Post date: Mar 13, 2011 3:3:40 AM
Thousands flee the area around a nuclear power plant in Japan where the cooling system of a second reactor failed.
TOKYO, JAPAN (MARCH 13, 2011) TV TOKYO - Thousands of people fled the vicinity of an earthquake-crippled Japanese nuclear plant after a radiation leak and authorities faced a fresh threat on Sunday(March 13) with the failure of the cooling system in a second reactor.
Operator Tokyo Electric Power Co.(TEPCO) said it was preparing to release some steam to relieve pressure in the No.3 reactor at the plant 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo which would release a small amount of radiation."We have assumed that this was a possibility for this reactor, and the water supply function for this reactor has stopped. Currently we are working to vent this, we are working on taking the air pressure out of the pressure vessel and pumping water in the vessel," Japan's Chief Cabinet Minister Yukio Edano said.
"We can stabilize the reactor if we take the air out and pump water in the vessel properly, and as I have mentioned in the past, this will be a controlled release, and in the air will contain radio active substance, however, will not affect the health of humans, and we will do this in order to stabilize the reactor in a controlled manner," he added.
The measure follows an explosion and leak on Saturday (March 12) in the facility's No. 1 reactor.
The government insisted radiation levels were low following Saturday's explosion, saying the blast had not affected the reactor core container, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it had been told by Japan that levels "have been observed to lessen in recent hours".
But Japan's nuclear safety agency said the number of people exposed to radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi plant could reach 160. Workers in protective clothing were scanning people arriving at evacuation centres for radioactive exposure.
Around 140,000 people had been evacuated from areas near the plant and another nuclear facility nearby, while authorities prepared to distribute iodine to people in the
vicinity to protect them from radioactive exposure.
Before news of the problem with reactor No. 3, the nuclear safety agency said the plant accident was less serious than both the Three Mile Island accident in 1979 and the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
An official at the agency said it has rated the incident a 4 according to the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES).
Three Mile Island was rated 5 while Chernobyl was rated 7 on the 1 to 7 scale, the official said.
The blast at the nuclear plant raised fears of a meltdown at the power facility. Experts had earlier said Japan should not expect a repeat of Chernobyl. They said pictures of mist above the plant suggested only small amounts of radiation had been expelled as part of measures to ensure its stability, far from the radioactive clouds Chernobyl spewed out 25 years ago.