Japan stopped highly radioactive water leaking into the sea yesterday from a crippled nuclear plant and acknowledged it could have given more information to neighboring countries about contamination in the ocean.
Despite the breakthrough in plugging the leak at the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant, engineers need to pump 11,500 tonnes of contaminated water back into the ocean because they have run out of storage space at the facility. The water was used to cool over-heated fuel rods.
Nuclear experts said the damaged reactors were far from being under control almost a month after they were hit by a massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11.
Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) said it had stemmed the leak using liquid glass at one of the plant’s six reactors.
“The leaks were slowed yesterday after we injected a mixture of liquid glass and a hardening agent and it has now stopped,” a TEPCO spokesman said.
Engineers had been struggling to stop leaks from reactor No. 2, even using sawdust and newspapers.
Neighbors South Korea and China are getting concerned about the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986, as well as the radioactive water being pumped into the sea, newspapers reported.
“We are instructing the trade and foreign ministries to work better together so that detailed explanations are supplied especially to neighboring countries,” Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told a news conference yesterday.
Experts insisted that the low-level radioactive water that is to be pumped into the ocean posed no health hazard to people.
“The original amount of radioactivity is very low, and when you dilute this with a huge body of water, the final levels will be even lower than legal limits,” said Pradip Deb, senior lecturer in medical radiation at the School of Medical Sciences, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University.
Workers are struggling to restart cooling pumps — which recycle the water — in four damaged reactors.
Until those are fixed, they must pump in water to prevent overheating and meltdowns, but have run out of storage capacity for the seawater when it becomes contaminated.
Radioactive iodine detected in the sea has been recorded at 4,800 times the legal limit, but has since fallen to about 600 times the limit. The water remaining in the reactors has radiation 5 million times legal limits.
“What they are going to have to release is likely to be highly radioactive. The situation could politically be very ugly in a week,” said Murray Jennex at San Diego State University, who specializes in nuclear containment.
A floating tanker is being converted to hold contaminated seawater and is due to arrive at the plant site by April 16. TEPCO also plans to build tanks to hold radioactive water.
Japan is facing its worst crisis since World War II after the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami left nearly 28,000 people dead or missing and thousands homeless, and rocked the world’s third-largest economy.
It will likely take months to finally cool down the reactors and years to dismantle those that have been damaged. TEPCO has said it will decommission four of the six reactors.
An opposition lawmaker from Fukushima told reporters antipathy in the area would make it difficult to resume operations at the nearby Fukushima Dai-ni plant, where operations have been halted since March 11.
The two Fukushima plants together provide 4 percent of Japan’s electric power.
“Nuclear power plants can run only with local consent. I see it as being quite difficult to resume operations,” Masayoshi Yoshino of the Liberal Democratic Party said.
Concerned over a possible buildup of hydrogen gas in reactor No. 1, engineers were to inject nitrogen gas into the reactor last night to prevent an explosion, TEPCO said.
Hydrogen explosions ripped through Reactors 1 and 3 early in the crisis, spreading high levels of radiation into the air.
The key to bringing the reactors under control is the extent of damage to the plant’s cooling system, analysts said.
In a sign the cooling systems may be severely damaged, the Sankei Shimbun reported yesterday the government and TEPCO were considering building new -cooling -systems for three reactors to operate from outside the reactor buildings.
Kyodo news agency quoted a government source as saying authorities were also considering covering damaged reactors with special sheets to halt radiation leaks. However, they could not be installed until September due to high levels of radiation.
The world’s costliest natural disaster has hit Japan’s economy, left a damages bill which may top US$300 billion and forced the heavily indebted country to plan an extra budget.
Rolling power blackouts have hit global supply chains, with the world’s largest automaker, Toyota Motor Corp, idling local plants and saying it will suspend some US plants also.
Japan is considering ordering TEPCO’s big power users to achieve 25 percent cuts in peak summer usage, a Trade Ministry official said. TEPCO shares went lower yesterday after hitting a 60-year low the previous day.
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