in the turbine building of Unit 2 since the tsunami struck had been recovered on March 30. They'd apparently been drowned when the site had been innundated. The image above illustrates just how devastated the landscape around the plant is after the monster wave (14 m in this area of the coastline) wreaked its havoc.
Along with the crane operator at Fukushima Daiini, WNN reports...

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