Bored of news about problems at the Fukushima Nuclear Reactor? Too bad! The bad news just keeps flowing out of that place… in a similar manner to the way in which radioactive water keeps flowing out of that place!
A (not-so) recent (anymore) report from the contaminated reactor site stated that as much as 110 gallons of highly radioactive water may have accidentally spilled from a rainwater overflow tank and found its way into the Pacific Ocean.
What caused the leak? Heavy rainfall in the region caused rainwater collection tanks to overflow — and apparently some of the large containers lacked level gauges so workers could not easily monitor content levels.
Officials believe the leaked water carried a radioactive load of around 580,000 becquerels per liter and contained both cesium and strontium. The latter, if consumed, may accumulate in a person’s bones where it will irradiate its surroundings continuously. That radiation will more than likely result in the formation of cancer cells.
By comparison, health and safety officials state that ‘safe’ drinking water ought to have no more than 10 becquerels per liter.
Moral of the story?
In addition to worrying about mercury accumulating in our systems if we enjoy certain types of seafood on a regular basis, we must now turn the lights off before we eat sushi… to make certain it doesn’t glow in the dark!
Just kidding about glowing in the dark, but we think you catch our drift. We may, however, borrow a Geiger Counter from our survival stash to take with us the next time we go out for sushi, though.
