Japan attaches power cable to crippled nuke plant to stop radiation
March 19th, 2011 - 2:07 pm ICT by ANITokyo, Mar.19 (ANI): Hopes rise at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant as engineers attached a power cable outside the plant on Saturday in an attempt to restart water pumps to cool overheated fuel rods that are threatening to melt down.
Further cabling work is being carried out inside the plant, which has been rocked with explosions in three of its reactors, leading to radiation leaks around the area, after Japan had been hit by a 8.9 magnitude earthquake and tsunami last Friday.
Almost 300 engineers are working inside the 20-kilometer evacuation zone working to restore power pumps in four of the reactors.
Plant operators Tokyo Electric Power Company has said that engineers have connected the external transmission line with the receiving point of the plant and confirmed that electricity can be supplied.
Officials said that another 1480 meters of cable are being laid inside the complex before engineers try to start operating the coolers at reactor No.2, followed by reactors 1, 3 and 4 this weekend.
If they are successful, it will be a significant step forward in establishing stability.
However, if they don’t succeed, they are considering a “Chernobyl solution” which involves covering the damaged reactors at the plant in concrete, leaving the radioactive rods permanently entombed on the site.
Japan has now upgraded the accident at Fukushima from level four to level five out of seven on an international scale of nuclear accidents, putting it on the same level as the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, although some experts say it is more serious, Xinhua reports.
Japan’s multiple crises has prompted international reassessment of nuclear safety and given Japan its worst disaster since the Second World War. It has also stirred up memories of Japan’s worst nuclear nightmare, when the United States had dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. (ANI)
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