Radiation spike at Fukushima plant

On the heels of the news that Japan may restart, in about a year, nuclear reactors shut down in the aftermath of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, it was announced that radiation levels in the groundwater at the damaged nuclear plant recently soared.

In early July, Tokyo Electric Power Co.—known as Tepco—announced its detection of a level of cesium-134 150 times higher than Japan’s safety standard at a well that is a little more than 80 feet from the Pacific Ocean, according to The Huffington Post. The level of radioactive cesium detected in the area’s groundwater in June was considerably lower.

In related news, photographs of seriously deformed vegetables from Fukushima appeared on photo-sharing website imgur.com, the International Science Times reported, raising the issue of whether radiation-contaminated groundwater is to blame.