9 years after the terrible nuclear disaster, in the last few days Fukushima is back at the centre of the global discussion. In the last month during, during inspections whilst cleaning up of the site, it emerged that 1.2 million water tons is still radioactive. The figure includes:
- The tsunami’s flood water
- The water used to cool the reactors
but it doesn’t include in its estimations the precipitation and underground water.
In the last days someone blogged irresponsibly about a strategy that could be adopted by the TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) and the Japanese government to solve the problem, creating disinformation and fear in the population in particular in the fishermen, worried for their work and health.
The indiscretion, imprecise and easy to misunderstand, says that the government agreed to pour the 1.2 million tons (now contained in 1000 special tanks) in the sea.
In reality the government hasn’t taken any decision and one of the possibilities, presented by the experts to the assembly, is indeed diluting the contaminated water with cleaned one, reducing the radioactivity level to the allowable limits. Only at the end of the process the water would be released in the sea in small quantities.
The other opportunity is gathering the all water in more special tanks where it will be left to evaporate for years.
In spite of this last issue, problem is still being treated in the best way as possible. The proof is in the radioactivity’s measurements, which are now only 5 millisieverts per each person per year, which is a positive news when compared to the measurements in areas without a nuclear disaster. For example, Europe records an average of 3 millisieverts per year per each person.
For now the site and the reclamation works have been blocked due to the spreading of the Coronavirus, which means that the process will overrun the 6 years forecast by the government.
Written by Nicolas Spirito