IAEA rushes team to Japan

SINGAPORE, April 3, 2011
The IAEA is rushing two “reactor experts” to Japan to assess the multi-dimensional crisis at the quake-and-tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi civil nuclear plant. Their visit, from Monday, was aimed at eliciting “first-hand information about the current status of reactors …, measures being taken, and future plans to mitigate the accident,” said the IAEA in Vienna.

It was announced in Tokyo on Saturday that a “crack,” now detected at the site of Unit 2 of the plant, might have facilitated the seepage of radioactive water into the nearby sea.

The IAEA once again described the Fukushima Daiichi situation as “very serious” but did not specify whether the reactor specialists would also help “mitigate the accident.” However, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan had, on Friday, cited the United States, France, and the IAEA as the “international partners” in overcoming the civil nuclear crisis. Mr. Kan met the Fukushima Daiichi plant workers at their campsite and visited the quake-and-tsunami-ravaged neighbourhood on Saturday.

With questions being raised in some quarters about the design specifications of

the quake-and-tsunami-hit reactors at Fukushima, GE officials in the U.S. said the units supplied by the company were “well designed … and upgraded over time.”

The existence of a “crack” at the Fukushima station was disclosed by Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency and the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco). Currently responsible for crisis-management at the plant, Tepco said: “We found water accumulated in a pit accommodating power cables near the intake-gate of Reactor Number Two. The water is contaminated with radioactivity measured at over 1,000 miliSieverts per hour. In addition, a 20-cm. crack was also found on the concrete wall of the pit. And, through this crack, water is leaking from the pit to the sea.” Efforts had now begun to seal the crack with concrete, said the Tepco official.