Fukushima Plant Crisis Could Erupt If Water
Injection Stops For 38 Hrs
Fukushima Power Plant
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TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Tokyo Electric Power Co. has released an
estimate that says if water injection at its stricken
Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant stops, its fuel rods
could start melting in 38 hours, causing radioactive
substances to spew out.
The utility said, however, it can resume watering at the
Nos. 1 to 3 reactors in three hours at the most in case the
plant is hit by another earthquake and tsunami matching the
scale of the March 11 disaster that caused their core
meltdowns.
The estimate said the temperature of the fuel, now believed
to have solidified at the bottom of the reactors' pressure
vessels, would rise about 50 C each hour and reach its
melting point of 2,200 C in about 38 hours.
The reactors would then start emitting massive amounts of
radioactive substances, raising the radiation level around
the plant's premises above 10 millisieverts, the benchmark
for prompting an order to evacuate.
In the estimate, TEPCO did not assess the likelihood of any
melted fuel dropping through the pressure vessels into the
containment vessels shrouding each reactor.
In the case any one part of the current system used to pump
water into the crisis-hit reactors is lost, TEPCO said it
can resume watering in about 30 minutes by activating
emergency pumps installed at an elevated position. In the
event of multiple functions were lost, the utility projected
it would require about three hours to resume injecting
water.
TEPCO official Junichi Matsumoto said the utility would
inject boric acid if there were a concern of a nuclear chain
reaction. But he said the likelihood of such a reaction
occurring was small because the condition within the
reactors has changed as the fuel was damaged.
(Mainichi Japan) October 2, 2011
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