JAPAN REACTOR MELTDOWN NEWS SERIES

Thousands of workers were sent to the countryside to decontaminate everything touched by radiation including digging up dirt and putting it in bags – lots of bags.īut while much of the evacuation zone has been decontaminated, there are still entire neighborhoods that are like ghost towns, silent and lifeless with radiation levels that remain too high.Īt the plant they're capturing contaminated groundwater, about 150 tons a day, and storing it in tanks, as far as the eye can see. Weeks later, TEPCO officials engaged in so-called kowtow diplomacy – allowing townspeople to berate them as they prostrated themselves in apology. The meltdowns triggered huge explosions that sent plumes of radioactive debris into the atmosphere, forcing the evacuation of everyone within a 12-mile radius – about 160,000 people in all. 'No one is gonna send a worker in there because they'd be overexposed in just a matter of seconds.' Lesley Stahl: So this is actually right where- where it all happened? The heart of the disaster, right here? Lake Barrett took us to a hill overlooking the reactors where the radiation levels are still relatively high.

Killing more than 15,000 people.Īt Fukushima Daiichi, the enormous waves washed over the plant, flooding the reactors and knocking out power to the cooling pumps that had kept the reactor cores from overheating.

JAPAN REACTOR MELTDOWN NEWS SERIES

The earthquake that caused the meltdown measured 9.0, The most powerful ever recorded in Japan and triggered a series of tsunami waves that swept away cars, houses and entire towns. Lake Barrett, who oversaw the cleanup of the worst nuclear accident in U.S. So these are unknowns that the Japanese and no one wants to deal with. Lake Barrett: Number one this is right next to the sea. Lesley Stahl: Why not just bury this place? Why not do what they did at Chernobyl? Just cover it up, bury it, and just leave it here all- you know, enclosed? And these engineering tasks can be done successfully. But there's a will here to clean this up as there was a will to put a man on the moon. Lake Barrett: It's even a bigger project in my view. Lesley Stahl: Should we think of this as a project like sending someone to the moon?

Japan reactor meltdown news