UN probes nuke crises as more melted fuel found
Source: Agencies |
May 25, 2011, Wednesday
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A MAJOR international mission to investigate Japan's flooded, radiation-leaking nuclear complex began yesterday as new information suggested that nuclear fuel had mostly melted in two more reactors in the early days after the March 11 tsunami.
A United Nations team of nuclear experts has met Japanese officials and will visit the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant over the next few days to investigate the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986 and assess efforts to stabilize the complex by Tokyo's self-declared deadline of early next year.
The Japanese government, which has pledged to cooperate with the experts from the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, announced its own probe, appointing University of Tokyo Professor Yotaro Hatamura, an expert on industrial accidents, to head an investigative panel.
The plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co, released a new analysis suggesting that fuel rods in the plant's Units 2 and 3 mostly melted during the early days of the crisis, which had been suspected but could not be confirmed and which suggests that the severity of the accident was greater than officials have acknowledged.
The new revelations indicate earlier official assessments may have been too optimistic, said Goshi Hosono, director of Japan's nuclear crisis task force. "We should have made a more cautious damage estimate based on a worse scenario."
Releases of radiation
Fuel in three of the plant's six reactors started melting just hours after the March 11 tsunami knocked out cooling systems, prompting huge releases of radiation into the atmosphere - about one-tenth of the radiation released from Chernobyl in 1986, according to a government estimate.
The melted fuel rods, which appear to have fallen into a lump at the bottom of each of the three pressure vessels, currently pose no immediate problem because they are mostly covered with water being pumped into the chamber and are at temperatures far below danger levels, officials say.
The plant is still leaking radiation, but at much lower levels than immediately after the accident, and Japanese officials hope to bring the entire plant to a "cold shutdown" - halting all radioactive leaks - by next January at the latest.
In the meantime, 80,000 people remain evacuated from homes around the plant, although a handful of stalwarts have defied government orders to leave.
"TEPCO caused such a horrible disaster. Leaving my home means I have lost to TEPCO," said Naoto Matsumura, a 51-year-old rice and vegetable farmer who has stayed at his home despite radiation concerns and a lack of electricity and water.
A United Nations team of nuclear experts has met Japanese officials and will visit the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant over the next few days to investigate the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986 and assess efforts to stabilize the complex by Tokyo's self-declared deadline of early next year.
The Japanese government, which has pledged to cooperate with the experts from the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, announced its own probe, appointing University of Tokyo Professor Yotaro Hatamura, an expert on industrial accidents, to head an investigative panel.
The plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co, released a new analysis suggesting that fuel rods in the plant's Units 2 and 3 mostly melted during the early days of the crisis, which had been suspected but could not be confirmed and which suggests that the severity of the accident was greater than officials have acknowledged.
The new revelations indicate earlier official assessments may have been too optimistic, said Goshi Hosono, director of Japan's nuclear crisis task force. "We should have made a more cautious damage estimate based on a worse scenario."
Releases of radiation
Fuel in three of the plant's six reactors started melting just hours after the March 11 tsunami knocked out cooling systems, prompting huge releases of radiation into the atmosphere - about one-tenth of the radiation released from Chernobyl in 1986, according to a government estimate.
The melted fuel rods, which appear to have fallen into a lump at the bottom of each of the three pressure vessels, currently pose no immediate problem because they are mostly covered with water being pumped into the chamber and are at temperatures far below danger levels, officials say.
The plant is still leaking radiation, but at much lower levels than immediately after the accident, and Japanese officials hope to bring the entire plant to a "cold shutdown" - halting all radioactive leaks - by next January at the latest.
In the meantime, 80,000 people remain evacuated from homes around the plant, although a handful of stalwarts have defied government orders to leave.
"TEPCO caused such a horrible disaster. Leaving my home means I have lost to TEPCO," said Naoto Matsumura, a 51-year-old rice and vegetable farmer who has stayed at his home despite radiation concerns and a lack of electricity and water.
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