How To Repair A Century Reactor
New Repairs Delay Work at Nuclear Establish in Nihon
This article is by Ken Belson , Hiroko Tabuchi and David Jolly.
TOKYO — Efforts to stabilize the crippled nuclear power plant in Fukushima stalled on Monday when engineers institute that crucial machinery at one reactor required repair, a process that volition take two to three days, regime officials said.
A team of workers trying to repair another reactor, No. 3, was evacuated in the afternoon after gray smoke rose from it, said Tetsuro Fukuyama, the deputy chief cabinet secretary of the Japanese government. But no explosion was heard and the emission ended past half-dozen p.m., NHK, the national broadcaster, said.
Separately, NHK cited the Japanese Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency every bit saying that white smoke was coming from the edifice housing Reactor No. two, where repairs to mechanism were needed. Mr. Fukuyama said significantly college radiation had non been detected around the ii reactors.
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On Tuesday morn, fume or steam was reported to exist rising from ii of the reactors, but the company that owns the power found, the Tokyo Electrical Ability Company, reported just after apex that no more than smoke was beingness emitted.
By late Monday, electrical cables had been continued to all vi of the reactor buildings, but much more work needed to be done. At the No. and No. four reactors, damage from the convulsion and tsunami, as well as rubble from hydrogen explosions, was impeding the effort to restore operations.
An official at the United states of america Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Monday that Reactors No. 1 and No. 2 were both likewise damaged for cooling systems to restart immediately, even when electricity was restored. But the official, William Borchardt, too said that the situation at the plant appeared to be "on the verge of stabilizing." The N.R.C. is advising the United States Embassy, giving assistance to the Japanese and gathering information to benefit American reactor rubber. The Country Department, meanwhile, said it would offer potassium iodide to its staff members and dependents in the Tokyo region and to the due north on Honshu, Japan's main isle and the site of the troubled power station, every bit a precaution confronting a possible radiations release. In a travel warning posted online, the State Department advised against taking the chemical compound "at this fourth dimension" and urged consultation with the U.s.a. government before consuming it.
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Potassium iodide can help forestall thyroid cancer by reducing the run a risk that radioactive iodine will exist absorbed by the thyroid gland.
Hundreds of employees of the utility, which owns the disabled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, had worked through the weekend to connect a mile-long high-voltage transmission line to the No. 2 unit in hopes of restarting a cooling organisation that would aid bring down the temperature in the reactor and spent fuel pool.
After connecting the transmission line on Sun, engineers establish on Monday that they all the same did not take enough power to fully run the systems that control the temperature and pressure in the building that houses the reactor, officials from the Japanese nuclear safety agency said.
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Engineers were as well trying to repair the ventilation system in the control room used to monitor conditions in the No. 1 and No. 2 units. When that work is completed, the ability visitor can begin cleansing the air in the control room so workers can eventually re-enter and begin using equipment inside to monitor weather condition in the ii reactor units.
Firefighters from Tokyo doused Reactor No. 3 overnight, and burn trucks from the Japan Self-Defence Forces and the American Regular army spent 2 hours on Mon forenoon spraying water on Reactor No. 4. There are six reactors at the found; Nos. 4, 5 and 6 were offline when the earthquake and seismic sea wave hit, but there are spent fuel rods atop them and the other 3.
The Japanese nuclear safety bureau said that some of the h2o used to douse the damaged reactors had reached the ocean nearby, and that officials were investigating radiation levels in the water. Trace amounts of radioactive textile were as well reported to have been found on Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost island.
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Separately, residents of Iitate, a village about 30 miles from the Fukushima Daiichi constitute, were ordered not to potable tap water after high levels of radioactive elements were detected in the h2o supply, said Takashi Hashiguchi, a Health Ministry building official. Residents were told that they could still use tap water for other tasks, like washing their hands or taking a bath, he said.
The society came a twenty-four hours subsequently the government barred all shipments of milk from Fukushima Prefecture and shipments of spinach from Ibaraki Prefecture afterward finding new cases of above-normal levels of radioactive elements in milk and several crops.
Abnormal levels were also institute in spinach from Tochigi and Gunma Prefectures to the westward, in canola from Gunma Prefecture and in chrysanthemum greens from Chiba Prefecture, south of Ibaraki.
A spokesman for the World Health Organization said on Monday that the discovery of radiation in food was a more serious problem than the organisation kickoff expected, Reuters reported. Peter Cordingley, a Manila-based spokesman for the organization, said there was no prove that contaminated food from Fukushima Prefecture had reached the export marketplace.
But Mr. Cordingley added that "it's a lot more serious than anybody thought in the early days," when analysts thought the effect would be limited to 12 to nineteen miles from the ability plant, Reuters reported.
In Vienna on Monday the United Nations atomic energy main said the nuclear crunch in Japan remained "very serious."
In a statement, Yukiya Amano, director full general of the International Diminutive Energy Agency, said he believed "this crisis will exist effectively overcome." He too said that "the bureau's role in nuclear safety may need to be re-examined, forth with the role of our safe standards."
The food contagion and delays in repair work at the Fukushima plant are two of the challenges facing Japan since a nine.0-magnitude convulsion and subsequent seismic sea wave struck its northeast coast on March 11. NHK said Monday that the official death toll had been raised to more than 8,600. Just the last price is expected to reach nearly xx,000. On Sunday police officials in Miyagi said they expected the toll there alone to exceed xv,000.
More than thirteen,000 people are listed as missing.
The World Banking company, citing private and Japanese authorities estimates, said that the disaster could cost from $122 billion to $235 billion.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/22/world/asia/22japan.html
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