The Japanese government now says that levels of radioactive contamination beyond the legal health limits have been found in tap water in a town nearly 30-miles (46-kilometers) northwest of the Fukushima nuclear power plant.
As the analogy goes, a viral media process unfolds like an episode of 24: unscrupulous characters gleefully break a vial into the water main, a few unsuspecting citizens drink from the tap, sneeze onto their colleagues, and soon the entire town has gone crazy.
The pipeline's opening ceremony took place in the Geman town of Lubmin, where heads of state involved in the project opened a tap to release the first of the gas into the European grid.