Japan suspends work at stricken nuke plant due to surge in radiation

[Guest guest]

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/japan-nuke-plant-company-official-says-seeking-us-20110\

315-071417-331.html

Japan suspends work at stricken nuke plant due to surge in radiation

By Talmadge,Shino Yuasa, The Associated Press | The Canadian Press – 13

minutes ago

SOMA, Japan - Dangerous levels of radiation leaking from a crippled nuclear

plant forced Japan to order 140,000 people to seal themselves indoors Tuesday

after an explosion and a fire dramatically escalated the crisis spawned by a

deadly tsunami.

In a nationally televised statement, Prime Minister Naoto Kan said radiation has

spread from the four stricken reactors of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant

along Japan's northeastern coast. The region was shattered by Friday's

9.0-magnitude earthquake and the ensuing tsunami that is believed to have killed

more than 10,000 people, plunged millions into misery and pummeled the world's

third-largest economy.

Japanese officials told the International Atomic Energy Agency that the reactor

fire was in a storage pond and that " radioactivity is being released directly

into the atmosphere. " Long after the fire was extinguished, a Japanese official

said the pool, where used nuclear fuel is kept cool, might be boiling.

" We cannot deny the possibility of water boiling " in the pool, said Hidehiko

Nishiyama, an official with the economy ministry, which oversees nuclear safety.

That reactor, Unit 4, had been shut down before the quake for maintenance.

If the water boils, it could evaporate, exposing the rods. The fuel rods are

encased in safety containers meant to prevent them from resuming nuclear

reactions, nuclear officials said, downplaying the risk of that happening.

But they acknowledged that there could have been damage to the containers. They

also confirmed that the walls of the storage pool building were damaged.

Though Kan and other officials urged calm, Tuesday's developments fueled a

growing panic in Japan and around the world amid widespread uncertainty over

what would happen next. In the worst case scenario, one or more of the reactor

cores would completely melt down, a disaster that could spew large amounts of

radioactivity into the atmosphere.

" I worry a lot about fallout, " said Yuta Tadano, a 20-year-old pump technician

at the Fukushima plant, who said he was in the complex when quake hit.

" If we could see it we could escape, but we can't, " he said, cradling his

4-month-old baby, Shoma, at an evacuation centre.

The radiation fears added to the catastrophe that has been unfolding in Japan,

where at least 10,000 people are believed to have been killed and millions of

people have spent four nights with little food, water or heating in

near-freezing temperatures as they dealt with the loss of homes and loved ones.

Up to 450,000 people are in temporary shelters.

Asia's richest country hasn't seen such hardship since World War II. The stock

market plunged for a second day and a spate of panic buying saw stores running

out of necessities, raising government fears that hoarding may hurt the delivery

of emergency food aid to those who really need it.

In a rare bit of good news, rescuers found a 70-year-old woman alive in her

swept-away home four days after the tsunami flattened much of Japan's

northeastern coast.

The Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex, along that battered coastline, has been

the focus of the worries. Workers there have been desperately trying to use

seawater to cool the fuel rods in the complex's three reactors, all of which

lost their cooling ability after Friday's quake and tsunami.

On Tuesday, the complex was hit by its third explosion since Friday, and then a

fire in a separate reactor.

Afterward, officials just south of the area reported up to 100 times the normal

levels of radiation, Kyodo News agency reported. While those figures are

worrying if there is prolonged exposure, they are far from fatal.

Tokyo reported slightly elevated radiation levels, but officials said the

increase was too small to threaten the 39 million people in and around the

capital, about 170 miles (270 kilometres) away. Closer to the stricken nuclear

complex, the streets in the coastal city of Soma were empty as the few residents

who remained there heeded the government's warning to stay indoors.

Kan and other officials warned there is danger of more leaks and told people

living within 19 miles (30 kilometres) of the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex to stay

indoors to avoid exposure that could make people sick.

" Please do not go outside. Please stay indoors. Please close windows and make

your homes airtight, " Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told residents in the

danger zone.

" These are figures that potentially affect health. There is no mistake about

that, " he said.

Weather forecasts for Fukushima were for snow and wind from the northeast

Tuesday evening, blowing southwest toward Tokyo, then shifting and blowing east

out to sea. That's important because it shows which direction a possible nuclear

cloud might blow.

Some 70,000 people had already been evacuated from a 12-mile (20-kilometre)

radius from the Dai-ichi complex. About 140,000 remain in the new warning zone.

Officials said 70 workers were at the complex, struggling with its myriad

problems. The workers, all of them wearing protective gear, are being rotated in

and out of the danger zone quickly to reduce their radiation exposure.

Another 800 staff were evacuated. The fires and explosions at the reactors have

injured 15 workers and military personnel and exposed up to 190 people to

elevated radiation.

Temperatures in at least two of the complex's reactors, units 5 and 6, were also

slightly elevated, Edano said.

" The power for cooling is not working well and the temperature is gradually

rising, so it is necessary to control it, " he said.

Fourteen pumps have been brought in to get seawater into the other reactors.

They are not yet pumping water into Unit 4 but are trying to figure out how to

do that.

In Tokyo, slightly higher-than-normal radiation levels were detected Tuesday but

officials insisted there are no health dangers.

" The amount is extremely small, and it does not raise health concerns. It will

not affect us, " Takayuki Fujiki, a Tokyo government official said.

Kyodo reported that radiation levels nine times higher than normal were briefly

detected in Kanagawa prefecture near Tokyo and that the Tokyo metropolitan

government said it had detected a small amount of radioactive materials in the

air.

Edano said the radiation readings had fallen significantly by the evening.

Japanese government officials are being rightly cautious, said Olander,

professor emeritus of nuclear engineering at University of California at

Berkeley. He believed even the heavily elevated levels of radiation around

Dai-ichi are " not a health hazard. " But without knowing specific dose levels, he

said it was hard to make judgments.

" Right now it's worse than Three Mile Island, " Olander said. But it's nowhere

near the levels released during Chornobyl.

On Three Mile Island, the radiation leak was held inside the containment shell —

thick concrete armour around the reactor. The Chornobyl reactor had no shell and

was also operational when the disaster struck. The Japanese reactors

automatically shut down when the quake hit and are encased in containment

shells.

Olander said encasing the reactors in a concrete sarcophagus — the last-ditch

effort done in Chornobyl — is far too premature. Operators need to wait until

they cool more, or risk making the situation even worse.

Millions of people spent a fourth night with little food, water or heating in

near-freezing temperatures as they dealt with the loss of homes and loved ones.

Asia's richest country hasn't seen such hardship since World War II.

With snow and freezing temperatures forecast for the next several days, shelters

were gathering firewood to burn for heat, stacking it under tarps and tables.

Though Japanese officials have refused to speculate on the overall death toll,

Indonesian geologist Hery Harjono, who dealt with the 2004 Asian tsunami, said

it would be " a miracle really if it turns out to be less than 10,000 " dead.

The 2004 tsunami killed 230,000 people — of which only 184,000 bodies were

found.

Rescuers were heartened Tuesday to find one survivor.

The 70-year-old woman was found inside her house, which had been washed away by

the tsunami, said Osaka fire department spokesman Yuko Kotani, whose teams had

raced to the region to help with disaster relief. It wasn't clear if the house

was still at sea, or if it had returned to the shoreline, when she was found.

The woman was conscious but suffering from hypothermia and is being treated at a

hospital, Kotani said.

The impact of the earthquake and tsunami dragged down stock markets. The

benchmark Nikkei 225 stock average plunged for a second day Tuesday, nose-diving

more than 10 per cent to close at 8,605.15 while the broader Topix lost more

than 8 per cent.

To lessen the damage, Japan's central bank made two cash injections totalling 8

trillion yen ($98 billion) Tuesday into the money markets after pumping in $184

billion on Monday.

Initial estimates put repair costs in the tens of billions of dollars, costs

that would likely add to a massive public debt that, at 200 per cent of gross

domestic product, is the biggest among industrialized nations.

The Dai-ichi plant is the most severely affected of three nuclear complexes that

were declared emergencies after suffering damage in Friday's quake and tsunami,

raising questions about the safety of such plants in coastal areas near fault

lines and adding to global jitters over the industry.

___

Yuasa reported from Tokyo. Associated Press writer Elaine Kurtenbach contributed

to this report.