Japan’s tsunami-hit Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant remains fragile nearly a year after it suffered multiple meltdowns, its chief said on Tuesday, with makeshift equipment — some mended with tape — keeping crucial systems running.
An independent report, meanwhile, revealed that the government downplayed the full danger in the days after the March 11 disaster and secretly considered evacuating Tokyo.
Journalists given a tour of the plant on Tuesday saw crumpled trucks and equipment still lying on the ground. A power pylon that collapsed in the tsunami, cutting electricity to the plant’s vital cooling system and setting off the crisis, remained a mangled mess.
Officials said the worst is over, but the plant remains vulnerable.
“I have to admit that it’s still rather fragile,” said plant chief Takeshi Takahashi, who took the job in December after his predecessor resigned due to health reasons. “Even though the plant has achieved what we call ‘cold shutdown conditions,’ it still causes problems that must be improved.”
The government announced in December that three melted reactors at the plant had basically stabilized and that radiation releases had dropped. It still will take decades to fully decommission the plant and it must be kept stable until then.
The operators have installed multiple backup power supplies, a cooling system and equipment to process massive amounts of contaminated water that leaked from the damaged reactors, but the equipment that serves as the lifeline of the cooling system is shockingly feeble-looking. Plastic hoses cracked by freezing temperatures have been mended with tape. A set of three pumps sits on the back of a pickup truck.
Along with the pumps, the plant now has 1,000 tanks to store more than 160,000 tonnes of contaminated water.
Radiation levels in the Unit 1 reactor have fallen, allowing workers to repair some damage to the reactor building, but the Unit 3 reactor, whose roof was blown off by a hydrogen explosion, resembles an ashtray filled with a heap of cigarette butts.
A dosimeter recorded the highest radiation reading outside Unit 3 during Tuesday’s tour — 1.5 millisieverts per hour. That is a major improvement from last year, when up to 10 sieverts per hour were registered near Unit 1 and Unit 2.
Exposure to more than 1,000 millisieverts, or 1 sievert, can cause radiation sickness, including nausea and an elevated risk of cancer.
Tuesday’s tour came as an independent group released a report saying the government withheld information about the full danger of the disaster from its own people and from the US.
The report by the private Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation delivers a scathing view of how leaders played down the risks of the reactor meltdowns, while holding secret discussions of a worst-case scenario in which massive radiation releases would require the evacuation of a much wider region, including Tokyo.
The report paints a picture of confusion during the days immediately after the accident. It says US-Japan relations were put at risk because of US frustration and skepticism over the scattered information provided by Japan.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not