Tour Of ‘Fragile’ Fukushima
Nuclear Plant Shows Shocking State Of Disrepair
Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant
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Feb.
28, 2012
OKUMA,
Japan — Japan’s tsunami-hit Fukushima power plant remains
fragile nearly a year after it suffered multiple meltdowns,
its chief said Tuesday, with makeshift equipment — some
mended with tape — keeping crucial systems running.
An
independent report, meanwhile, revealed that the government
downplayed the full danger in the days after the March 11
disaster and secretly considered evacuating Tokyo.
Journalists given a tour of the
Fukushima Dai-ichi plant on Tuesday, including a
reporter from the Associated Press, saw crumpled trucks and
equipment still lying on the ground. A power pylon that
collapsed in the tsunami, cutting electricity to the plant’s
vital cooling system and setting off the crisis, remained a
mangled mess.
Officials said the worst is over but the plant remains
vulnerable.
“I have
to admit that it’s still rather fragile,” said plant chief
Takeshi Takahashi, who took the job in December after his
predecessor resigned due to health reasons. “Even though the
plant has achieved what we call ‘cold shutdown conditions,’
it still causes problems that must be improved.”
The
government announced in December that three melted reactors
at the plant had basically stabilized and that radiation
releases had dropped. It still will take decades to fully
decommission the plant, and it must be kept stable until
then.
The
operators have installed multiple backup power supplies, a
cooling system, and equipment to process massive amounts of
contaminated water that leaked from the damaged reactors.
But the
equipment that serves as the lifeline of the cooling system
is shockingly feeble-looking. Plastic hoses cracked by
freezing temperatures have been mended with tape. A set of
three pumps sits on the back of a pickup truck.
Along
with the pumps, the plant now has 1,000 tanks to store more
than 160,000 tons of contaminated water.
Radiation levels in the Unit 1 reactor have fallen, allowing
workers to repair some damage to the reactor building. But
the Unit 3 reactor, whose roof was blown off by a hydrogen
explosion, resembles an ashtray filled with a heap of
cigarette butts.
A
dosimeter recorded the highest radiation reading outside
Unit 3 during Tuesday’s tour — 1.5 millisievert per hour.
That is a major improvement from last year, when up to 10
sieverts per hour were registered near Units 1 and 2.
Exposure to more than 1,000 millisievert, or 1 sievert, can
cause radiation sickness including nausea and an elevated
risk of cancer.
Officials say radiation hot spots remain inside the plant
and minimizing exposure to them is a challenge. Employees
usually work for about 2-3 hours at a time, but in some
areas, including highly contaminated Unit 3, they can stay
only a few minutes.
Since
the March 11 crisis, no one has died from radiation
exposure.
Tuesday’s tour, organized by plant operator Tokyo Electric
Power Co., or TEPCO, came as an independent group released a
report saying the government withheld information about the
full danger of the disaster from its own people and from the
United States.
The
report by the private Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation
delivers a scathing view of how leaders played down the
risks of the reactor meltdowns while holding secret
discussions of a worst-case scenario in which massive
radiation releases would require the evacuation of a much
wider region, including Tokyo. The discussions were reported
last month by the AP.
The
report, compiled from interviews with more than 300 people,
paints a picture of confusion during the days immediately
after the accident. It says U.S.-Japan relations were put at
risk because of U.S. frustration and skepticism over the
scattered information provided by Japan.
The
misunderstandings were gradually cleared up after a
bilateral committee was set up on March 22 and began regular
meetings, according to the report.
It
credits then-Prime Minister Naoto Kan for ordering TEPCO not
to withdraw its staff from the plant and to keep fighting to
bring it under control.
TEPCO’s
president at the time, Masataka Shimizu, called Kan on March
15 and said he wanted to abandon the plant and have all 600
TEPCO staff flee, the report said. That would have allowed
the situation to spiral out of control, resulting in a much
larger release of radiation.
A group
of about 50 workers was eventually able to bring the plant
under control.
TEPCO,
which declined to take part in the investigation, has denied
it planned to abandon Fukushima Dai-ichi. The report notes
the denial, but says Kan and other officials had the clear
understanding that TEPCO had asked to leave.But the report
criticizes Kan for attempting to micromanage the disaster
and for not releasing critical information on radiation
leaks, thereby creating widespread distrust of the
government.
Kan’s
office did not immediately respond to requests for comment
on the report.
Kan
acknowledged in a recent interview with AP that the release
of information was sometimes slow and at times wrong. He
blamed a lack of reliable data at the time and denied the
government hid such information from the public.
The
report also concludes that government oversight of nuclear
plant safety had been inadequate, ignoring the risk of
tsunami and the need for plant design renovations, and
instead clinging to a “myth of safety.”
“The
idea of upgrading a plant was taboo,” said Koichi Kitazawa,
a scholar who heads the commission that prepared the report.
“We were just lucky that Japan was able to avoid the
worst-case scenario. But there is no guarantee this kind of
luck will prevail next time.”
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