Japan stops nuclear plant leak; crisis far from over
Japan's Crown Prince Naruhito and Crown Princess Masako talk to evacuees from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami at a gymnasium, currently serving as an evacuation center, inside Ajinomoto stadium in Chofu, western Tokyo yesterday.Photo: AFP
Japan stopped highly radioactive water leaking into the sea yesterday from a crippled nuclear plant and acknowledged it could have given more information to neighbouring countries about contamination in the ocean.
Despite the breakthrough in plugging the leak at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, engineers need to pump 11,500 tonnes of contaminated water back into the ocean because they have run out of storage space at the facility. The water was used to cool over-heated fuel rods.
Nuclear experts said the damaged reactors were far from being under control almost a month after they were hit by a massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11.
Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) said it had stemmed the leak using liquid glass at one of the plants six reactors.
"The leaks were slowed yesterday after we injected a mixture of liquid glass and a hardening agent and it has now stopped," a TEPCO spokesman told Reuters.
Engineers had been struggling to stop leaks from reactor No. 2, even using sawdust and newspapers.
Neighbours South Korea and China are getting concerned about the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986, and the radioactive water being pumped into the sea, newspapers reported.
Experts insisted the low-level radioactive water to be pumped into the ocean posed no health hazard to people.
"The original amount of radioactivity is very low, and when you dilute this with a huge body of water, the final levels will be even lower than legal limits," said Pradip Deb, senior lecturer in Medical Radiations at the School of Medical Sciences, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University.
The government is preparing to revise guidelines for legal radiation levels, designed for brief exposure to high levels of radiation in emergencies and not cumulative absorption, for people living near the damaged plant.
Workers are struggling to restart cooling pumps -- which recycle the water -- in four damaged reactors.
Until those are fixed, they must pump in water to prevent overheating and meltdowns, but have run out of storage capacity for the seawater when it becomes contaminated.
Radioactive iodine detected in the sea has been recorded at 4,800 times the legal limit, but has since fallen to about 600 times the limit. The water remaining in the reactors has radiation five million times legal limits.
"What they are going to have to release is likely to be highly radioactive. The situation could politically be very ugly in a week," said Murray Jennex at San Diego State University, who specialises in nuclear containment.
Japan's fishermen, who are part of the politically powerful agricultural lobby, made it clear they were not assuaged by assurances that ocean radioactivity levels were low and safe.
"(The release of radioactive water into the sea) is unforgivable in any circumstance," Ikuhiro Hattori, chairman of the Japan Fisheries Cooperatives, told NHK state television.
"From now on, our fishermen will never cooperate with or accept nuclear power generation. I would like them to stop even those reactors that are now in operation right away."
Japan is facing its worst crisis since World War Two after the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami left nearly 28,000 people dead or missing and thousands homeless, and rocked the world's third-largest economy.
It will likely take months to finally cool down the reactors and years to dismantle those that have been damaged. TEPCO has said it will decommission four of the six reactors.
The two Fukushima plants together provide four percent of Japan's electric power.
Concerned over a possible buildup of hydrogen gas in reactor No. 1, engineers were to inject nitrogen gas into the reactor yesterday night to prevent an explosion, TEPCO said.
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