#Fukushima I Nuke Plant: "Warrior" Robot Vacuumed Reactor 3 Floor, Radiation Still Very High

Yomiuri Shinbun reports that the "Warrior" robot from iRobot went inside the reactor building for the Reactor 3 to vacuum the highly radioactive (or so TEPCO thought) sands accumulated on the floor right off the truck entrance.

It completed the task, braving the high radiation (more than 100 millisieverts/hour in some spots) on July 1. It took the robot 5 hours to collect dust and sand in 3 200-liter containers.

Unfortunately, the radiation level in the area only went down by 10 to 20 millisieverts/hour, and TEPCO is considering laying down the steel plates on the floor to see if they block the radiation.

See "Warrior" in action, as videoed by the fellow iRobot "Packbot", which was then screen-captured by TEPCO on a notebook PC screen:

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#Fukushima I Nuke Plant: iRobot's "Warrior" to Do the Vacuum Cleaning on Reactor 3 Floor

TEPCO announced on June 30 that the "Warrior" robot from iRobot will vacuum clean the floor of the Reactor 3 reactor building in the area where the high radiation has been detected.

The US-made "Warrior" and Japanese-made vacuum cleaners. (Both Hitachi and Toshiba, TEPCO's affiliate companies at Fukushima I, manufactures vacuum cleaners as well as nuclear reactors...)

The press handout on June 30 says:

"Since radiation dose on the floor is high, we plan to conduct cleaning from July 1 in order to reduce the radiation exposure for the workers, removing the accumulated sand with vacuum cleaners and robots."

Accumulated sand?? From where?

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