Japanese officials are readying a new approach to cooling reactors at the Fukushima nuclear plant after discovering an Olympic swimming pool-sized pond of radioactive water in the basement of a unit crippled by the March earthquake and tsunami.
The discovery has forced officials to abandon their original plan to bring under control the No. 1 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi plant as they focus on how to deal with the rising pool that some experts see as a threat to groundwater and the Pacific coast.
Despite the setback, Japanese nuclear safety officials and the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO), plan to stick to a target of stabilizing the plant and bringing its reactors to a state of "cold shutdown" by January.
At that point, the fuel at the core of the reactors would have dropped in temperature and no longer be capable of boiling the surrounding water.
January. Meanwhile, the exposed fuel rods will continue to spew radioactive particles for months. It's getting into the water and the soil and the air and will continue to do so for a very, very long time. That brings us to the second story:
Japan on Sunday started the first evacuations of homes outside a government exclusion zone after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami crippled one of the country's nuclear power plants.
Some 4,000 residents of Iidate-mura village as well as 1,100 people in Kawamata-cho town, in the quake-hit northeast, began the phased relocations to public housing, hotels and other facilities in nearby cities.
Their communities are outside the 20-kilometre radius from the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, officially designated as an area of forced evacuation due to health risks from the radiation seeping from the ageing and damaged plant.
The government told people in communities such as Iidate-mura they had to leave, but authorities are unlikely to punish those who choose to stay.
"I am sure all of you have lived in Iidate-mura all your life and never moved," mayor Norio Kanno told a group of residents preparing to leave their homes.
"Considering the future of our children and young people, as well as the health of our village residents, we have no choice but to go ahead with the village-wide evacuation," he said.
"I will do whatever I can so that you will be able to return home as soon as possible."
The first batch of evacuees were mostly those with small children and pregnant women, who are considered more vulnerable.
Expect more of this. Much, much more. And where will these people relocate to, one has to wonder? Make no mistake, this is a generational disaster playing out before our eyes here in Japan. And it will only get worse.
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