 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Osaka (AFP) March 21, 2011 Engineers at Japan's stricken nuclear plant on Monday raced to fix disabled cooling systems and restore power, as fire trucks sprayed water to help cool reactor fuel pools, the nuclear safety agency said. An external electricity supply has been restored to the distributor at reactor number two, but power at the reactor unit was not yet restored, said Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency spokesman Kenji Kawasaki. "We are now checking if the cooling system and other facilities of the number two reactor are still intact before sending power to them," he said. "It is unknown when we can restore them, as we need to see results of our checks first. We are still trying to bring cables from outside power sources to the number three and number four reactors." The cooling systems -- designed to protect the Fukushima plant's six reactors from a potentially disastrous meltdown -- were knocked out by the March 11 tsunami that followed a 9.0-magnitude earthquake, and engineers have been battling rising temperatures. In the biggest nuclear crisis since Chernobyl in 1986, the plant has been hit by explosions and fires and has released radiation into the atmosphere, with levels around the plant highly dangerous. The government has established a 20-kilometre exclusion zone, and warned those living within 10 kilometres of the zone to stay indoors. Radiation-suited crews were striving to restore electricity to the ageing facility 250 kilometres (155 miles) northeast of Tokyo, after extending a high-voltage cable into the site from the national grid. The electricity line into the number two reactor usually also feeds power to the number one reactor. But it will take a few days to replace water pump components for the cooling system before restoring power to it, public broadcaster NHK said. Fire engines have also been spraying seawater on the reactors and fuel rod pools, where overheating is a major concern. Self-Defense Forces trucks sprayed water on reactor three and on reactor four on Monday.
Share This Article With Planet Earth
Related Links Nuclear Power News - Nuclear Science, Nuclear Technology Powering The World in the 21st Century at Energy-Daily.com
Nuclear wake-up for Merkel in state voteBerlin (AFP) March 20, 2011 Voters handed German Chancellor Angela Merkel a wake-up call Sunday on nuclear power after the Japan crisis as the Greens more than doubled their score in the second of 2011's seven state elections. The result will give the ecologist party high hopes for a much bigger prize: success in an election next Sunday in the wealthy southwestern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, the most important of the ... read more |
|
|
| The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2010 - SpaceDaily. AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement |
del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
YahooMyWeb
Google
Facebook
