Re: Five injured in blast near Japan nuke facility-Earlier Accidentw/ LN2

[RadiumProj@cs.com]

In a message dated 3/10/00 10:19:00 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
sandyfl@earthlink.net writes:

<< The midday explosion at the Institute for Environmental Sciences in 
 Aomori Prefecture, about 580 km (360 miles) northeast of Tokyo, took 
 place about a mile (1.5 km) away from low-level nuclear waste storage 
 facility and nuclear reprocessing complex . 
 
 The research institute deals with radioactive materials, but the 
 blast occured in a facility which does not keep such material, a 
 police officer said. 
 
 Researchers were apparently pouring liquid oxygen into an 
 experimental device  >>
=========================
Radsafers:

Hmmm. Interesting. We've all heard of guilt by association. Now we have guilt 
by proximity

BTW, back about 1991 a graduate student in the Dept. of Oceanography at the 
Univ. RI suffered a tragic injury due to an accident involved in transferring 
 liquid nitrogen into an older style gamma spec dewar. 

The URI dewar exploded during filling with LN2 due to the glass liner 
breaking. There was an outer metal case. When the LN2 spilled from the dewar 
and  hit the ambient temp. wall it flashed to gas and being an older style 
dewar which did not have blowout plugs, the pressure buildup caused a severe 
explosion that actually destroyed the lab in which it was located. The grad 
student ended up in critical condition and lost his hand or entire forearm [I 
can't recall all the details] due to the shrapnel which flew off in the 
explosion.

Anyone using older style LN2 or LOX cooled detectors of any type should 
assess if their systems might be subject to such a serious accident which can 
be life threatening.

Stewart Farber
Public Health Sciences
email: radiumproj@cs.com
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