2 Japanese plants struggling to cool radioactive material

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http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/11/japan.nuclear/?hpt=T1

Official: 2 Japanese plants struggling to cool radioactive material

By the CNN Wire Staff

March 11, 2011 11:13 p.m. EST

Reactors at two Japanese power plants can no longer cool radioactive substances,

a government official said Saturday, adding that a small leak had been detected

at one of the facilities.

Atomic material has seeped out of one of the Fukushima Daiichi plant's five

nuclear reactors, about 160 miles (260 kilometers) north of Tokyo, said Kazuo

Kodama, a spokesman for Japan's nuclear regulatory agency.

Potentially dangerous problems in cooling radioactive material appear to have

cropped up there, as well as at another of the Tokyo Electric Power Co. nuclear

plants, Ichiro Fujisaki, Japan's ambassador to the United States, confirmed to

CNN.

The Fukushima Daini and Fukushima Daiichi power plants are separate facilities

located in different towns in northeastern Japan's Fukushima prefecture. Each

one has its own set of individual nuclear reactors.

Kodama said the cooling system had failed at three of the four such units of the

Daini plant.

Temperatures of the coolant water in that plant's reactors soared to above 100

degrees Celsius (212 degrees Fahrenheit), Japan's Kyodo News Agency reported, an

indication that the cooling system wasn't working.

Authorities subsequently ordered residents within 3 kilometers of that facility

to evacuate as " a precaution, " Fujisaki said. That plant was also added to the

Japanese nuclear agency's emergency list, along with the Daiichi plant.

Tom Cochran, a senior scientist with the National Resource Defense Council,

explained that this was likely done to release growing pressure inside both

atomic plants. High temperatures had caused the water, meant to cool the

radioactive material, to boil and thus produce excess steam.

This comes amid Kyodo's reports, citing the same Japanese agency, that radiation

levels were 1,000 times above normal in the the control room of the " No. 1 "

reactor at one of the facilities.

These and other issues caused by the 8.9-magnitude quake prompted authorities to

order an evacuation of people within 2 to 3 kilometers (1.2 to 1.8 miles) of the

plant, a move Edano called " precautionary. " Early Saturday morning, Prime

Minister Naoto Kan said that the evacuation order had been extended to affect

those within 10 kilometers of the reactor.

Kan spoke to reporters shortly before flying to the quake-ravaged region with

nuclear safety authorities -- including going over the Daiichi facility --

according to Fujisaki.

The evacuations notwithstanding, the nuclear safety agency asserted Saturday

that the radiation at the plants did not pose an immediate threat to nearby

residents' health, the Kyodo report said.

These developments come a day after the quake ravaged the Asian nation, shutting

down power to more than 1.2 million people and stoking fears of a crisis at the

nation's atomic plants.

Most of the concern initially had centered around the first Daiichi plant, which

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters on Friday " remains at a high

temperature " because it " cannot cool down. "

That plant and three others were shut down after the quake hit around 2:46 p.m.

Friday local time, prompting authorities in Tokyo to declare a state of atomic

power emergency.

Three of the Daiichi reactor's six units shut down because of the earthquake,

while operations at the other three were out due to " regular inspection, " the

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said in a news release Saturday.

Fire broke out at a third facility, the Onagawa plant. But crews put it out,

according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Many hours later, shortly before 4 a.m. Saturday, a 6.6-magnitude aftershock

struck near Nagano Prefecture on the west coast of the Japanese island of

Honshu. Afterward, Kyodo reported that the nearby Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear

reactor continued to operate as normal. That quake was one of at least seven

measuring magnitude 5.2 or stronger after the main quake, the U.S. Geological

Survey said.

The trouble the Daiichi plant happened after its once operating reactors had

been successfully shut down, Edano said.

Cham Dallas, a professor of disaster management at the University of Georgia,

said that it wouldn't be surprising if reactors get " both thermally hot and

radioactively hot " after the reactors were shut down.

" When they shut down reactors, it takes a long time for them to go down, " Dallas

said. " It does not necessarily mean radioactive material got out of the

reactor. "

The International Atomic Energy Agency said Friday on its website that the quake

and tsunami knocked out the reactor's off-site power source, which is used to

cool down the radioactive material inside. Then, the tsunami waves disabled the

backup source -- diesel generators -- and authorities were working to get these

operating.

Janie Eudy told CNN that her 52-year-old husband, Joe, was working at the plant

and was injured by falling and shattering glass when the quake struck. As he and

others were planning to evacuate, at their managers' orders, the tsunami waves

struck and washed buildings from the nearby town past the plant.

" To me, it sounded like hell on earth, " she said, adding her husband -- a native

of Pineville, Louisiana -- ultimately escaped.

Eighty employees of General Electric Hitachi Nuclear Energy, including Eudy, who

were at the plant are all safe, company spokesman Tetuan said. He added

that the firm is devising plans to evacuate those workers, who were

subcontractors at the plant.

The IAEA, the international nuclear organization, said Friday that its officials

are " in full response mode, " as they worked with Japanese authorities and

monitor the situation.

Using Air Force planes, the U.S. government has sent over coolant for the

plants, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday.

" We're really deeply involved in trying to do as much as we can on behalf of the

Japanese and on behalf of U.S. citizens, " she said.

The Tokyo Electric Power Co. said that seven thermal power stations and 24 hydro

power stations that it operates also also have been shut down. The Goi Thermal

Power Station has since been restarted, as have hydro power stations in Niigata

prefecture, the company said.

All these shutdowns had left more than 1.2 million people without power as of

Saturday morning, according to the electric company.

Acton, a physicist who examined the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant after a 2007

earthquake, told CNN that releasing the valves from the two power plants might

only spew a relatively small amount of radioactive material into the atmosphere.

A greater concern would happen if -- after what Cochran estimated would occur if

temperatures topped 540 degrees Celsius (1,000 Fahrenheit) -- the fuel rods

inside the reactors melted down.

" The big problem is if it can't cool and the (reactors') core starts to melt --

then you have the possibility of a greater release of radioactivity into the

environment, " Acton said. If that happens, " there's a possibility of cancer in

the long term -- that's the main hazard here. "

CNN's Tom Watkins and Greg Botelho contributed to this report.