Clock ticks as Japan's nuclear warning increased to 'deadly'

Published on Friday 18 March 2011 19:18

The Japanese authorities have finally admitted that leaks at their wrecked nuclear reactors could cost lives.

The country's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency yesterday said the disaster was a level five, which means an event causing "several radiation deaths" under the UN International Atomic Energy Agency classifications.

The head of the IAEA warned yesterday that Japan's battle to regain control of the failing Fukushima power plant was a race against time that required the world's help.

Fears remain that engineers may yet be forced to douse the stricken facility in sand and concrete, similar to methods employed in Chernobyl, after the alert level was raised from four to five on the seven-point international scale for atomic incidents.

Prime minister Naoto Kan said the situation remained "very grave" but stressed it would be brought under control in the "not-so-distant future".

Last night the Tokyo Electric Power Company, the plant's operator, said engineers had attached a power cable to the nuclear station in the race to prevent deadly radiation escaping. But it is still unknown whether that will be enough to restart water pumps needed to cool overheated nuclear fuel rods. The next stage will be to check equipment is working and not damaged before trying to crank up the coolers at reactor number two, followed by reactors one, three and four.

Laurence Williams, professor of nuclear safety at the University of Central Lancashire, said: "If they can get those electric pumps on and they can start pushing that water successfully up the core, quite slowly so you don't cause any brittle failure, they should be able to get it under control in the next couple of days."

However, the crisis showed little sign of abating last night, as desperate efforts contintued to prevent fuel in the reactor units from overheating and spewing dangerous levels of radiation, with military fire engines spraying the units for a second day, arcing tonnes of water over the facility.

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The urgency of the situation was made clear by Yukiya Amano, head of the IAEA, who said: "We see it as an extremely serious accident. This is not something that just Japan should deal with, and people of the entire world should co-operate with Japan and the people in the disaster areas."

Mr Amano, a Japanese national, said of the efforts to cool the complex: "I think they are racing against the clock."

The IAEA's team will continue to monitor radiation in Tokyo and around the site, which has been rocked by a series of explosions. The agency will also hold a special board meeting on Monday to discuss the findings.

Japan's own nuclear safety agency took the decision to escalate the risk rating of the ailing Fukushima plant after discovering that at least 3 per cent of the fuel in three of the reactors had been severely damaged, suggesting the reactor cores have partially melted down and thrown radioactivity into the environment.

The heightened rank on the International Nuclear Event Scale means the accident is regarded as equally grave as the 1979 Three Mile Island or the 1956 Windscale reactor fire in Cumbria, which is believed to have caused about 200 cases of cancer.

Whereas a level four incident is defined as having "local consequences," the new rating means there are possible "wider consequences". The IAEA-authorised scale suggests those consequenses could include "several deaths" from radiation and a "high probability of significant public exposure" to radioactive material.

The Chernobyl accident in the Ukraine in 1986, which killed at least 31 people with radiation sickness, raised long-term cancer rates and spewed radiation for hundreds of miles, was ranked a level seven on the scale.

One week after the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, which knocked out power to cooling systems at the plant and caused fires, explosions or partial meltdowns at four of its six reactor units, emergency crews are facing two challenges in the nuclear crisis: cooling the reactors where energy is generated, and cooling the adjacent pools where used nuclear fuel rods are stored in water.

Both require water to stop uranium from heating up and emitting radiation, but with radiation levels inside the complex already limiting where workers can go and how long they can remain, it has been difficult to get enough water inside.

Water in at least one fuel pool – in the complex's Unit 3 – is believed to be dangerously low. Without enough water, the rods may heat further, become exposed, and spew out radiation.

The plant's operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco), said it was not ruling out the option of entombing the plant in concrete to prevent a radiation leak. Asked about the possibility of using such an approach, Hidehiko Nishiyama, deputy director of Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, said: "That solution is in the back of our minds, but we are focused on cooling the reactors down."

Speaking in a nationwide television address, Mr Kan emphasised that police, firefighters and workers were putting their lives on the line to resolve the crisis. He said: "We have shared what we know with the international community about the current situation. It is still very grave. In the not-so-distant future, it will be controlled and we will be able to emerge from thecrisis.

"We are making every effort towards that end."

Higher radiation levels than normal have been recorded in a few places in the 18-mile exclusion zone surrounding the site, but in Tokyo, they were reported to be normal. Japanese officials continue to try to reassure people that the risk of radiation is virtually nil outside the exclusion area, but foreign governments are adopting a more cautious approach, with Spain joining Britain, the US and other countries in evacuating concerned citizens.

While the Japanese government has previously balked at international assistance with the nuclear crisis, chief cabinet secretary Yukio Edano said yesterday that Tokyo had asked Washington for help. The US said its experts were exchanging infor mation with Tepco officials and government agencies, and the US had helped conduct overflights of the reactor site to measure airborne radiation.