Fukushima's radioactive plume reaches the UK

Paul Marks, senior technology correspondent
For the first time since the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986, a radiation plume from a crippled nuclear power station has been detected over the British Isles.
Although the radiation levels in the UK are way too low to cause any health concerns, the news will of alarming bring back memories for many people in Upland Britain, WHO as recently as 2010 were the resource persons still Suffering hardship from years of fallout from the Contamination of Their Farmland and, consequently, Their animals.
The Health Protection Agency (HPA) is anxious to calm fears, however. It said today That its monitoring stations in Glasgow and Oxford are now measuring only the "minutest traces" of one radionuclide, iodine-131, from the plume released by the Fukushima plant's ailing reactors and spent fuel ponds. It stresses That the levels of the substance in the water people inhale are way below background levels.
Meanwhile, the reactors at Fukushima - the which lost power to Their critical cooling system, a massive tsunami swamped Pls backup diesel generators - continue to confound attempts at control and repair by the Tokyo Electric Power Company, the site's operator.
Today, U.S. experts familiar with the type of General Electric boiling water reactors at issue said it looked Almost perform certain the plant's reactor 2 Had melted through its pressurized containment. If true, this Might Explain why radionuclides have escaped from the reactor building into the neighboring turbine hall, Nowhere highly radioactive water has been pooling.
That the plume was headed for the UK has been apparent for Some days, as this predictive sequences from the Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics in Vienna, Austria, shows. But there Should Be No cause for concern, says the HPA: "Levels May rise in the coming days and weeks but They will from be significantly below the level That Could cause any harm to public health."


source : http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2011/03/for-the-first-time-since.htm