Radioactive water at Fukushima can kill people

Danger from radioactive water rises by 18 times.

Tokyo Electric Power Company, operator of the dangerous Fukushima nuclear power plant, said radiation at a tank holding contaminated water has increased by a factor of 18.

The storage tank at the Fukushima nuclear power plant contained a radiation of 1,800 millisieverts per hour near its bottom last Saturday. A reading of the same tank taken on August 22 found radiation of just 100 millisieverts per hour.

Radiation at 1,800 millisieverts per hour would kill an exposed person in four hours. TEPCO said that a new leak had been detected from a pipe connecting two other tanks.

TEPCO recently acknowledged the chronic leaking of radiation-tainted underground water into the Pacific, plus a 300 ton seepage from one of more than 1,000 storage tanks. The leak was the firth and worst from a tank since the crisis began.

The tank leak prompted the nuclear authority to upgrade its rating Wednesday to a level-3 "serious incident," from a level 1 on the International Atomic Energy Agency radiological event scale.

Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority admitted TEPCO cannot fully stop contaminated water leaks right away.

“That's the reality. The water is still leaking in to the sea, and we should better assess its environmental impact," said NRA Chairman Shunichi Tanaka.