Kastha blog

Japan mulls reactor covers in nuclear crisis

Japan was weighing Wednesday a series of solutions to its unfolding nuclear disaster, from draping reactors with special fabric to sending in military robots to do the risky work.

Pressure to come up with fresh ideas intensified as Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), which operates the crippled Fukushima plant, admitted it had no idea when the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl would be under control.

"Key factors are still unknown, such as how the nuclear incident will come to an end... In a word, the very difficult situation is expected to continue," TEPCO chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata told reporters.

One stop-gap measure reported by the local media involved covering three badly damaged outer reactor buildings with special fabric caps and fitting air filters to limit radiation.

Another plan was to anchor an empty tanker off reactor two, so that workers can pump several Olympic swimming pools' worth of highly-radioactive runoff water into its hull, media said.

"We are in an unprecedented situation, so we need to think about different strategies, beyond what we normally think about," an official with the nuclear safety agency told AFP.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the government and nuclear experts were discussing "every possibility, including those mentioned in the press."

In the latest attempt to contain the disaster, workers will on Thursday begin to carpet two-thirds of the plant's 1.2 hectares (three acres) of grounds with a resin to trap the radioactive particles, the agency said later.

The United States has lent Japan robots of a model battle-tested in Iraq and Afghanistan that can navigate, film and clear rubble in the blast-hit reactor buildings, which humans cannot enter because of very high radiation levels.

US President Barack Obama vowed continued help as he talked to Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan for the third time since the disaster, which has left over 11,000 confirmed dead and more than 16,000 listed as missing.

"The United States is determined to support the people of Japan in their efforts to deal with the devastating effects of this tragedy, both in the short and the long term," Obama said according to the White House.

Smoke was on Wednesday seen at another TEPCO-run nuclear plant 10 kilometres (six miles) from the stricken plant.

The company later said it came from an electric distribution switchboard and was not due to a fire.

The strain of the crisis appeared to have taken a toll on TEPCO's president Masataka Shimizu, 66, who was hospitalised Tuesday evening with high blood pressure and dizziness, having not appeared in public for over two weeks.

The company's shares have plunged to about a fifth of pre-quake levels amid heavy criticism, most recently over news that it ignored expert warnings on the threat of a tsunami before a giant wave crashed into the plant on March 11.

TEPCO chairman Katsumata said he saw little chance that the four stricken reactors in the six-reactor complex could ever resume operations.

For now Japan faces a dilemma in containing the nuclear crisis: it must pump water into reactors to stop them from overheating, even as highly radioactive runoff leaks out, halting crucial repair work and threatening the environment.

Iodine-131 detected in Pacific Ocean water near the plant site surged to a new high of 3,355 times the legal limit, officials said -- compared to the previous top level of 1,850 times the legal maximum taken days ago.

"The figures are rising further," said nuclear safety agency spokesman Hidehiko Nishiyama. "We need to find out as quickly as possible the cause and stop them from rising any higher."

With crucial control room functions still disabled, experts are not sure what exactly is happening inside the reactors -- and some international experts have issued dire warnings that a meltdown may already be in progress.

One of them is Richard Lahey, who was head of safety research for boiling-water reactors at General Electric when it installed the Fukushima units, and who was quoted by Britain's Guardian newspaper.

Available reactor and radiation data from the troubled unit two "suggest that the core has melted through the bottom of the pressure vessel" and onto the concrete floor, he was quoted as saying by the daily.

"I hope I am wrong, but that is certainly what the evidence is pointing towards."

Greenpeace radiation expert Jan van de Putte urged the Japanese government to take more aggressive measures to evacuate people near the plant, warning of long-term consequences for public health.

"Exposing a large number of people to this level of radiation creates a collective risk which is very significant over a long term, in terms of years. Our main concern is an increased incidence of cancer," he told reporters.

Meanwhile the EU said it may strengthen controls on imports of Japanese food to include checks on the presence of plutonium.

The Vienna Boys' Choir, one of Austria's best-selling musical exports, said Wednesday it would "very likely" cancel an upcoming tour of Japan in view of the unfolding nuclear catastrophe while the 2011 Tour of Japan has also been cancelled.