Fears that America could be hit by the nuclear fallout from the Japan earthquake dramatically increased today after the reactor hit by the tsunami went into ‘meltdown’.
Officials revealed fuel roads are melting inside three damaged reactors at the Fukushima plant, triggering fears of a serious radiation leak.
Scientists in the U.S. warned today of a ‘worst-case scenario’ in which the highly radioactive material could be blasted into the atmosphere and blown towards the West Coast of America.
They said it could be picked up by powerful 30,000ft winds, carrying the debris across the Pacific and hitting America within four days.
Earthquake-hit Japan is fighting to avoid a nuclear catastrophe as one over-heating reactor lost its cooling today, following explosions at two other reactors at the Fukushima plant.
Leading nuclear expert Dr John Large, who has visited the plant, said he is concerned that where the radiation ends up is ‘in the lap of the gods’.
A second explosion rocked the nuclear plant today, sending smoke into the air. The blast follows a similar explosion in another unit on Saturday and a further reactor has also lost its cooling capacity.
But University of Washington Professor of Atmospheric Science Dan Jaffe told Q13 Fox earlier: ‘Based on what we’re seeing in terms of the radiation that’s being released now, there is no risk at all.
‘Even in the worst case scenario there is a low likelihood of much risk over the Pacific Northwest.’
Nuclear regulators say the General Electric-designed reactors involved in the emergency are very similar to 23 reactors used in the U.S, reported MSNBC.
The worst case scenario is that the fuel rods fuse together,’ nuclear expert Joe Cirincione said.
‘The temperatures get so hot that they melt together into a radioactive molten mass that bursts through the containment mechanisms and it is exposed to the outside so there’s spewed radioactivity into the ground, into the air and into the water,’ he told Fox 43.
‘Some of that radioactivity could carry in the atmosphere to the West Coast of the United States.’
But the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission believes there is no danger of radiation drifting as far as the West Coast.
The reactor at Unit One of Fukushima exploded on Saturday, blowing several walls away but engineers said the core was still contained. The fuel rods in the reactor in Unit Two of the plant were partially exposed from their coolant today – which also increases the risk of meltdown.
Engineers have been fighting to keep the reactors under control after the tsunami knocked out emergency coolant systems on Friday.
Earlier engineers were frantically trying to cool radioactive materials at all the reactors with seawater but had halted the process, which resulted in a rise in radiation levels and pressure.
Plant managers knew an explosion was a possibility as they struggled to reduce pressure inside the reactor containment vessel in Unit Three, but apparently felt they had no choice if they wanted to avoid a complete meltdown.
In the end, the hydrogen in the released steam mixed with oxygen in the atmosphere and set off the blast, which was felt 25 miles away.
