Page 19 - Radio Activity News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Rods. they're in a storage casing like this. it's essentially a big giant tub. this shows a little bit of exposure. once the rods are exposed, they start to reheat in a dramatic and unstable way. if the water is completely or significantly drained, and we're talking four of the six reactors where they're having problems with the cooling system and severe problems with it, in the sense of if they had more resources, which they don't have right now. they can't get people close to this because of radioactivity levels. they don't haveless tristy up here, are we talking weeks, months, years? >> it'...

There's radio activity being released from the plant right now, but the levels off-site are not such that it's an immediate health concern for the widespread area. the local people have been evacuated, and that is appropriate for this time. the people are working to bring it under better control than they have it now. so yes, material is leaving, yes, you can see it with very sophisticated instrumentation, but it's not a major health risk outside the evacuation zone. >> tell me why for that evacuation zone for the u.s. is 50 miles, whereas it's 12 miles for the japanese. what accounts for that...

Radio activity in any of the cloudss from japan wafting to the east it would hit thandulousians and hit the western u.s.. >> ainsley: japanese are saying we have it under control and not telling the whole truth according to the journalist over there. americans are saying this is dangerous and we need to take precautions and american nationals are being evacuated out of japan. itate department and pentagon families, they are boarding planes as we speak right now and heading back to the u.s.. right now 600 american familis and the state department is going to provide transportation out and for t...

A large spike in radio activity after the fire in number 4. what that means is the force of that explosion or smoke from the fire or both carried aloft radioactive particles being released by the damaged spent fuel rods. uranium pellets in the big now probably damaged metal tubes. this is not a nuclear explosion. there are not nuclear chain reactions going on here, but this is a means by which radioactivity is being released into the atmosphere, and the question is whether or not those fuel rods, even if already damaged, whether they can be resubmerged. japanese officials floated the idea of h...

Reported. instead, officials believe it started a second blaze, which firefighters had to battle today. they had a plan to drop water or acid on it from a helicopter. that seems less likely now. they are considering pumping it through the walls instead. until workers, we should mention, are still missing from yesterday's explosion. we know now that the roof was cracked by the blast. workers today have been unable to approach the storage because of those high levels of radioactivity. again, now those technicians who have been putting their lives at risk to stay at the plant have left. in just t...