More on the earlier news that Steven Chu "thought" a partial meltdown may have occurred, the just released news escalates the verbiage, which is now a definitive: "US Energy Chief says 'partial meltdown' occurred at the Fukushima Plant." The next step is his urgent recommendation for all US citizens who live within 80 kilometers of Fukushima to evacuate or take shelter indoors.
Meanwhile here in the states, the US dollar is melting down as investors are fleeing towards the Japanese yen.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled and the Japanese Yen broke to fresh 16-year highs against the US Dollar on fresh fears over risks at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi power plant.
European Energy Commissioner Oettinger fanned fears as he told a European Parliament committee that “the [nuclear] site is effectively out of control,” and the situation is somewhere between “a disaster and a major disaster.” Frayed market nerves meant that the comments instantly sparked sharp sell-offs in ‘risk’; the Dow Jones Industrial Average nearly 200 points in the 20 minutes following the commentary.
At one point after Oettinger's comments, the dollar was under 80 yen. And as far as the plant is concerned, we're seeing things get worse by the hour.
Japan’s nuclear crisis intensified on Wednesday after the authorities announced that a second reactor unit at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi plant in northeastern Japan may have ruptured and appeared to be releasing radioactive steam.
The break, at the No. 3 reactor unit, worsened the already perilous conditions at the plant, a day after officials said the containment vessel in the No. 2 reactor had also cracked.
The possibility of high radiation levels above the plant prompted the Japanese military to put off a highly unusual plan to dump water from helicopters — a tactic normally used to combat forest fires — to lower temperatures in a pool containing spent fuel rods that was dangerously overheating at the No. 4 reactor. The operation would have meant flying a helicopter into the steam rising from the plant.
But in one of a series of rapid and at times confusing pronouncements on the crisis, the authorities insisted that damage to the containment vessel at the No. 3 reactor — the main focus of concern earlier on Wednesday — was unlikely to be severe.
Yukio Edano, the chief cabinet secretary, said the possibility that the No. 3 reactor had “suffered severe damage to its containment vessel is low.” Earlier he said only that the vessel might have been damaged; columns of steam were seen rising from it in live television coverage.
The reactor’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, said it had been able to double the number of people battling the crisis at the plant to 100 from 50, but that was before the clouds of radioactive steam began billowing from the plant. On Tuesday, 750 workers were evacuated, leaving a skeleton crew of 50 struggling to reduce temperatures in the damaged facility. An increasing proportion of the people at the plant are soldiers, but the exact number is not known.
At this point at least two reactors have suffered from containment breaches and partial meltdowns, and the other four reactors are all in various stages of problems, including the spent fuel rod pools continuing to be a massive potential issue.
"Duck and cover" is not a realistic response, guys.
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