Updated: 2011-03-20 07:23
Shigemasa Kanno, 74, holds a photograph of his missing 68-year-old wife Sueko Kanno amid the debris of his destroyed house in Rikuzentakata, Iwate prefecture on Saturday. He has been searching for her without success. Aly Song / Reuters
TOKYO - One of six tsunami-crippled nuclear reactors appeared to stabilize on Saturday, but a few hours later another earthquake of 6.1 magnitude hit Japan's Ibaraki prefecture south of the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant.
Japan's meteorological agency said a change in sea level may occur following the quake, but no damage is expected. Meanwhile the No. 2 reactor at Fukushima plant was expected to resume receiving power on Sunday, according to the complex's owner TEPCO.
Engineers reported some rare success after fire trucks sprayed water for about three hours on reactor No 3, widely considered the most dangerous at the ravaged Fukushima nuclear complex because of its use of highly toxic plutonium.
They hope electricity will flow by Sunday to four of the six reactors in the complex, about 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo.
Also on Saturday, the government revealed radiation levels in spinach and milk from farms near its tsunami-crippled nuclear complex exceeded government safety limits.
The Fukushima plant was crippled on March 11 by a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami which, according to the latest police tally, left at least 18,600 dead or missing in Japan's worst natural disaster since 1923.
Just under 7,320 were confirmed killed, lost to the tsunami or interred in the wreckage of buildings. Survivors of the disaster are enduring cold conditions in the northeast. Hopes of finding many more survivors amid the rubble have diminished after a cold snap hit Japan's northeast, covering much of the disaster area in snow earlier this week.
The No 1, 2 and 3 reactors were the only ones operating among the plant's six reactors at the time of the quake, and halted automatically, but their cores are believed to have partially melted as they lost cooling function after the quake and tsunami. The No. 4 to 6 reactors were under maintenance at the time of the quake but their cooling functions also suffered.
The buildings housing the No 1, 3 and 4 reactors have since been severely damaged by apparent hydrogen blasts, leaving fuel pools there no longer covered by roofs.
Japan's nuclear agency has hiked the Fukushima accident level to five from four on an international scale (measuring up to seven), an admission the crisis now at least equals the 1979 Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania.
On Saturday construction of some 200 temporary housing units started in the coastal city of Rikuzentakata in Iwate prefecture, which was severely damaged in the natural disasters. Nine days have passed since the disaster began, and while the search for the missing and recovery of victims' bodies continues, the focus of relief activities is now on how to rebuild the livelihoods of the survivors when some 387,000 evacuees are staying at 2,200 shelters.
The plant has already leaked radiation, prompting the government to order an evacuation last week within a 20-kilometer radius. But health officials and the UN atomic watchdog have said radiation levels in the capital Tokyo were not harmful.
Though there has been alarm around the world, experts say dangerous levels of radiation are unlikely to spread to other nations.
Reuters - Associated Press - Deutsche Presse-Agentur
(China Daily 03/20/2011 page3)
No comments:
Post a Comment