Sunday, April 3, 2011

Engineers go to seal leak at Japan nuke power plant

TOKYO: Engineers failed to stamp a gap where highly radioactive water was spilling into the Pacific from a Japanese nuclear power plant incapacitated by last month's earthquake-spawned tsunami but said a look of the situation found no other leaks on Sunday.

The wave has carved a way of death up and kill the seashore and is believed to get killed 25,000 people.


The first deaths at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant itself, though, were confirmed on Sunday by the operator.

A 21-year-old and a 24-year-old were believed to be conducting regular checks at the complex when the 9.magnitude earthquake hit March 11.

"It pains me that these two young workers were trying to protect the power plant while being hit by the quake and tsunami," Tokyo Electric Power Co.

Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata said in a statement.

It was unclear why the men did not evacuate when the quake hit.

The bodies were not observed until Wednesday and had to be decontaminated.

The proclamation was delayed out of value for the victims' families, TEPCO spokesman Naoki Tsunoda said.

Radiation has been spewing from the plant, leaking into the air, ground and sea.

On Saturday, authorities discovered a pass from which radioactive water was spilling into the Pacific - the start time they identified a point reference of sea contamination.

A movie released by TEPCO shows water shooting some distance out from a rampart and splashing into the sea, though the number of water was not clear.

The polluted water will quickly dissipate in the sea but could get a risk to workers at the plant.

Pooling water at the nuclear complex - which is believed to finally derive from the reactor cores - has repeatedly forced technicians to force back and suspend their work.

After the massive tsunami knocked out power to the plant three weeks ago, cooling systems failed, and the reactors have been dangerously overheating since.

A serial of most daily problems has led to significant amounts of radiation leaking into the atmosphere, ground and sea in the world's worst nuclear crisis since the 1986 meltdown at Chernobyl in the late Soviet Union.

The 8-inch- (20-centimeter-) long shot in a maintenance pit at the Fukushima plant is believed to have been caused by the 9.magnitude quake that generated the wave.

Water containing levels of radioactive iodine far above the legal limit spilled from it into the Pacific, said Hidehiko Nishiyama of Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.

Workers flooded the pit with concrete in an attempt to stamp the break but couldn't get it to dry.
Next, they contrive to inject polymer into a shriek that connects the pit to the remainder of the system.

Polymer can absorb enormous amounts of piss and expands 50 times its original size.

Over the preceding 10 days, pools of polluted water have been found throughout the set and high levels of radiation have been deliberate in the ocean.

A look of the flora found no other similar leaks leading straight to the ocean.

"We think that's the only crack," said Tsunoda.
People living within 12 miles (20 kilometres) of the works have been evacuated, but, as with previous leaks, it could get a risk to workers.

A nuclear plant worker who fly into the ocean Friday while trying to table a barge carrying water to help cool the works did not express any immediate signs of being open to dangerous levels of radiation, nuclear safety officials said on Saturday, but they were waiting for test results to be sure.

Workers have been loth to speak to the media about what they are experiencing, but one who spent several years at the institute described difficult conditions in an anonymous interview published Saturday in the national Mainichi newspaper.

When he was called in mid-March to help restore power at the plant, he said he did not order his home because he didn't need them to worry.

But he did order a booster to advise his parents if he did not give in two weeks.

"I look really strongly that there is nobody but us to do this job, and we cannot go home until we end the work," he said.

Associated Press

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