Yomiuri Shimbun (“The pro-nuclear Yomiuri Shimbun” –Source), Aug. 20, 2014 (emphasis added): Efforts to contain water contaminated with radioactive substances… are progressing at a snail’s pace. At present, dealing with radioactive water is the overriding issue in resolving a series of problems following the nuclear crisis… In May, TEPCO began… the “groundwater bypass program.” But this effort failed… The seriousness of the current situation cannot be understated… Another concern is the huge amount of highly radioactive water—11,000 tons—that has leaked and now remains in underground tunnels near the coast. The Nuclear Regulation Authority has pointed out there is a high risk of this water leaking into the sea and causing other problems. Simply pumping the highly radioactive water out of a tunnel will not work, as it would soon be replaced by more contaminated water flowing in from reactor buildings. TEPCO has tried to freeze water in a section connecting the tunnel to a reactor building, but the attempt failed.
Asahi Shimbun, Aug 20, 2014: [R]adioactive water [is] pouring from turbine buildings into trenches at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, as ice walls are proving insufficient.
Mainichi, Aug 20, 2014: TEPCO officials say the speed of the water flow… increased, making it difficult to freeze water there.
Even though highly radioactive water has been pouring into the trenches at ever increasing speed, they contain only 11,000 tons of fluid – the same amount as in March 2011.
NHK, Aug. 19, 2014: In April, [TEPCO] began installing pipes to carry coolants in and out of the tunnels [i.e. trenches] at the No.2 reactor. Workers hoped to freeze the wastewater to stop itflowing out to the sea.
VICE News, Aug. 20, 2014: [U]nmitigated radiation [is] still pouring into Pacific waters […] in June 2013, TEPCO admitted that almost 80,000 gallons of contaminated water had been leaking into the Pacific Ocean every day since the meltdown. As of today, that leak continues [and accounts of] swelling radiation levels continue to surface […] 80 feet from the Pacific Ocean [groundwater] contained 20 million becquerels of the harmful radioactive element Strontium-90 per gallon […] these measurements were hidden from Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority […] As of August 2014, we know that radiation levels around the Fukushima areacontinue to rise, even after three years of containment attempts.
Speech by Kazuko Ito, Esq., member of the UN Women Regional Civil Society Advisory Groupand Secretary General of Japan-based NGO Human Rights Now (At 5:00 in), published by Cinema Forum Fukushima on July 30, 2014 (at 1:15 in): To date, TEPCO still does not know how to stop the ongoing radioactive leaks from its facilities… The contaminated water isleaking, leaking, leaking into the sea – every day — and we never know how to stop this.
Watch Ito’s speech here
from Fig. 4 [Comparison between observed 137Cs concentrations and results of EEMEP dispersion model (MET, unpublished study)], there is a good agreement between measured and calculated arrival times, but calculated concentrations are at least one order of magnitude too low compared to measurements. Thus, as in the case with modeling of 131I concentrations with Finnish SILAM, the model used in Norway also underestimated 137Cs concentrations.