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Los Alamos nuclear lab under siege from wildfire - (Read Full Story)

A wildfire burning near the desert birthplace of the atomic bomb advanced on the Los Alamos laboratory and thousands of outdoor drums of plutonium-contaminated waste Tuesday as authorities stepped up efforts to protect the site and monitor the air for radiation.

Officials at the nation's premier nuclear weapons lab gave assurances that dangerous materials were safely stored and capable of withstanding flames from the 93-square-mile fire, which as of midday was as close as 50 feet from the grounds.

A small patch of land at the laboratory caught fire Monday before firefighters quickly put it out. Teams were on high alert to pounce on any new blazes and spent the day removing brush and low-hanging tree limbs from the lab's perimeter.

"We are throwing absolutely everything at this that we got," Democratic Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico said in Los Alamos.

The fire has forced the evacuation of the entire city of Los Alamos, population 11,000, cast giant plumes of smoke over the region and raised fears among nuclear watchdogs that it will reach as many as 30,000 55-gallon drums of plutonium-contaminated waste.

Fukushima: Strontium levels up to 240 times over legal limit near plant, uninhabitable land area now the size of 17 Manhattans - (Read Full Story)

Representing the first time the substance has been detected at the crippled plant, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) reported on Sunday that seawater and groundwater samples taken near the ravaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility in Japan have tested positive for radioactive strontium. And according to a recent report in The Japan Times, levels of strontium detected were up to 240 times over the legal limit, indicating a serious environmental and health threat.

Radioactive strontium, which is known to accumulate in bones and eventually lead to diseases like cancer and leukemia, is one of at least three "hot particles" being continually released by the damaged plant, according to experts. The others include radioactive cesium and plutonium, both of which are implicated in causing birth defects, cancer, and death.

"We are discovering hot particles everywhere in Japan, even in Tokyo," said Arnold Gundersen, a former nuclear industry senior vice president with 39 years of nuclear engineering experience, to Al Jazeera. "Scientists are finding these everywhere. Over the last 90 days these hot particles have continued to fall and are being deposited in high concentrations. A lot of people are picking these up in car engine air filters.”

Japan Finds Toxic Fish, As Ocean Radiation Soars To 7.5 Million Times Legal Limit

A fish was caught on Friday midway between Fukushima and Tokyo that contained dangerously high levels of radioactive iodine and high levels of cesium.

This catch has prompted Japan to announce its first legal limits for radiation in fish, according to the AP. Previously Japan had said it was enough to ban fishing in the near proximity of the nuclear plant.

Japan also just announced a huge surge in ocean contamination, as radioactive iodine-131 at 7.5 million times the legal limit was found near the plant, according to Japan Times. Yesterday, levels were only 5 million times the legal limit.

Ocean contamination will probably get worse. Yesterday TEPCO commenced a plan to dump 11,500 tons of radioactive water into the ocean, and it said a leak of even more toxic water could last for months.

Japan, like the Gulf of Mexico during the oil spill, faces a serious economic blow if its fishing industry dries up.

Japan's nightmare gets even WORSE: All THREE damaged nuclear reactors now in 'meltdown' at tsunami-hit power station

The Japanese nuclear reactor hit by the tsunami went into 'meltdown' today, as officials admitted that fuel rods appear to be melting inside three damaged reactors.

That means there is a risk that molten nuclear fuel can melt through the reactor's safety barriers and cause a serious radiation leak.

There have already been explosions inside two over-heating reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, and the fuel rods inside a third were partially exposed as engineers desperately fight to keep them under control after the tsunami knocked out emergency cooling systems.

Stuxnet virus attack: Russia warns of ‘Iranian Chernobyl’

Russian nuclear scientists are providing technical assistance to Iran's attempts activate the country's first nuclear power plant at the Gulf port.

But they have raised serious concerns about the extensive damage caused to the plant's computer systems by the mysterious Stuxnet virus, which was discovered last year and is widely believed to have been the result of a sophisticated joint US-Israeli cyber attack.

According to Western intelligence reports, Russian scientists warned the Kremlin that they could be facing "another Chernobyl" if they were forced to comply with Iran's tight deadline to activate the complex this summer.

N.Korea says war with South would go nuclear

North Korea warned that another war with South Korea would involve nuclear weapons, as diplomatic efforts continued to ease high tensions over its deadly artillery attack and atomic ambitions.

Uriminzokkiri, the official website of the communist state, said in a commentary seen Friday that war on the Korean Peninsula is only a matter of time.