Japanese media simmered with doubts yesterday about a government announcement that the world’s worst nuclear accident in 25 years had been contained with the tsunami-stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in a state of cold shutdown.
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda announced on Friday that the cold shutdown meant the accident had been contained, though he added that the government faced a long and hard task in cleaning up radiation and dismantling the plant, which could take up to 40 years.
The plant, 240km northeast of Tokyo, was wrecked by towering tsunami waves, triggered by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake on March 11, which knocked out its cooling systems, triggering meltdowns and mass evacuations.
A cold shutdown is when the water used to cool nuclear fuel rods stays below boiling point, preventing the fuel from reheating.
The declaration of a cold shutdown is a government pre-condition for allowing about 80,000 residents evacuated from a 20km radius exclusion zone around the plant to return home.
One of the chief aims of the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), had been to bring the reactors to that state by the end of the year.
However, critics have raised concern that Friday’s announcement was premature.
“Wouldn’t it be reasonable to declare containment had been achieved when radiation leaks have been brought to a complete halt?” asked an editorial in the -Nikkei Business Daily.
It said radioactive water continued to leak from the plant and that reactors No. 3 and No. 4 had yet to be covered to prevent leaks into the atmosphere.
Other newspapers echoed the skepticism over the crippled plant.
“Too soon to announce a containment,” read the headline of an editorial in the Asahi Shimbum, which said cold shutdown was merely a stage on the way to a resolution.
The Nikkei and others also took issue with the government’s characterization of the reactor’s status as “cold shutdown,” given that there was no way to directly measure the temperature of the melted fuel inside the reactors.
“It is like guessing the shape of a foot from the outside of the shoe,” the Nikkei said.
The Mainichi Shimbun agreed, saying efforts should be made to ascertain the condition of the melted fuel.
“It’s true that the situation is more stable than at the time of the accident,” the paper said. “But the term ‘cold shutdown’ refers to the suspension of a sound reactor.”
The government and TEPCO will aim to begin removing undamaged nuclear rods from the plant’s spent fuel pools next year. However, retrieval of fuel that melted down in the reactors may not begin for another decade.
The environmental group Greenpeace on Friday dismissed the announcement of a cold shutdown as a publicity stunt.
“By triumphantly declaring a cold shutdown, the Japanese authorities are clearly anxious to give the impression that the crisis has come to an end, which is clearly not the case,” Greenpeace Japan said in a statement.
However, Jonathan Cobb, an expert at the British-based World Nuclear Association, said the authorities had put in additional conditions before “cold shutdown conditions” were reached, including ensuring the release of radioactive material was under control.
“This criteria was also reached some time ago, the government has delayed declaration of cold shutdown conditions, one reason being to ensure the situation at the plant was stable,” Cobb said.
About 25,000 people were killed as a result of the March 11 disasters, most by the tsunami waves which devastated communities along the coast.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was