[Vision2020] VOA 4-12-11: "IAEA: Fukushima, Chernobyl Accidents Not Comparable Despite Severity"

[Ted Moffett]

IAEA: Fukushima, Chernobyl Accidents Not Comparable Despite Severity

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/asia/IAEA--FukushimaChernobyl-Accidents-Not-Comparable-Despite-Severity-119728644.html

April 12, 2011
Lisa Bryant, Paris

The International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, said Tuesday that
last month's accident at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant
is very different from the Chernobyl power plant explosion in what is
now Ukraine in 1986 - despite both disasters being classified at the
highest level on the nuclear incident scale.

Speaking at a press conference in Vienna, the International Atomic
Energy Agency's Deputy Director Denis Flory described the increased
severity rating of Japan's nuclear accident as a communications tool.
He said the Level 7 classification does not mean that Japanese
authorities had downplayed the accident, but that they had not been
able to measure the total amount of radiation released initially.

"Without evaluating that and on the basis of the measurements in the
environment, measurement of food, etc., the Japanese government had
already acted," he said.  "And before that, just at the beginning of
the accident, the Japanese government had evacuated zones 10 and 20
kilometers [from the plant] and now even more than that."

Although the Fukushima and Chernobyl nuclear power plant accidents are
the worst in history, Flory said the two disasters are not comparable.

"The Fukushima accident and Chernobyl are very different," he said.
"Chernobyl happened when the reactor had power, it was a huge
explosion, vapor, power explosion, and then you had a huge graphite
fire."

At Chernobyl, radiation spread over a wide area when a reactor
exploded.  So far at Fukushima, most of the radiation has been
contained in large concrete structures, although Japanese officials
say those chambers might be leaking.

The IAEA's Denis Flory said the amount radiation released at Chernobyl
was far higher than at Fukushima.  He cited Japanese data that show
the Fukushima plant has released about one-tenth of the radioactive
material that was released at Chernobyl.  Although he described the
situation at the Japanese plant as "very serious," Flory said that
tests of food produced in eight prefectures around Fukushima have
found little or no radioactive material.

------------------------------------------
Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett