Dangerous Breach Suspected at Japan Nuclear Plant
Japanese leaders defended their decision not to evacuate people from a wider area around the plant, insisting they are safe if they stay indoors. But officials also said residents may want to voluntarily move to areas with better facilities, since supplies in the tsunami-devastated region are running short.
The escalation in the nuclear plant crisis came as the death toll from the quake and tsunami passed the grim milestone of 10,000 on Friday. Across the battered northeast coast, hundreds of thousands of people whose homes were destroyed still have no power, no hot meals and, in many cases, no showers for 14 days.
The uncertain nuclear situation halted work at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex, where authorities have been scrambling to stop the overheated facility from leaking dangerous radiation. Low levels of radiation have been seeping out since the March 11 quake and tsunami knocked out the plant's cooling system, but a breach could mean a much larger release of contaminants. The most likely consequence would be contamination of the groundwater.
"The situation today at the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant is still very grave and serious. We must remain vigilant," a somber Prime Minister Naoto Kan said. "We are not in a position where we can be optimistic. We must treat every development with the utmost care."
The possible breach in the plant's Unit 3 might be a crack or a hole in the stainless steel chamber of the reactor core or in the spent fuel pool that's lined with several feet of reinforced concrete. The temperature and pressure inside the core, which holds the fuel rods, remained stable and was far lower than what would further melt the core.
Suspicions of a possible breach were raised when two workers suffered skin burns after wading into water 10,000 times more radioactive than levels normally found in water in or around a reactor, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said.
Water with equally high radiation levels was found in the Unit 1 reactor building, Tokyo Electric officials said. Water was also discovered in Units 2 and 4, and the company said it suspects that, too, is radioactive. It was not clear whether the water in each unit came from the same source, officials said, but acknowledged the discovery would delay work inside the plant.
Friday marked two weeks to the day since the magnitude-9.0 quake triggered a tsunami that flattened cities along the northeastern coast. With the cleanup and recovery operations continuing and more than 17,400 listed as missing, the final number of dead was expected to surpass 18,000.
Kan apologized to farmers and business owners for the toll the radiation has had on their livelihoods: Several countries have halted some food imports from areas near the plant after elevated levels of radiation were found in raw milk, seawater and 11 kinds of vegetables, including broccoli, cauliflower and turnips.
VIEW VIDEO AND PHOTO GALLERY (500 Photos)
March 25, 2011