Super Typhoon Neoguri To Hit Near Out-Of-Control Fukushima. 'GAME OVER'?

TEPCO has been forced to switch off Fukushima nuclear facility’s the cooling system at mothballed Reactor Unit 5, after a discovery it has been leaking water. If the system is not repaired in 9 days, temperatures will exceed dangerous levels. Super typhoon Neoguri, now equivalent of a category 4 hurricane, however, is just off the southern coast of Japan, seriously threatening life and property.

“I can’t stress enough how dangerous this typhoon may be when it hits Okinawa,” stated Gen. James Hecker, 18th Wing commander at Kadena Air Force Base, in a written statement. “This is the most powerful typhoon forecast to hit the island in 15 years; we expect damaging winds to arrive by early Tuesday morning.”

Typhoon Neoguri could reach a Category 5 on the hurricane wind scale by the time it hits Okinawa on Monday, according to The Weather Channel. This means Fukushima is likely to be impacted, with not only high winds, but also high waves.

The US Joint Typhoon Warning Center said wave heights in the Pacific Ocean were already hitting a maximum of 30 feet on Sunday.

Engineers discovered 1,300 liters of water leaked from a cooling system that was suppose to stabilize the temperature of the spent fuel at the Reactor Unit 5, offline but loaded with fuel rods when the plant was damaged by the historic March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. The leak source was a 3 mm-diameter hole near a flow valve, asserts a statement published by the Japanese energy giant on Sunday. It is unclear from company data, however, if the location of the opening has been discovered, or whether it was calculated with flow measurements.

At the time the cooling system was switched off, around 12pm on Sunday as the super typhoon aims for Japan, the temperature in the pool in which the rods are submerged was 23C but started increasing by 0.193 degrees per hour, TEPCO says.

If no new cold water is pumped in at that rate, it will reach the dangerous threshold of 65C by the midpoint of the month in roughly 9 days.

Such temperatures (not routinely seen at the plant since the failing of the cooling system in the immediate aftermath) would increase the possibility of dangerous reactions and further radiation leaks in the plant. TEPCO claims no recent abnormal readings have been recorded anywhere in the plant.

The radiation has called metal to become brittle and structurally weaker. It has not been reported what further damage the dangerous tidal surges from the typhoon would cause.

As the typhoon approaches, TEPCO is struggling to manage ever-increasing volumes of contaminated water which is being stored in hundreds of tanks at the facility and frequently leaking and contaminating the soil beneath it.

Everyone in this intensifying, dangerous, super typhoon’s path have been advised to immediately make necessary preparations and heed all orders to evacuate.

“The ocean is very deep offshore of Okinawa, which will allow huge waves to crash against the coast. Shortly after passing Okinawa, Neoguri will get caught by a trough of low pressure and begin curving to the north, and likely hit the Japanese island of Kyushu, where the city of Nagasaki lies, between 12 – 22 UTC on Wednesday,” explained meteorologist Jeff Masters on Sunday. “Although ocean temperatures will cool and wind shear will rise as Neoguri approaches Japan, weakening the storm, the typhoon is so large and powerful, that it will likely make landfall at Category 2 or 3 strength, causing major damage in Japan.”

Meanwhile, a plan to stop the continual leak of irradiated water into the sea with an ‘ice-wall’ and freezing soil and water around the facility is not working.

Sources: Russia Today, Before It’s News, Business Insider