A Saucerful Of Secrets

inside the Primary Containment Vessels, Unit 2,
Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant
3/26/12

From Japan Times :
Radiation inside the reactor 2 containment vessel at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant has reached a lethal 73 sieverts per hour and any attempt to send robots in will require them to have greater resistance than currently available, experts said Wednesday.
Exposure to 73 sieverts for a minute would cause nausea and seven minutes would cause death within a month, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said.
The experts said the high radiation level is due to the shallow level of coolant water — 60 cm — in the containment vessel, which Tepco said in January was believed to be 4 meters deep. Tepco has only peeked inside the reactor 2 containment vessel. It has few clues as to the status of reactors 1 and 3, which also suffered meltdowns, because there is no access to their insides.
The utility said the radiation level in the reactor 2 containment vessel is too high for robots, endoscopes and other devices to function properly.


BBC News is reporting that
The operator of Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant has said damage to one of the reactors is much worse than previously thought.
On Tuesday workers managed to insert a probe into reactor number two for only the second time and found damage worse than expected.
Radiation was up to 10 times the fatal dose, the highest yet recorded at the plant. The level of water cooling the melted-down nuclear fuel was also far lower than expected.
The other two melted-down reactors, which are yet to be examined closely, could be in an even worse state, our correspondent adds.


Pink Floyd: A Saucerful of Secrets