Radioactive emergency team dispatched
The health ministry has sent an emergency medical team to the Fukushima No.1 nuclear plant in northeastern Japan in case people should be exposed to radiation.
The team left the National Institute of Radiological Sciences in Chiba City, near Tokyo, on a Self-Defense Force helicopter at 8:10 AM on Saturday.
The group consists of doctors, nurses, and experts on radiation measurement.
The team is now getting ready at a nuclear disaster response center, located about 5 kilometers from the power plant.
Comment from the Reuters feed:
The outside of the building would be the secondary containment boundary. We need to hope that the primary containment is still intact.
comment by nuketoo at 2:26 AM
Above 900 C the Zircaloy cladding around the fuel reacts with steam to produce hydrogen. This is a likely source of the hydrogen for an explosion when they vented the vessel.
The plant generator may also be cooled by hydrogen, that would be another source.
If the former, then the fuel integrity has definitely been compromised.
Standard operating procedure. This conforms to common exercise scenarios andprocedures, so the dispatch of a field team does not indicate the extent of contamination. They are used to confirm or deny projected release path for gasious effluents based on plume projection models, etc.
All so frighteningly unbelievable! Massive earthquake..check, massive tsunami..check, nuclear catastrophe..probably. Only thing missing at this point in time is Godzilla or Rodan attacking!