Fukushima nuke plant compromised safety over cost-cutting drive during construction
March 22nd, 2011 - 1:48 pm ICT by ANITokyo, Mar 22 (ANI): Japan’s earthquake-cum-tsunami hit Fukushima nuclear plant reportedly had one of the country’s worst safety records and had a excess stock of uranium rods when the quake rocked the nation.
The Daily Mail quoted records of a presentation by Tokyo Electric Power Cooperation to a conference organized by the International Atomic Energy Agency, as saying that the reactor buildings at the plant had held the equivalent of almost six years of the highly radioactive uranium fuel rods produced by the plant when the disaster struck.
Officials within the Japanese government, the power company and the nuclear watchdog are now likely to be questioned why the spent fuel roads were stored inside the building, the paper said.
The catastrophe, which has reportedly killed over 18,000 people, has now led the world to focus its attention on the plant’s safety procedures and its history of failed security checks.
It is believed that a much safer and more costly option should have been considered to build strong buildings designed specifically for nuclear storage, but the plant was subjected to a cost-cutting drive under its chief executive Masataka Shimizu.
Meanwhile, Japan’s Tokyo Electric Power Corporation (TEPCO) has claimed to have connected No. 1 and No. 4 reactors at Fukushima plant to an external power supply after smoke was found coming out of the No. 2 and No. 3 reactor buildings.
The utility said that the No. 1, No. 2, No. 5 and No. 6 reactors are now all set to receive power from independent sources, which is a critical first step to revive reactors’ cooling systems.
The nuclear plant had suffered a setback after an 8.9 magnitude earthquake and tsunami hit the country on March 11. (ANI)
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