Land Of The Rising Core Temperature, Part 32

Meanwhile, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster story has quietly disappeared from the news.  That's unfortunate, because the radiation problem there is worse than ever.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Saturday it has detected radiation of up to 4,000 millisieverts per hour in the building housing the No. 1 reactor at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.

The radiation reading, which was taken when Tepco sent a robot into the No. 1 reactor building on Friday, is believed to be the highest detected in the air at the plant so far.

On Friday, Tepco found steam spewing from the basement into the building's first floor. Nationally televised news Saturday showed blurry video of a steady stream of smoky gas curling up from an opening where a pipe rises through the floor.

OK, so what does "4,000 millisieverts an hour" mean in layman's terms?  How about "well into levels of lethal danger"?

The radiation is so high now that any worker exposed to it would absorb the maximum permissible dose of 250 millisieverts in only about four minutes. Tepco said there is no plan to place workers in that area of the plant and said it will carefully monitor any developments.

The utility said it took the reading near the floor at the southeast corner of the building. The steam appears to be entering from a leaking rubber gasket that is supposed to seal the area where the pipe comes up through the first floor. No damage to the pipe was found, Tepco said.

The reactor's suppression chamber is under the building, and highly radioactive water generated from cooling the reactor is believed to have accumulated there, Tepco said, adding that the steam is probably coming from there.

To recap, 4 Sv is enough to kill you.  That's what's coming out of this section of the plant every hour, enough radiation to kill a person.  Hell, 2 Sv can be fatal, or 30 minutes of exposure here.  Best part?

The fuel rods are believed to have melted almost completely and sunk to the bottom of the containment vessels of reactors 1, 2 and 3.

Not a complete meltdown, but the containment vessels have clearly been breached near reactor 1 and are now leaking deadly amounts of radiation.  They have been leaking since March, people.  It's been almost 3 months now.  If anything, the containment efforts are failing.  This is a serious environmental hazard and will continue to be dangerous for a very long time.

And yet the world continues to ignore the serious plight of Japan right now...and for the most part, continues to ignore the dangers inherent in nuclear power.