USA TODAY: A system to clean massive amounts of contaminated water at the site of Japan’s nuclear disaster was shut down Saturday, just hours after it began full operations, because a component filled with radioactivity much more quickly than expected.
Fresh water is being pumped in to cool damaged reactor cores, and is getting contaminated in the process. Some 105,000 tons of highly radioactive water have pooled across the plant, and could overflow within a couple of weeks if action is not taken…
The system was suspended in early Saturday when workers detected a sharp radiation increase in the system’s cesium-absorbing component, Matsumoto said. Radioactivity in one of 24 cartridges, which was expected to last for a few weeks, had already reached its limit within five hours, he said… (more)
