Fukushima Nuclear Plant

'Fukushima heroes' battle to tame nuclear plant as Japan watches

Elite squad of technicians face fire, radiation and exhaustion in cramped and potentially lethal conditions to cool reactors

The men and women struggling to avert disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant are becoming the faceless heroes of the worst nuclear industry crisis in Japan's history.

The 70 or so technicians and engineers, known as the Fukushima 50, have been working under the constant threat of radiation sickness, fires and explosions since they became the sole occupants of an area that has become a no-go zone for tens of thousands of petrified residents.

With more than 700 of their colleagues pulled out to safety, the workers are fighting a lonely battle on several fronts in the war against nuclear meltdown. Their workload is heavy, but the weight of expectation, in Japan and around the world, is greater still.

For all their bravery, little is known about the workers themselves. Tokyo Electric Power [Tepco] has released few details of its elite team, other than those pertaining to the task ahead: to cool overheating reactors and storage pools, and avert disaster.

They are working in hot, cramped conditions, clad in white, full-body jumpsuits and working in shifts to prevent contamination and exhaustion. They are equipped with respirators and torches, and when radiation doses rise tohazardous levels, as they did on Wednesday morning, they must be ready to take refuge in safer areas of the complex. The operation has already taken its toll. Eleven people, including members of the Japan Self-Defence Forces, were injured in a hydrogen explosion at its No 3 reactor.

Other nuclear power employees, as well as the wider population, can only look on in admiration. "The people working at these plants are fighting without running away," Michiko Otsuki, an employee at the nearby Fukushima Daini plant, wrote on the Japanese social networking site Mixi. "Please don't forget that there are people who are working to protect everyone's lives in exchange for their own."

The prime minister, Naoto Kan, who has reportedly criticised Tepco executives for their handling of the crisis, has only praise for their employees. They are "doing their utmost", Kan said, "even at this moment, without even thinking twice about the dangers".

For as long as the workers remain inside the plant they will mitigate the substantial risks to their health by "dose sharing" – or splitting their time between areas of high and low levels of radioactivity – according to Dr Ian Haslam, head of radiation protection at the University of Leeds. But abandoning the operation could spell disaster, he said. "They need to be at the plant to take the measures to keep it under control.

"If you let it go, it will get hotter and hotter, there's a risk of fire, and you're changing from this present rate of release, which is worrying but at a relatively low risk, to something that becomes a higher risk both now and in the future."

Most can only speculate about the conditions under which they are working.

Andriy Chudinov, one of the first workers to enter the Chernobyl power plant in 1986, said his Japanese counterparts were, if anything, even more courageous. "These are good guys," he said. "After all, they have had it even worse than we did. They had a tsunami first and now there are several reactors with problems. That's a nightmare for any atomic worker."

David Brenner, the director of radiological research at Columbia Service, pointed to the significant risks the workers are taking with their health.

"In many ways they are already heroes," he told the BBC World Service. "[They] are going to be suffering very high radiation exposures."

Meanwhile, 500 bone marrow transplant centres across 27 European countries have been put on alert to treat nuclear power station workers whose lives may be threatened in the battle to avoid a meltdown. The European Group for Blood and Marrow Transplantation offered to treat 200 to 300 patients if necessary.

"After a person has been radiated, you have three to four days before they're on the cusp of severe complications," said Ray Powles, chair of its nuclear accident committee. "At that point, they could be put on a flight to Europe if Japanese facilities are overwhelmed."

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk

Japan quake: Power line laid to Fukushima nuclear plant.

Engineers at Japan's stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant have successfully connected a power line to reactor 2, the UN's nuclear watchdog reports.
Restoring power should enable engineers to restart the pumps which send coolant over the reactor.
Workers at Fukushima have been battling to prevent fuel in the reactors from overheating since Friday's magnitude 9.0 quake and subsequent tsunami.
The confirmed death toll from the disaster has risen above 5,400.
More than 9,500 people are missing and tens of thousands of people are living in temporary shelters.
US President Barack Obama has said he is confident the "strong, resilient" people of Japan will recover from the crisis and that the country will emerge stronger than before.
The atomic crisis was triggered when the power supply to Fukushima was damaged by the natural disaster and back-up generators failed.
'Reasonable stable'
The Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), which runs the plant, has been attempting to connect it to the main grid via a 1-km (0.6-mile) electricity cable.
"If the restoration work is completed, we will be able to activate various electric pumps and pour water into reactors and pools for spent nuclear fuel," a Tepco spokesman told the AFP news agency.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said the cable was in place by 1730 local time (0830 GMT) on Thursday, and that engineers plan to reconnect power to the reactor once workers have finished spraying seawater over reactor 3.
Helicopters and water cannon have been dumping seawater over the Fukushima reactors, to try to prevent fuel rods melting, but it is unclear how great an impact this had.
Video footage suggests the attempts were not very successful, with most of the water falling outside the target buildings.
Earlier, an IAEA official said the situation at Fukushima had not deteriorated, but could yet do so.
"We could say it's reasonably stable at the moment compared to yesterday," said Andrew Graham.
The head of the IAEA, Yukiya Amano, is heading to Tokyo to be briefed by Japanese officials.
Survivors' misery
Japan has imposed a 20-km (12-mile) exclusion zone around Fukushima and has urged people living up to 30km away to stay indoors. Some countries have advised their nationals in Japan to stay up to 50km away.
Tens of thousands of people are still struggling with the after effects of last Friday's massive quake, which triggered a tsunami that swept away whole towns in minutes.
In areas of the north-east badly hit by the tsunami, bitter winter weather has added to the misery of survivors, though more supplies are now reported to be reaching them.
Japan's Kyodo news agency quoted rescuers as saying that the search for victims had expanded over a wider area as access had improved with the clearance of debris.
The number of people now known to have died in the twin disaster stands at 5,692 with 9,506 people listed as missing.
But Kyodo reports that the official toll is based on names registered with police, and that the true figure could be in the tens of thousands.
About 380,000 people are currently still in temporary shelters, many sleeping on the floor of school gymnasiums.
Many foreign countries are evacuating their nationals from northeast Japan, or advising them to leave the country entirely.
The crisis has also continued to affect the markets - the benchmark Nikkei index fell 3.6% in early Thursday trading in Tokyo, shortly after the yen briefly hit the highest level against the US dollar since World War II.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk

Japan earthquake and tsunami: Nuclear plant 'not out of woods

Japan is "not out of the woods" in its battle to get control of a damaged nuclear power plant, a senior UK expert said today.
Professor Andrew Sherry, director of the Dalton Nuclear Institute at the University of Manchester, said the situation at the Fukushima power plant was very serious - but events seemed to be moving in the right direction.
Engineers at the plant have been struggling to cool reactors at the site, where systems failed after they were hit by the tsunami which followed Friday's earthquake.
The power plant has been rocked by a series of explosions and fires, thought to be caused by hydrogen gas vented in a bid to relieve high pressure in the reactors.
Radioactive leaks at the plant prompted the evacuation of thousands of people from a 12-mile radius around the site, and instructions for many more in a wider area to stay indoors.
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The main focus of concern appears to have shifted from the reactors themselves to ponds in two of the units in which used nuclear fuel is being stored under many metres of water, which seem to have been damaged - possibly by one of the explosions.
Helicopters have been flying in water and water cannons have been used in a bid to cool the pools, keep the fuel covered and prevent more radiation escaping.

Read more: http://www.mirror.co.uk

Níveis de radiação seguem altos ao redor da usina

O lançamento de água do mar a partir de helicópteros militares na usina nuclear de Fukushima não surtiu os efeitos pretendidos pelos especialistas que tentam resfriar o superaquecido reator 3, e evitar um desastre de grandes proporções no Japão, com vazamento de material radioativo. Segundo informou nesta quinta-feira (17) a empresa operadora da central atômica, a Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO), os altos níveis de radiação não diminuíram.

A maior preocupação neste momento é o reator 3 da usina nuclear, onde dois helicópteros das Forças de Autodefesa (Exército) lançaram água pelo menos quatro vezes de manhã. Segundo a TEOCO, os níveis de radiação seguirem estáveis.

O nível de radiação ao redor da central, onde estão alguns trabalhadores, é de 3 mil microsievert por hora, frente aos 1 mil microsievert por ano que se consideram seguros para a saúde humana.

Os helicópteros lançaram água de uma altura de 90 metros, quando o nível de radiação se situava em 4,13 milisievert por hora, segundo explicou nesta quinta-feira o ministro de Defesa japonês, Toshimi Kitazawa.

O governo do Japão, no entanto, assegura que não há planos de ampliar o perímetro de segurança estabelecido num raio de 20 km da usina de Fukushima.

O porta-voz do governo, Yukio Edano, assinalou também que o Japão “entende” a recomendação dos Estados Unidos para que seus cidadãos em um raio de 80 km da central abandonem a zona, mas insistiu que, por enquanto, o Japão não considera necessário ampliar o perímetro estabelecido.

Cerca de 200 mil pessoas foram retiradas nos últimos dias em um raio de 20 km da usina de Fukushima, enquanto foi recomendado que aqueles que vivem entre 20 e 30 km não saiam de suas casas, fechem as janelas e evitem usar os aparelhos de ar-condicionado.

Nesta quinta, as autoridades japonesas aumentaram em 28 mil o número de pessoas retiradas nas localidades próximas à usina nuclear. Estas pessoas foram levadas para centros de amparo na província de Fukushima e nas zonas de Niigata e Togichi, segundo a rede de televisão “NHK”.

A usina afetada fica a 240 km ao norte de Tóquio.

Blecaute
O governo japonês alertou que um blecaute pode ocorrer em Tóquio nesta quinta, reflexo dos problemas de provisão de energia elétrica depois que o terremoto de sexta (11) atingiu e danificou usinas nucleares que abastecem o país e a região da capital japonesa.

O ministro da Indústria, Banri Kaieda, citado pela agência local de notícias “Kyodo”, pediu que as operadoras de trem da área de Tóquio suspendam o serviço.

A usina foi bastante danificada pelo terremoto de magnitude 9 seguido de tsunami, que atingiu a costa noroeste, provocando mortes, devastando regiões da costa e causando uma crise energética, econômica e humanitária no arquipélago.

A preocupação internacional sobre a situação da usina cresceu ao longo da quarta-feira (16). Os novos acontecimentos na usina, bastante afetada pelo grande tremor são "muito sérios", disse o chefe da agência nuclear da ONU, Yukiya Amano.

O chefe da AIEA, Yukiya Amano, disse que vai visitar o país nesta quinta para obter mais dados sobre a situação. "Quero ver como podemos ajudar melhor o Japão", disse em Viena, na Áustria.

Ele afirmou que foram confirmados danos no núcleo de três reatores da usina. Mas disse que ainda é cedo para dizer que a situação está "fora de controle".

Em meio à retirada de estrangeiros, equipes continuavam procurando vítimas do tremor e do tsunami nas regiões costeiras afetadas.

O número oficial de mortos passa de 5.100, mas a expectativa é de que ele cresça. Cerca de 8.606 pessoas continuavam desaparecidas e 450 mil estão desabrigadas, em abrigos provisórios, e enfrentando frio e falta de comida.

Veja mais em: http://eptv.globo.com

Outras 28 mil pessoas são evacuadas perto de usina nuclear de Fukushima

Tóquio, 17 mar (EFE).- As autoridades japonesas aumentaram em cerca de 28 mil pessoas o número de evacuados nas localidades próximas à usina nuclear de Fukushima para evitar serem expostas à radiação, informou nesta quarta-feira o canal "NHK".
Quase todos os novos deslocados estão sendo enviados para abrigos da província de Fukushima, mas outros poderiam ficar hospedados em províncias próximas, como Niigata e Tochigi diante do grande número de pessoas sem casa.
As autoridades de Fukushima estão enviando centenas de pessoas a hotéis e refúgios provisórios de províncias vizinhas, enquanto algumas pessoas se queixam de que a situação está começando a sair do controle.
A "NHK assinalou que houve problemas para medir os níveis de radiação de todos os habitantes próximos à usina.
Cerca de 2,7 mil pessoas tiveram que ser hospedadas na cidade de Niigata, enquanto outras 1,7 mil foram enviadas à província de Yamagata.
Até o momento, cerca de 200 mil pessoas foram evacuadas em um perímetro de segurança de 20 quilômetros ao redor da usina pelo risco de vazamento em massa de material radioativo, enquanto todos os moradores a um raio de 30 quilômetros do recinto têm ordens de permanecer dentro de suas casas, fechar as janelas e não ligar o ar condicionado.
Na província de Fukushima, outros muitos decidiram voluntariamente se dirigir para o sul ou se afastar da usina para evitar se expor à contaminação nuclear.
A região sofre, além disso, de uma grave escassez de combustível e problemas com abastecimento.

Veja mais em: http://br.noticias.yahoo.com