The top U.S. nuclear regulator told Congress that radiation levels around Japan's troubled nuclear power plant may give emergency workers lethal doses of radiation, preventing them from getting near the plant.
"We believe that around the reactor site there are high levels of radiation," Gregory Jaczko, head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, told a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing.
"It would be very difficult for emergency workers to get near the reactors. The doses they could experience would potentially be lethal doses in a very short period of time."
The plant operator described No. 3 -- the only reactor at that uses plutonium in its fuel mix -- as the "priority." Plutonium, once absorbed in the bloodstream, can linger for years in bone marrow or liver and lead to cancer.
The situation at No. 4 reactor, where the fire broke out, was "not so good," the plant operator added, while water was being poured into reactors No. 5 and 6, indicating the entire six-reactor facility was now at risk of overheating.
"Getting water into the pools of the No.3 and No.4 reactors is a high priority," Said Hidehiko Nishiyama, a senior official at Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Administration, adding the pool for spent fuel rods at No. 3 was heating up while No.4 remained a concern.
Source: Reuters