What are the health concerns in Japan's nuclear crisis?

What is the latest on the attempts to cool the reactors?
Plant workers are using the improvised technique of pumping seawater with added boron (which slows down nuclear fission) into the reactors at Fukushima Daiichi. As of Thursday in Japan, officials said that a hydrogen explosion has occurred in a second building which contains the hot nuclear reactor core. The containment vessel, in which the reactor is held, may have been breached at the No. 2 and 3 reactors, according to a New York Times report today. The explosions that have occurred are likely hydrogen explosions when hydrogen from the water mixes with the metal cladding over the uranium rods.

What is the picture on radiation releases?
In the first two days of the crisis, plant operators vented steam in an effort to control the buildup of pressure created by steam from cooling. Even though the reactor shut down during the earthquake, there is still "afterheat" created by residual radioactive material. In releasing the steam, radioactive cesium and iodine were released in the environment, but the levels were considered relatively modest. However, the apparent explosions in the reactor cores are far more serious, which led to the evacuation of people within 12 miles and an order to stay indoors within an 18-mile zone.

"It's unknown how great that containment breach (in reactor No. 2) is but it's a very bad thing because it means a much greater opportunity for the escape of radioactive material," said Ian Hutchinson, a professor of nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. MIT organized nuclear experts to discuss the situation yesterday afternoon.



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