Washington – U.S. officials are alarmed at how the Japanese are handling the escalating nuclear reactor crisis and fear that if they do not get control of the plants within the next 24 to 48 hours they could have a situation that will be “deadly for decades.”
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“It would be hard to describe how alarming this is right now,” one U.S. official told ABC News.
President Obama has been briefed by nuclear experts.
The Japanese have evacuated most of the reactor personnel from the Fukushima nuclear complex and are rotating teams of 50 workers through the facility in an attempt to cool it down.
“We are all-out urging the Japanese to get more people back in there to do emergency operation there, that the next 24 to 48 hours are critical,” the official said. “Urgent efforts are needed on the part of the Japanese to restore emergency operations to cool” down the reactors’ rods before they trigger a meltdown.
“They need to stop pulling out people—and step up with getting them back in the reactor to cool it. There is a recognition this is a suicide mission,” the official said.
The official said the United States is in very deep consultations with Japanese about the way forward and that the only thing that has been favorable is the wind pattern that is blowing the contaminated material out to sea instead south towards Tokyo and other populated areas, but that can’t be counted upon.
The U.S. official says experts believe there is a rupture in two, maybe three of the six reactors at the Fukushima power plant, but as worrisome is the fact that spent fuel rods are now exposed to the air, which means that substances like cesium, which have a long half-life, could become airborne.
“That could be deadly for decades,” the official said.
There is a growing concern around the world that a nuclear catastrophic disaster is in the works.
“There is talk of an apocalypse and I think the word is particularly well chosen,” European Union’s energy commissioner Günther Oettinger said today, according to various reports. “Practically everything is out of control. I cannot exclude the worst in the hours and days to come.
Continue reading at ABC News
Ein lanu al mi le’hisha’en ela al Avinu She’ba’shamayim
Ummm, why do I think the Japanese are more advanced/knowledgeable than we are?
So, it’s a “suicide mission”, the US says – and the Japanese should step up their efforts? The guy who said that isn’t volunteering to go there and help, right?
It reminds me of the Englishmen in the ’30s who were willing to fight Hitler – down to the last Frenchman.
At least i know of one person who is really not worried, the one who wrote here last Friday thats its impossible for a nuclear reactor to explode. And he actually said the only problem could be financial problems.
What a great example of shoddy journalism. An anonymous official offering complaints and recommending suicide missions! ABC should be ashamed of this type of reporting.
And to awacs: great line!