Where does all the contamination go?

Conditions at Japan Nuke Plant Worsen as Workers Race to Cool Overheating Reactors

Published March 26, 2011

FoxNews.com

Despite some signs of hope in the past week at Japan's troubled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, conditions have taken an increasingly alarming turn, with a possible breach at one of the reactors and highly radioactive water found leaking from that and two other reactors.

 

U.S. naval barges loaded with fresh water sped toward the crippled nuclear plant to help workers who scrambled Saturday amid radioactivity fears.

 

Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. is now rushing to inject the reactors with fresh water instead amid concerns about the corrosive nature of the salt in seawater, Hidehiko Nishiyama of Japan's Nuclear and Industry Safety Agency said at a briefing Saturday.

 

Defense Minister Yoshimi Kitazawa said late Friday that the U.S. government had made "an extremely urgent" request to switch to freshwater. He said the U.S. military was sending water to nearby Onahama Bay and that water injections could begin early next week.

 

Workers have begun pumping radioactive water from one of the units, Masateru Araki, a TEPCO spokesman, said Saturday.

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The situation at the stricken plant remains unpredictable, government spokesman Yukio Edano said, adding that it would be "a long time" until the crisis is over.

 

"We seem to be keeping the situation from turning worse," he said. "But we still cannot be optimistic."

 

Plant officials and government regulators say they don't know the source of the radioactive water. It could have come from a leaking reactor core, connecting pipes or a spent fuel pool. Or it may be the result of overfilling the pools with emergency cooling water.

 

Radioactivity in seawater just outside one unit tested some 1,250 times higher than normal, probably from both airborne radiation released from the reactors and contaminated water leaked into the sea, Nishiyama said Saturday. Tainted groundwater is the most likely consequence of the incident.

One Fukushima government official said some commercial trucks were refusing to enter the area because of radiation fears, resulting in a shortage of goods.

 

A nuclear crisis that not long ago was described as serious but stable has now raised concerns of a greater meltdown, with the danger underscored Friday with two plant employees hospitalized after wading into water 10,000 times more radioactive than normal.

 

The Tokyo Electric Power Co. told Kyodo News that it has begun injecting freshwater into the Unit 1 and 3 reactors at the plant, despite radioactive water leaking from Unit 1, 2 and 3.

 

The National Institute of Radiological Sciences says that the two employees have likely suffered "internal exposure" in which radioactive substances have entered their bodies, according to Kyodo News.

 

Trouble at the nuclear plant began shortly after the country's devastating earthquake and tsunami, which knocked out power at the plant, impairing its cooling mechanisms.

 

The possible breach in Unit 3 might be a crack or a hole in the stainless steel chamber of the reactor core or in the spent fuel pool that's lined with several feet of reinforced concrete. The temperature and pressure inside the core, which holds the fuel rods, remained stable and was far lower than would further melt the core. 

 

A Japanese government official told residents within 19 miles of the crippled plant to evacuate Friday.

 

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told a news conference that the government asked leaders of affected municipalities to encourage people to leave the affected areas, according to Kyodo News.

 

A somber Prime Minister Naoto Kan sounded a pessimistic note at a briefing hours after nuclear safety officials announced what could be a major setback in the urgent mission to stop the plant from leaking radiation.

 

"The situation today at the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant is still very grave and serious. We must remain vigilant," Kan said. "We are not in a position where we can be optimistic. We must treat every development with the utmost care."

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