Sunday, March 20, 2011

Increasing Radioactivity

The government in Japan confirmed that there is radioactivity in the nation's food supply. Luckily it's only been found in milk and spinach. Although it's been found on farms that are 90 miles away from the nuclear plants. About 500 workers tried to connect and restore the power lines to help cool off the reactors. So far they've only succeeded in restoring power to one of the reactors, but they're hoping to restore power the others. Rescue workers tried to douse reactor no.3, after spraying more than 2400 tons of water for 14 hours. Radiation levels are dropping in that area. Then, on Sunday, 11 firetrucks began spraying water at reactor no.4.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/world/asia/20japan.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=radioactivity%20in%20japan&st=cse
So far, the radiation outside of the plants are not high enough to actually cause any harm. Officials in Germany are ordering to shut down 7 of the oldest reactors just to be safe. People in Switzerland are ordering to stop the development of new nuclear power plants. Before the disaster, Japan had 54 operational nuclear plants. 27% of the country's power is provided by the reactors. The low cost and reduced greenhouse gas emission from the nuclear fuel is popular in Japan. 20% of U.S. electricity also comes from nuclear power.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/20/nuclear.risks/index.html?iref=allsearch
Reactor no.5 and 6 are declared safe and are the least problematic out of the six. Officials have began distributing potassium iodide pills. The pills will protect people from getting thyroid cancer, which is one of the diseases that you can get from radiation. They've also admitted that they should have distributed the pills earlier, but they said nobody ever expect this sort of disaster to happen so they weren't prepared.
http://www.npr.org/2011/03/20/134705754/japans-efforts-to-ease-nuke-crisis-hit-setback

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