Company (TEPCO) estimated 15,000 tera becquerels of cesium radiation had leaked from the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant in Japan. One tera becquerel equals 1 trillion becquerels. At that time, the Telegraph reported the estimated cesium release was 'equal 168 Hiroshima bombs' as the atomic bomb atomic bomb dropped on Japan during World War II had only released 89 tera becquerels of cesium. On Wednesday, TEPCO released revised estimates of the amount of radiation leaked from Fukushima.
The new estimated calculated the level of cesium released to be 360,000 tera becquerels. That is 24 times higher than last August's estimate and represents a cesium leak equal to 4,023 Hiroshima bombs. The estimate is also more than 4 times Chernobyl which is estimated to have released 85,000 tera becquerels of cesium radiation into atmosphere. TEPCO's newly revised estimates of the Fukushima leak are also not all-inclusive and do not cover the entire date range from the start of the disaster. The estimate of the total atmosphere release is based on data collected from between March 12 to 31, 2011, TEPCO states the amount of radiation released into the atmosphere in April and during the following months is likely to be only 1% of the amount released in March. That amount is considered to be 'insignificant' and is not included in the new estimate. The estimated amount of radiation leaked into Pacific Ocean was extrapolated from data collected from March 26 to September 30, 2011.