Fire reignites at Japan nuclear reactor

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Fire reignites at Japan nuclear reactor

Japanese officials face another setback in their struggle to contain the

Fukushima nuclear reactor crisis. Meanwhile, Japanese cope with food shortages

and bitter cold.

By Mark Magnier, Barbara Demick and King, Los Angeles Times

March 15, 2011, 8:15 p.m.

Reporting from Sendai and Tokyo, Japan Fresh setbacks, including another blaze

at a crippled reactor, bedeviled Japanese authorities Wednesday as they

struggled to contain the world's worst nuclear crisis in a quarter of a century,

and survivors of the devastating earthquake and tsunami suffered through

shortages, bitter cold and overnight snowfall.

Troubling new estimates emerged of the extent of damage at the Fukushima No. 1

(Daiichi) nuclear plant about 150 miles north of Tokyo.

Elevated radiation levels detected a day earlier in the vicinity of the plant

imposed a creeping sense of isolation, with greater numbers of foreigners

leaving, rescue crews mindful of exit routes and international flights being

diverted away from the capital.

Tens of thousands of residents within a 20-mile radius of the plant were

essentially trapped indoors for a second day Wednesday, urged again by

authorities to avoid going out unless it was an emergency. That posed a

conundrum for those who have already been scrambling to obtain basic

necessities; food, water and medicine have all been hard to come by in the area

hit by Friday's magnitude 9 quake and the tsunami that followed.

" Yesterday we ate a bit of rice and one egg, " said Yoshiko Tsuzuki, 55, a

homemaker standing beside her husband and 16-year old daughter in a line outside

a grocery store near the battered city of Sendai. " We're hungry. I want to buy

water and anything to eat. We need everything. "

It remained unclear why a country renowned for its efficiency has been unable to

marshal convoys of supply trucks into the disaster area, as China did after its

2008 earthquake. Though military vehicles were evident, few emergency supplies

were seen on the major arteries from Tokyo into the hard-hit Tohuku region and

points south.

Even in cities that lie well outside the earthquake zone, daily life was

increasingly becoming disrupted by rolling blackouts and the curtailment of

Japan's much-vaunted transit network, both of which will be key to restarting

the engine of the world's third-largest economy. Stock prices stabilized

Wednesday after tumbling for two days, but there was deepening gloom over the

long-term financial outlook in the wake of the worst earthquake in the country's

recorded history — a concern even among survivors who have far more immediate

and pressing fears.

" I'm worried in the long term about Japan's economy, " said Yoshiko Konno, in her

60s, as she charged her cellphone at a community center in Sendai. " Just think

of one example — oysters! Are Americans and Europeans going to want to import

Japanese oysters if they think there is a danger of radioactive contamination? "

Five days later, the true scale of the disaster is still unknown. At least

10,000 people are feared dead, a tally that is expected to take weeks to

finalize. About half a million others have been displaced by quake and tsunami

damage or the evacuation triggered by the emergency at Fukushima, a once-obscure

nuclear plant that is now the focus of worldwide scrutiny.

The cause of Wednesday's blaze at the Unit 4 reactor — also the scene of a fire

the day before — was not immediately known. The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric

Power Co., known as Tepco, said radiation levels were too high for firefighters

to get close. Later, authorities said the blaze seemed to be subsiding on its

own, as the one the previous day did. But hours later, public broadcaster NHK

showed breaking aerial footage of a plume of white smoke rising from the

reactor.

At the plant, where a small cadre of workers in protective gear remained

doggedly on the job, desperate and improvisational measures have become the

rule. Tepco said it was considering using a helicopter to douse a boiling

storage pool filled with spent fuel rods. The spent rods are usually submerged

in the pool next to the Unit 4 reactor, which was not operating when the

earthquake and tsunami struck.

But government officials said the helicopter plan had been ruled out as too

difficult. Yuichi Sato, a spokesman at Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety

Agency, said the company was weighing options, including using firetrucks to

shoot water into the reactor building.

Tepco has been sharply criticized for its handling of the crisis at the plant,

where three of the six reactors have been rocked by explosions caused by

overheating in their core containment chambers. The quake and tsunami knocked

out power to the cooling systems, triggering a series of breakdowns and missteps

that exposed fuel rods to the air at one reactor and released dangerous levels

of radiation outside the plant.

The company said an estimated 70% of the fuel rods had been damaged at the Unit

1 reactor and 33% at the Unit 2 reactor. Nuclear safety agency spokesman

Shigekatsu Omukai said the utility reported the figures to the agency Wednesday.

Spent fuel at the complex is an increasing focus of concern. Tepco had moved all

of the rods from the Unit 4 reactor to the spent-fuel pool sometime after Dec. 1

as part of routine maintenance, meaning the pool contained not only all of the

rods accumulated from many years of service but also all of those currently in

use.

If the pool was jam-packed with rods, they would generate significant heat and,

once the water stopped circulating after the tsunami, its temperature would

begin rising, eventually reaching the boiling point. If the water boiled long

enough without being replenished, it would expose the rods to the air.

In 2006, the National Academy of Sciences issued a report warning that a loss of

cooling water or circulation could trigger a catastrophic fire in a spent-fuel

pool that would result in large releases of radioactive material. If the rods

become exposed to the air, their zirconium tubes begin to react with oxygen and

heat up even more, a type of oxidation fire. At some point, the material inside

the tubes melts and can release highly radioactive isotopes such as cesium-137

and iodine-131.

The report was prompted by concern about a potential terrorist attack, but the

physics would be exactly the same in the case of a loss of coolant from a

natural disaster, said Crowley, director of the nuclear and radiation

studies board at the National Academies, who headed the study. The potential for

a worst-case outcome in any kind of incident depends on how closely the rods are

packed, the age of the rods, the size of the pool and how much fuel is in the

pool, Crowley said.

" I think everybody should be worried about this situation, " he said.

Uncertainty about the risks posed by the stricken plant caused nations coming to

Japan's aid to pull back and reassess deployment of rescue personnel, relief

supplies and transportation services. The U.S. aircraft carrier Reagan,

which steamed to the rescue over the weekend, pulled back from Japan's

northeastern shore Tuesday after detecting elevated radiation levels in the

atmosphere.

Some international airlines that had resumed flying to Tokyo halted or rerouted

service again Tuesday to guard against entering areas with heightened radiation.

Germany's Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines, Air France-KLM and others — European

carriers still wary of radiation hazards 25 years after the Chernobyl disaster —

cited the risk of nuclear contamination and the persistent aftershocks in

canceling or delaying flights.

In China, officials said safety experts would monitor planes and ships arriving

at its ports for radioactivity. China also announced it was evacuating its

citizens from Japan's northeast, becoming the first nation to organize a massive

relocation because of the radiation fears.

France also recommended that its citizens leave the Japanese capital, which is

150 miles south of the Fukushima plant, and Austria announced it was moving its

embassy from Tokyo to Osaka to distance its diplomats from any potential

worsening of the crisis.

The U.S. government has recommended that Americans cancel any nonessential

travel to Japan and that those already in the country heed the advice and

direction of Japanese disaster-relief officials.

Magnier and Demick reported from Sendai, King from Tokyo.

Special correspondent Kenji Hall in Tokyo and Times staff writers Carol J.

, Ralph Vartabedian and H. Maugh II in Los Angeles contributed to

this report.