Tokyo, March 13: The operator of a quake-hit Japanese nuclear plant says the cooling system of another reactor is not working and there’s a risk of an explosion.
“All the functions to keep cooling water levels in No 3 reactor have failed at the Fukushima No. 1 plant,” a spokesman of Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) said.
“As of 5.30am (0730 AEDT), water injection stopped and inside pressure is rising slightly,” he said, adding the operator filed an emergency report on the plant’s condition with the government.
The massive earthquake and tsunami on Friday left more than 1000 dead and at least 10,000 unaccounted for.
In its wake there was an explosion that blew off the roof and walls of the structure around the No 1 reactor at the Fukushima No 1 atomic plant, about 250km northeast of Tokyo.
Radiation leaked from the plant, but the government moved to calm fears of a meltdown, saying the blast did not rupture the container surrounding the reactor and that radiation levels had fallen afterwards.
Japan’s nuclear safety agency rated the accident at four on the international scale of 0 to 7. The 1979 Three Mile Island accident in the United States was rated five while the 1986 Chernobyl disaster was a seven.
Work to bring the situation under control is ongoing to prevent cooling liquid from evaporating and exposing the fuel rods to the air, which could trigger a major radiation leak.
“We have decided to douse the (reactor) container with sea water in order to reduce risks as quickly as possible,” Kan’s top spokesman Yukio Edano said.
Kyodo and Jiji reported before the explosion that the plant “may be experiencing nuclear meltdown”, while NHK quoted the safety agency as saying metal tubes that contain uranium fuel may have melted.
An evacuation order for tens of thousands of residents was expanded to 20km around the Fukushima plant, and thousands more were shifted from another damaged plant, Fukushima No 2.
Meanwhile, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Washington said on Saturday it has sent two experts to Japan.
“We have some of the most expert people in this field in the world working for the NRC and we stand ready to assist in any way possible,” commission chairman Gregory Jaczko said in a statement announcing the deployment.
The NRC – an independent agency mandated by Congress to regulate US commercial nuclear power plants and other nuclear materials – said the pair were experts in boiling water nuclear reactors and are part of a broader US aid team sent to the disaster zone.
The commission has activated “its Maryland-based headquarters Operations Center since the beginning of the emergency in Japan, and is operating on a 24-hour basis”, the statement added.
——–Agencies