Tokyo, April 04: A senior Japanese official says it may take “several months” to bring the crisis-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant under control.
When asked how long it would take to bring the plant’s overheating reactors under control in an interview with Fuji TV on Sunday, Prime Minister Naoto Kan’ special advisor said “I think several months would be one target.”
“We have not escaped from a crisis situation, but it is somewhat stabilized,” Goshi Hosono added.
“What will follow that stage is the goal of stabilizing the plant by installing a perfect cooling mechanism for the reactors,” Hosono said.
Confirming Hosono’s remarks about time required for bringing crisis to an end, Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said “If we apply methods considered to be normal, I believe that it will be something like that.”
A destructive earthquake and tsunami on March 11 in Japan’s northern coast set off nuclear problems by knocking out power to cooling systems of reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, and caused radiation leaks.
On Saturday Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency confirmed that radioactive water has leaked into the sea from a 20-centimeter crack at a maintenance pit in Fukushima’s No. 2 reactor.
The agency said level of radiation in the seawater near Fukushima plant has reached more than 4,000 times the legal limit.
The government has ordered the evacuation of about 200,000 people living in a 20-kilometer (12.4-mile) radius around the plant, and told people residing between 20 kilometers and 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) from the plant to remain indoors.
Edano said once the experts finish analyzing the latest data obtained from a larger number of radiation samples, the government would consider whether it is necessary to change the evacuation areas.
He said authorities have examined the thyroid gland of around 900 infants and children, ranging from under the age of 1 to 15 years old, living in municipalities near the plant. None of them however showed signs of being affected by radiation, Edano added.
——–Agencies