Saturday, March 12, 2011

Explosion at the nuclear power plant: Japan threatens nuclear disaster

The risk of a nuclear reactor meltdown Japanese Fukushima 1 is to be cooled with sea water. Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said on Saturday in Tokyo, the reactor shell made of steel is still intact and not damaged. Therefore it was decided to fill the reactor core of the power plant located on the coast with sea water.

The water will be mixed with boric acid to avoid critical developments. The filling process will take five to ten hours. After the severe earthquake in the history of Japan, the cooling of the reactor had been canceled. This threatens a meltdown. Edano said, had in the fall of the cooling water level in the boiling water formed hydrogen was leaked into the reactor building.


There you have the hydrogen ignites on contact with oxygen and had caused the explosion by which the reactor building had collapsed. Inside the steel reactor shell there had been no explosion. It was leaked also no large amount of radioactivity, Edano said that the people called again to remain calm.

To release pressure from the reactor core, the operator had opened a valve. This also increased radioactivity was discharged into the environment. In the Kernraftwerk in Fukushima had a blast on Saturday occurred. There had been explosion noises, followed by white smoke had risen, told the TV station NHK.

Images suggest that parts of the building envelope of Fukushima 1 are broken away. According to the Kyodo news agency, four people were injured. Immediately before the explosion there was a shock. After the devastating earthquake and tsunami, the situation had worsened in the kiln due to the failure of the cooling system.

Near the nuclear power plant is radioactive cesium was found, Kyodo reported Saturday, citing the Nuclear Safety Commission. It is possible that in proceeding in the reactor meltdown. According to Greenpeace, the cesium but could also be escaped when draining pressure. The dramatic in Fukushima is that in addition to the possible meltdown in Block 1 in a further threaten the power block such a scenario.

Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan was concerned about the situation, but spoke not from a meltdown in Fukushima. The explosion of the afternoon will lead to any major radioactive leak, his spokesperson said then. After the explosion expanded the Japanese authorities in the evacuation radius of 10 to 20 kilometers.

The affected residents were asked to leave the area as quickly as possible. Earlier, some 51,000 people from the immediate vicinity of the damaged nuclear power plant, Fukushima had been brought to safety. After the earthquake on Friday of the reactor's cooling system had failed. The operator of the plant have been working to relieve the pressure in the reactor housing to prevent a meltdown, so Kyodo.

The construction of the reactor block began, according to the World Nuclear Association on 31 July 1967, the line of work was the American company General Electric. On 17 November 1970 was by the power utility Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) boiling water reactor operated with a gross capacity of 460 megawatts.

In Block 1 was made after the earthquake of Friday from the main cooling system, then an emergency cooling system was set in motion. Experts warned of a possible meltdown in this reactor. The Japanese government spokesman Yukio Edano said on Saturday was to a report by Kyodo news agency in the Fukushima nuclear power plant one there has been a blast, but not in the reactor block 1 The reactor 1 is the oldest of the current six reactor units of the Fukushima nuclear power plant fuel.

The blocks 2 to 6 were built from 1974 to 1979 and two more blocks are planned. Eleven kilometers south of the nuclear power plant in Fukushima Fukushima One Two with four reactors that were built by 1982 to 1987.

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