Japan Stuggles to Contain It’s Nuclear ‘Incident’
Concern is growing around the world that Japan is losing the battle to get control of it’s nuclear problems in Fukushima.
Engineers at the Fukushima nuclear power plant have been struggling to cool down the fuel after power generators failed during last week’s earthquake and tsunami.
They have, over the last few days, resorted to dropping buckets of water from helicopters flying at a safe height from the radiation (already leaking from the plant in the steam created from the water being pumped in order to cool the nuclear fuel).
Many outside, and tellingly inside Japan, believe that the Japanese government is underplaying the risks involved. Other countries have been telling their citizens to leave an area at least twice the size suggested by the Japanese government.
However, tonight there appears to be some good news coming out from the plant with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) telling us that a power cable has been successfully connected to a reactor.
If this is correct it should enable the engineers to restart the cooling pumps which previously lost power during the crisis. The pumps can then send coolant around the reactors cooling the fuel down.
For resources todo with the Japanese earthquake and Tsunami, including donations and people finder, goto http://www.google.co.jp/intl/en/crisisresponse/japanquake2011.html
Photo: daveeza
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