The operator of a disaster-struck Japanese nuclear plant yesterday reported possible damage to a reactor vessel — casting a new shadow over efforts to control a steady radiation leak.
Two weeks after a giant quake struck and sent a massive tsunami crashing into the Pacific coast, the death toll from Japan’s worst post-war disaster topped 10,000 and there was scant hope for 17,500 others still missing.
The tsunami obliterated entire towns and about 250,000 homeless in almost 2,000 shelters are still braving privations and a winter chill, with a degree of discipline and dignity that has impressed the world.
In a televised press conference a fortnight after the calamity, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan urged people living in tsunami-stricken areas to “move with full courage toward reconstruction.”
The focus of Japan’s immediate fears remained the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, which was still emitting radioactive vapor that at one point this week made the capital’s drinking water unsafe for infants.
Kan said the situation at the ageing facility, located 250km northeast of Tokyo, was still “very unpredictable.”
“We’re working to stop the situation from worsening. We need to continue to be extremely vigilant,” he said.
The government asked people still living between 20km and 30km from the plant to leave voluntarily, effectively widening the exclusion zone.
China, South Korea and the EU joined the US, Russia and several other nations in restricting food imports from Japan, which itself has ordered a stop to vegetable and dairy shipments from the region near the nuclear power plant.
Tokyo Electric Power Co, which operates the plant, said it may take at least another month to achieve a cold shutdown — when reactor temperatures fall below boiling point and cooling systems are back at atmospheric pressure.
A day after two workers at the 1970s-era facility were hospitalized with radiation burns, its operator reported suspected damage at reactor No. 3.
“It is possible that the pressure vessel containing the fuel rods in the reactor is damaged,” a company spokesman said.
The new safety scare could hamper urgent efforts to restore power to the all-important cooling systems at the plant.
“Radioactive substances have leaked to places far from the reactor,” said Hideyuki Nishiyama, a spokesman for Japan’s nuclear safety agency. “As far as the data shows, we believe there is a certain level of containment ability, but it’s highly possible that the reactor is damaged.”
The reactor is a particular concern because it is the only one of six at the plant to use a potentially volatile mix of uranium and plutonium.
Higher radioactivity has also been detected in the ocean near the power plant, raising public fears about the safety of fish and seaweed.
“This terrifies me from the depth of my heart,” said Sunao Tsuboi, a survivor of the US atom bomb attack on Hiroshima in 1945, who is in his mid-80s. “Radiation damages genes and DNA. This is something that no doctor can fix. There is no proper remedy for radiation exposure.”
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