I've just read this little update here..
Quote:
'Nowhere near' Chernobyl
A level 7 incident means a major release of radiation with a widespread health and environmental impact, while a 5 level is a limited release of radioactive material, with several deaths, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Several experts said the new rating exaggerated the severity of the crisis, and that the Chernobyl disaster was far worse.
"It's nowhere near that level. Chernobyl was terrible — it blew and they had no containment, and they were stuck," said nuclear industry specialist Murray Jennex, an associate professor at San Diego State University in California.
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"Their (Japan's) containment has been holding, the only thing that hasn't is the fuel pool that caught fire."
The blast at Chernobyl blew the roof off a reactor and sent large amounts of radiation wafting across Europe. The accident contaminated vast areas, particularly in Ukraine and neighboring Belarus, led to the evacuation of well over 100,000 and affected livestock as far away as Scandinavia and Britain.
Nevertheless, the increase in the severity level heightens the risk of diplomatic tension with Japan's neighbors over radioactive fallout. China and South Korea have already been critical of the operator's decision to pump radioactive water into the sea, a process it has now stopped.
"Raising the level to a 7 has serious diplomatic implications. It is telling people that the accident has the potential to cause trouble to our neighbors," said Kenji Sumita, a nuclear expert at Osaka University.
NISA and the NSC have been measuring emissions of radioactive iodine-131 and cesium-137, a heavier element with a much longer half-life. Based on an average of their estimates and a formula that converts elements into a common radioactive measure, the equivalent of about 500,000 terabecquerels of radiation from iodine-131 has been released into the atmosphere since the crisis began.
That well exceeds the Level 7 threshold of the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale of "several tens of thousands of terabecquerels" of iodine-131. A terabecquerel equals a trillion becquerels, a measure for radiation emissions.
The government says the Chernobyl incident released 5.2 million terabecquerels into the air — about 10 times that of the Fukushima plant.
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