High radiation levels detected outside evacuation zone
Posted Mar 17, 2011 3:52 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The head of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Yukiya Amano, is flying to Tokyo to meet with senior Japanese government officials and to assess the situation at Japan’s crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
High radiation levels have been detected 10 kilometres outside the evacuation zone.
Self-defence forces dropped 30 tonnes of water on the plant in a bid to cool the spent fuel rods.
The priority is at two out of the six reactors — number 3 and number 4 — which are believed to be close to drying out.
Plant official Akira Yamaguchi said efforts continue to install powers lines to restart cooling systems.
“For the spent fuel rod pool, there’s actually a pump that is needed to recycle the water, to circulate the water. By circulating the water, it will be possible to cool down the spent fuel rod pool and the core,” he said.
Japanese broadcaster NHK reported high radiation levels are being detected 10 kilometres outside the 20-kilometre evacuation zone around the plant.
The water-dropping operation had to be suspended, Thursday, because of the rising radiation levels.
Nuclear engineer Arnold Gundersen, who was part of the regulatory consultation team at Three Mile Island in 1979, puts the pressure that is on emergency crews to keep the core cooled into perspective.
“This is not something you put out like a traditional fire. Whatever water gets into that nuclear reactor has to be sustained for months, if not years,” he told CNN.
