If concrete buildings collapsed during the earthquake in Japan, why would they try to bury the reactors?
Radiation has a limited distance from it’s source depending on type Alpha has the shortest range but is most damaging, gamma has the longest range but is least damaging. 30cm of concrete would be enough to contain alpha radiation but would do little to stop gamma radiation. Radiation isn’t spreading around Japan in wave form it’s the iodine and caesium particle picked up on the wind that then settle elsewhere and emit radiation in wave form that are causing the spread. These particles cannot travel through concrete even if the radiation they emit still can. This is a damage limitation exercise not a cure. A concrete structure is under many different forces when used in a structure. Concrete is excellent under compression but weak under tension so we put steel cables inside it to resist this tension. In a solid block concrete is extremely stable, of course a building without hollow areas is not a building. This is actually a sound idea to stop clouds of radioactive dust ending up everyw
