Efforts to cool reactors continue in Japan nuke crisis
Mar. 18, 2011
Efforts to cool down the overheating reactors and spent fuel continued Friday at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which was crippled a week ago by a massive earthquake and tsunami, with workers braving the risk of radiation exposure to prevent the problems from developing into a catastrophe.
Tokyo also reiterated its resolve to do everything to put the situation under control, with International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano arriving in Tokyo and meeting with Prime Minister Naoto Kan and other government officials.
The unprecedented cooling mission, which was launched Thursday by the Self-Defense Forces by spraying tons of water over the plant's No. 3 reactor building, was bolstered on the second day with more pumps, after efforts were focused in the morning to restore power to some of the reactors' cooling systems, the government said.
SDF fire trucks shot 50 tons of water at a spent fuel pool of the No. 3 reactor in the afternoon, along with a high-pressure water cannon truck loaned by the U.S. military, after aiming up to 60 tons of water at it along with two helicopters the day before.
''This is the largest crisis for Japan,'' Kan told Amano at the outset of their meeting in Tokyo, adding, ''Every organization (of the government)...is making all-out efforts to deal with the problem.''
Kan also said Japan will disclose more information to the international community as Amano asked him to do.
The Tokyo Fire Department is slated to join in the operation at the Fukushima plant with 30 trucks capable of discharging massive amounts of water to high places and some 140 firefighters of its ''hyper rescue'' team, who are specialists in rescue operations in large-scale disasters.
But a Tokyo police water cannon truck, whose contribution Thursday was revised Friday to 44 tons from the initially reported 4 tons, and the SDF choppers were not mobilized Friday.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the fire department's trucks were considering dousing a spent nuclear fuel pool at the No. 1 reactor, although it does not pose as imminent a threat as the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors of releasing radioactive materials into the air, to extend all possible means.
Radiation readings at the troubled nuclear plant have consistently followed a downward path through Friday morning, according to data taken roughly 1 kilometer west of the plant's No. 2 reactor, but plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. stopped short of calling the move a trend.
The radiation level at 11 a.m. dropped to 265.0 microsievert per hour from 351.4 microsievert per hour at 12:30 a.m. Thursday. It measured 292.2 microsievert per hour at 8:40 p.m. Thursday, shortly after SDF trucks sprayed water at the No. 3 reactor pool as part of efforts to avert any massive emission of radioactive materials into the air from the facility.
Edano said radiation amounts near the Fukushima Daiichi plant ''do not pose immediate adverse effects on the human body,'' after the government's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency released data collected by Tokyo Electric, or TEPCO.
Agency spokesman Hidehiko Nishiyama noted the difficulty in properly assessing the effects of the water-pouring mission from the radiation data, while they are all below 500 microsievert per hour, which requires the operator to report an emergency to the government if surpassed.
TEPCO, for its party, accelerated efforts to restore lost cooling function by reconnecting electricity to the plant through outside power lines, with workers trying to recover power at the plant's No. 1 and No. 2 reactors later Friday and at the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors by Sunday, according to Nishiyama.
Some of the power distribution boards at the plant have been damaged by the quake-triggered tsunami and TEPCO will use makeshift replacement equipment, he added.
The spent fuel pools at the power station lost their cooling function in the wake of the March 11 killer quake and tsunami. It is also no longer possible to monitor the water level and the temperatures of the pools in the No. 1 to 4 reactor buildings.
Plumes have been seen rising from three of them but not the No. 1 unit, the agency spokesman said, suggesting their pools situated outside the reactor containments are boiling, with those at the No. 3 and No. 4 units no longer covered by their roofs since they were blown off by hydrogen blasts earlier this week.
A rise in the water temperature, usually at 40 C, causes the water level to be reduced, and exposes the spent nuclear fuel rods, which could heat up further and melt and discharge high radioactive materials in the worst case scenario, experts say.
Among the six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, the No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 reactors that were operating at the time of the magnitude 9.0 quake halted automatically, but the cores are believed to have partially melted as they lost their cooling function after the quake.
The buildings housing the No. 1, No. 3 and No. 4 reactors have been severely damaged, leaving uncovered the fuel pools, and the No. 2 reactor's containment vessel suffered damage to its pressure-suppression chamber at the bottom.
The government has set the exclusion zone area to a 20-kilometer radius of the plant, and urged people within 20 to 30 km to stay indoors.
(Distributed by Kyodo News on March 18, 2011)
Tokyo also reiterated its resolve to do everything to put the situation under control, with International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano arriving in Tokyo and meeting with Prime Minister Naoto Kan and other government officials.
The unprecedented cooling mission, which was launched Thursday by the Self-Defense Forces by spraying tons of water over the plant's No. 3 reactor building, was bolstered on the second day with more pumps, after efforts were focused in the morning to restore power to some of the reactors' cooling systems, the government said.
SDF fire trucks shot 50 tons of water at a spent fuel pool of the No. 3 reactor in the afternoon, along with a high-pressure water cannon truck loaned by the U.S. military, after aiming up to 60 tons of water at it along with two helicopters the day before.
''This is the largest crisis for Japan,'' Kan told Amano at the outset of their meeting in Tokyo, adding, ''Every organization (of the government)...is making all-out efforts to deal with the problem.''
Kan also said Japan will disclose more information to the international community as Amano asked him to do.
The Tokyo Fire Department is slated to join in the operation at the Fukushima plant with 30 trucks capable of discharging massive amounts of water to high places and some 140 firefighters of its ''hyper rescue'' team, who are specialists in rescue operations in large-scale disasters.
But a Tokyo police water cannon truck, whose contribution Thursday was revised Friday to 44 tons from the initially reported 4 tons, and the SDF choppers were not mobilized Friday.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the fire department's trucks were considering dousing a spent nuclear fuel pool at the No. 1 reactor, although it does not pose as imminent a threat as the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors of releasing radioactive materials into the air, to extend all possible means.
Radiation readings at the troubled nuclear plant have consistently followed a downward path through Friday morning, according to data taken roughly 1 kilometer west of the plant's No. 2 reactor, but plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. stopped short of calling the move a trend.
The radiation level at 11 a.m. dropped to 265.0 microsievert per hour from 351.4 microsievert per hour at 12:30 a.m. Thursday. It measured 292.2 microsievert per hour at 8:40 p.m. Thursday, shortly after SDF trucks sprayed water at the No. 3 reactor pool as part of efforts to avert any massive emission of radioactive materials into the air from the facility.
Edano said radiation amounts near the Fukushima Daiichi plant ''do not pose immediate adverse effects on the human body,'' after the government's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency released data collected by Tokyo Electric, or TEPCO.
Agency spokesman Hidehiko Nishiyama noted the difficulty in properly assessing the effects of the water-pouring mission from the radiation data, while they are all below 500 microsievert per hour, which requires the operator to report an emergency to the government if surpassed.
TEPCO, for its party, accelerated efforts to restore lost cooling function by reconnecting electricity to the plant through outside power lines, with workers trying to recover power at the plant's No. 1 and No. 2 reactors later Friday and at the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors by Sunday, according to Nishiyama.
Some of the power distribution boards at the plant have been damaged by the quake-triggered tsunami and TEPCO will use makeshift replacement equipment, he added.
The spent fuel pools at the power station lost their cooling function in the wake of the March 11 killer quake and tsunami. It is also no longer possible to monitor the water level and the temperatures of the pools in the No. 1 to 4 reactor buildings.
Plumes have been seen rising from three of them but not the No. 1 unit, the agency spokesman said, suggesting their pools situated outside the reactor containments are boiling, with those at the No. 3 and No. 4 units no longer covered by their roofs since they were blown off by hydrogen blasts earlier this week.
A rise in the water temperature, usually at 40 C, causes the water level to be reduced, and exposes the spent nuclear fuel rods, which could heat up further and melt and discharge high radioactive materials in the worst case scenario, experts say.
Among the six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, the No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 reactors that were operating at the time of the magnitude 9.0 quake halted automatically, but the cores are believed to have partially melted as they lost their cooling function after the quake.
The buildings housing the No. 1, No. 3 and No. 4 reactors have been severely damaged, leaving uncovered the fuel pools, and the No. 2 reactor's containment vessel suffered damage to its pressure-suppression chamber at the bottom.
The government has set the exclusion zone area to a 20-kilometer radius of the plant, and urged people within 20 to 30 km to stay indoors.
(Distributed by Kyodo News on March 18, 2011)
