JAPANESE RIOT police have joined the fight to stop a badly damaged nuclear plant from going into meltdown, bringing in a water cannon truck to cool an overheating reactor.
The deployment of the police last night heightened fears that the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), is quickly running out of options.
Technicians at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant who had been using seawater and helicopters to dump water on the crippled facility were pulled out yesterday for over an hour after radioactivity levels spiked.
Tepco later sent more than 100 men in protective suits back inside.
Reactor 3 has reportedly been leaking radiation since an explosion damaged its containment system, and Tepco has refused to rule out the threat of “criticality” – a potentially catastrophic fission explosion in reactor 4. The riot police will try to bring the situation under control by spraying pressurised water into a storage pool for spent nuclear fuel inside the No 4 reactor, says state broadcaster NHK.
The depth of the crisis was underlined yesterday in a rare TV appearance by Emperor Akihito, who said he was “deeply concerned” by the tragedy enveloping his country.
“I hope from the bottom of my heart that the people will, hand in hand, treat each other with compassion and overcome these difficult times,” he said in a nationally televised address.
The first statement of its kind by the emperor inevitably brought back memories of the disaster of the second World War and the 1995 Hanshin earthquake, which killed 6,000 people in and around Kobe city. Rumours had been spreading in Tokyo that the emperor had left the city for Kyoto after low-level radioactivity spread throughout the capital.
Five nuclear workers have reportedly died since the quake and tsunami struck last Friday, knocking out diesel-fuelled cooling systems. Two more are missing and at least 20 have been injured. The unheralded technicians who are virtually the only firewall in the unfolding nuclear crisis were put at further risk on Tuesday when the health ministry more than doubled their radiation-exposure limit to 250 millisieverts.
A US watchdog is warning that the crisis at the Fukushima complex could reach the “worst level on an international scale of zero to seven”. The Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) called the situation “closer to a level 6, and it may unfortunately reach a level 7”. The institute rated the 1986 Chernobyl disaster at 7 and the 1979 Three Mile Island incident at 5.
The government’s top spokesman, Yukio Edano, continued to insist yesterday that contamination was still comparatively low, even within the 20km radius of the Fukushima complex. “If someone were to stay in the area for 24 hours a day, 356 days a year, they might suffer health problems. But the radiation is not high enough to affect the human body over several hours or even days.”
Uncertainty about the fate of the complex and conflicting opinions about safe levels of radioactivity were compounded by reports that prime minister Naoto Kan lost his temper with executives from Tepco on Tuesday. “What the hell is going on?” Mr Kan demanded, according to the Kyodo news agency. Tepco has been responsible for most of the information coming out of the plant.
With radiation levels around the greater Tokyo area still higher than normal and the danger of a major disaster unfolding just 250km away, foreign embassies have been advising their nationals to leave the capital. France sent two planes to evacuate its citizens. The embassies of Iraq, Bahrain and Angola have announced they will close and move some of their staff out of the capital. Panama and Austria have also evacuated their ambassadors to Kyoto, several hundred kilometres away.
The Irish Embassy said it was also encouraging its citizens to “consider the necessity for their presence” in Tokyo.
“Those seeking to leave these areas should make a travel reservation as soon as possible,” said the Embassy in a statement, adding, however, that it was “not specifically advising people to leave Japan”.
Japan’s foreign ministry criticised the warnings last night, calling for calm and asking foreign diplomats and government officials in the country to “accurately convey” information from authorities about the Fukushima plant. Some Japanese commentators have accused the foreign community of overreacting.
There were signs yesterday, however, that Japanese people are heading for train stations and airports in increasing numbers. At Shinagawa station, one of Tokyo’s main transport hubs, hundreds of women with children bought tickets for the Shinkansen bullet train to the west and south of the country. “I’m going home to my mum’s place in Kansai,” said Akina Suda (25), who was clutching her three-month-old infant to her chest. “I saw old television footage of what happened to children in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Radiation is very dangerous for babies and I want to protect mine.” Yuko Kasamatsu, was also holding her daughter, Rio (2), as she prepared to board a train. “I’m going back to my hometown, Kyoto,” she said. “There is an awful lot of unreliable information on the web so I stuck to official sources about the radiation. I don’t think it’s very dangerous now, but if anything happens it will be too late to get out, so I’m taking no chances.”
Simeon Allan, a British national, with his wife Mari and young daughter Akari, said: “My wife is bringing our child to Kansai. If the situation worsens, I may join her.”
The Fukushima crisis has overshadowed the plight of about 450,000 refugees mainly in the decimated northeast, where temperatures are still hovering around zero in many places. Most are sleeping in public facilities, schools and gymnasiums. The government said yesterday that the death toll had climbed to 3,700 people but thousands more are missing.
Some Japanese television channels briefly turned last night to two miracle stories amid the disaster. In the coastal town of Ishinomaki, soldiers on Tuesday pulled a four-month-old baby alive from the wreckage of Friday’s tsunami – she was swept out of her parent’s arms when the wave hit. And, yesterday, a woman from the decimated town of Minami-Sanriku, which lost over half its population in the tsunami, gave birth to a healthy son. “Is it okay for me to be so happy when so many are suffering?” the mother, Yukie Kanno, asked on Japanese TV.
Fukushima Nuclear Plant: status report
TOKYO — The following is the known status as of Wednesday evening of each of the six reactors at the Fukushima No 1 nuclear power plant and the four reactors at the Fukushima No 2 plant, both in Fukushima Prefecture, which were crippled by Friday’s magnitude 9.0 earthquake and the ensuing tsunami.
FUKUSHIMA NO 1 PLANT:
Reactor No 1– Suspended after quake, cooling failure, partial melting of core, vapour vented, building damaged on Saturday by hydrogen explosion, seawater being pumped in.
Reactor No 2– Suspended after quake, cooling failure, seawater being pumped in, fuel rods fully exposed temporarily, vapour vented, building housing reactor damaged on Monday by blast at reactor No. 3, damage to containment vessel on Tuesday, potential meltdown feared.
Reactor No 3– Suspended after quake, cooling failure, partial melting of core feared, vapour vented, seawater being pumped in, building housing reactor damaged on Monday by hydrogen explosion, high-level radiation measured nearby on Tuesday, plume of smoke observed on Wednesday, damage to containment vessel likely.
Reactor No 4– Under maintenance when quake struck, fire on Tuesday possibly caused by hydrogen explosion at pool holding spent fuel rods, abnormal temperature rise in spent-fuel storage pool but water level not observed, fire observed on Wednesday at building housing reactor, no water poured in to cool pool, spraying of boric acid being considered.
Reactors No 5, No 6– Under maintenance when quake struck, temperatures slightly rising in spent-fuel storage pools.
FUKUSHIMA NO 2 PLANT
Reactors No 1, No 2, No 4– Suspended after quake, cooling failure, then cold shutdown.
Reactor No 3– Suspended after quake, cold shutdown.
(KYODO NEWS INTERNATIONAL)