Big Explosion at Fukushima Nuclear Plant in Japan (with VIDEO Links) Probable Reactor Meltdown –

An explosion injured at least four workers at a nuclear plant facing a possible meltdown and destroyed the walls of one building, Japanese officials said. VIDEO Link HERE “We are now trying to analyze what is behind the explosion,” government spokesman Yukio Edano said. “We ask everyone to take action to secure safety.”  

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It was unclear if the building at the Fukushima Daiichi plant that was damaged by the blast contained the reactor, the Associated Press reported. Tokyo Electric said an explosion happened in the first reactor, according to local media reports. Japanese TV images showed the crumbled remains of one of the plant building’s walls with smoke emerging from the site. This incident comes as the level of water used to cool a nuclear reactor damaged in Friday’s 8.9magnitude earthquake and tsunami dropped to an alarming level today, according to the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, heightening fears of a larger nuclear disaster. As of 11:20 a.m. local time, a part of the “fuel assembly” of fuel rods at the Fukushima Daiichi plant’s No. 1 reactor was exposed above water, with a maximum exposure of about 90 centimeters.

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If the fuel rods remain exposed, they will be damaged, releasing radioactivity. “This is extremely serious,” said Joseph Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund and an expert on national security and international policy. “The best case at this point would still be the worst incident since Chernobyl. “We are in uncharted territory,” he said. “It is possible that this can be contained and we would have a very bad nuclear contamination event. But if the water levels continue to drop and the rods are exposed further it could lead to a core meltdown. The core would melt through the steel holding structure and plunge in a burning, molten mass into the concrete containment structure. If the structure is sound, it could contain the mass, if it has been structurally damaged, then it, too, could breech and we would have a massive, radioactive release.” About 27,000 liters of water, including water stored for firefighting, was being pumped into the reactor via makeshift pumps and other means in order to raise the water level above the reactor’s nuclear fuel, NISA said. “NISA just confirmed that the fuel may be partially melting,” Dr. Tatsujiro Suzuki, vicechairman of the Japan Atomic Energy Commission told ABC News. “The question is whether the situation is getting worse or not. It is reported that the level of water is declining (bad news) but pressure is also decreasing (good news). So, efforts to contain the event (need water) may be working. It is also stated that the amount of radioactivity is still small so that the general public does not need to be concerned at present.” Nevertheless, the government continued to ask everyone around the plant, about 200 miles northeast of Tokyo, to “calmly” evacuate, Japanese broadcaster NHK reported. An evacuation order for a 10-kilometer radius around the plant had been issued earlier. The Fukushima Daiichi plant was one of two run by the Tokyo Electric Power Co. whose cooling systems were damaged in the earthquake and tsunami. At least two reactors at the plant and three at the nearby Fukushima Daini plant had damaged cooling systems, the Associated Press reported. There also was an evacuation order in effect for residents living within a mile of the Daini plant. But the situation at the Fukushima Daiichi reactor No. 1 was reported to be the most dire. Radiation inside the reactor surged to 1,000 times its normal level after Friday’s earthquake knocked out power to its cooling system, and the tsunami floods have hampered efforts to get it restored.

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Heat-induced pressure built up inside the crippled reactor after the reactor lost power, automatically shut down and the cooling system failed. The situation at the reactor and the four others with compromised cooling systems prompted officials to declare nuclear emergencies. Scientists said that even though the No. 1 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi site, in particular, had stopped producing energy, its fuel continued to generate heat and needed steady levels of coolant to prevent it from overheating and triggering a dangerous cascade of events. “You have to continue to supply water. If you don’t, the fuel will start to overheat and could melt,” said Edwin Lyman, a senior staff scientist in the Global Security program at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, D.C. A meltdown could lead to a breach of the reactor’s steel containment vessel and allow radiation to escape into an outer, concrete containment building, or even into the environment. “Up to 100 percent of the volatile radioactive Cesium-137 content of the pools could go up in flames and smoke, to blow downwind over large distances,” said Kevin Kamps, a nuclear waste specialist at Beyond Nuclear, which is an advocacy group that opposes nuclear weapons and power. “Given the large quantity of irradiated nuclear fuel in the pool, the radioactivity release could be worse than the Chernobyl nuclear reactor catastrophe of 25 years ago.” The Kyodo News Service reported Friday that some radioactive material already may have escaped, citing reports from the Japanese Nuclear Safety Agency that radiation levels outside the plan have been eight times the normal level. Experts said that level of exposure is not dangerous to the general population. “You’ve got to take all potential precautions,” President Obama told reporters Friday when asked about vulnerability of the Japanese nuclear power facilities. “And I’ve asked Steve Chu, our energy secretary, to be in close contact with their personnel to provide any assistance that’s necessary, but also to make sure that if in fact there have been breaches in the safety system on these nuclear plants, that they’re dealt with right away.” Experts say cooling the reactor’s core to minimize pressure inside the containment structure is a top priority. Japanese authorities have been trying to connect diesel-powered generators to restore the water pumps inside the reactor but have been hampered by the floods. “If you have something that generates heat and you don’t cool it off or release the steam, you’re in trouble,” said nuclear consultant Mycle Schneider, who compared the situation to a pressure cooker.
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The risk is a rapid rise in heat that would leave the core uncovered — something that may have begun Saturday. “If it’s not covered with water, it can start melting very quickly,” Schneider said. Meanwhile, officials performed a controlled release of some slightly radioactive vapor that has been building up inside the containment structure, the Associated Press reported. The release would allow harmful material to escape into the environment, but not at levels as great as if there was a massive containment failure, Lyman said. “It’s good they evacuated — let’s put it that way,” Lyman said. “All indications are that this is a very serious event.”

Failure of Generators Troublesome
U.S. nuclear experts say modern power plants are designed to withstand earthquakes and tsunamis and have several security layers in place in the event of lost power, including diesel fuel generators and battery systems. “There are multiple redundancies to continue to feed water to the core to take the heat away at most facilities,” said an official with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, who asked not to be named because he is not familiar with details of the Fukushima plant. But those back-up power sources may not have worked in this case, a development many international experts called troublesome. “The Japanese are considered the best in the world,” said Schneider. “They had several generators in place in case one of them doesn’t work. This is the first time I’ve heard of where none of them worked. To me, that is a very deep concern.” Other Japanese nuclear plants also appeared compromised by the earthquake and tsunami. Besides the loss of cooling systems at three of four Fukushima Daini reactors, the turbine building at the nearby Onagawa nuclear power plant burst into flames shortly after the earthquake, though it later was extinguished. The International Atomic Energy Agency said it was closely monitoring the situation at the four Japanese nuclear power sites impacted by the earthquake and confirmed that all had been successfully shut down.

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“It’s a positive sign,” Mitch Singer of the Nuclear Energy Institute, a U.S. industry trade group, said of initial reports of the power plants’ performance and durability following the quake. “This industry more than all others depends on the safe operation of the plant, and it appears these robust facilities have operated as they were designed to do.” Japanese nuclear power plants have been tested repeatedly by earthquakes in recent years and operated effectively, according to the World Nuclear Association. Worldwide, 20 percent of nuclear powerplants operate in areas of “significant seismic activity,” according to the association. ABC News’ Devin Dwyer, Matthew Mosk and Leezel Tanglao contributed to this report.   TOKYO — Japanese authorities confirmed Saturday that radiation had leaked from a quake-hit nuclear plant after an explosion rocked the site. The blast at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility occurred just hours after officials said they feared a reactor could melt down. Footage on Japanese TV showed that the walls of one building had crumbled, leaving only a skeletal metal frame standing. Plumes of smoke were spewing out of the plant. It was not clear if the damaged building housed the reactor. Several workers were injured by the blast at Fukushima Unit 1, Japanese TV station NHK reported. The hourly amount of radiation leaking from Fukushima was equal to the amount permitted in one year, an official told the Kyodo news agency. Area residents were told to stay indoors, not to drink tap water and to cover their faces with masks or wet towels, Britain’s Sky News reported. “We are now trying to analyze what is behind the explosion,” government spokesman Yukio Edano said, stressing that people should quickly evacuate a six-mile radius. “We ask everyone to take action to secure safety.” Authorities had warned Friday of a failure of a cooling system resulting from a powerful earthquake and tsunami.

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‘Radioactive vapors’ Pressure had been building up in the reactor and Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency told reporters Saturday that it was venting “radioactive vapors” to relieve that pressure. Officials said they were measuring radiation levels in the area. Before the blast, the reactor in trouble had already leaked radiation: Operators at the Fukushima Daiichi plant’s Unit 1 detected eight times the normal radiation levels outside the facility and 1,000 times normal inside Unit 1′s control room. Two reactors had lost cooling ability and a meltdown was possible at one of the reactors because of the overheating, said Ryohei Shiomi, an official with Japan’s nuclear safety commission. Speaking before the explosion, he said that ven if there was a meltdown, it wouldn’t affect people outside a six-mile radius. Most of the 51,000 residents living within the danger area had been evacuated, Shiomi added. Story: How a nuclear plant works Jiji news agency quoted nuclear authorities as saying that there was a high possibility that nuclear fuel rods at No. 1 reactor may be melting or have melted. Experts said earlier that if that is the case, it means the reactor is heating up. If that is not halted, such as by venting steam which releases small amounts of radiation, there is a chance it would result in a rupture of the reactor pressure vessel. But the risk of contamination can be minimized as long as the external container structure is intact, they said. The worry then becomes whether the quake has weakened the structure. There has been no official word so far on whether the structure was damaged by the quake. Open Channel blog: 2007 Japan quake was wake-up call on nuclear safetyThe 8.9 magnitude quake and the tsunami that followed cut off electricity to the site and disabled emergency generators, knocking out the main cooling system. ‘No Chernobyl is possible’ The Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), which operates the six-reactor Daiichi site, said Friday that it had also lost cooling ability at a second reactor there and three units at its nearby Fukushima Daini site. The government declared state of emergency at all those units.

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Prior to the blast, Japanese officials and experts were at pains to say that while there would be radiation leaks, they would be very small and have dismissed suggestions of a repeat of a Chernobyl-type disaster. “No Chernobyl is possible at a light water reactor. Loss of coolant means a temperature rise, but it also will stop the reaction,” said Naoto Sekimura, a professor at the University of Tokyo. “Even in the worst-case scenario, that would mean some radioactive leakage and equipment damage, but not an explosion. If venting is done carefully, there will be little leakage. Certainly not beyond the 3-km (1.8-mile) radius.” Edwin Lyman, a senior scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, which opposes nuclear energy, told msnbc.com Friday that TEPCO was facing a potential catastrophe. “It’s just as bad as it sounds,” he said. “What they have not been able to do is restore cooling of the radioactive core to prevent overheating and that’s causing a variety of problems, including a rise in temperature and pressure with the containment (buildings). “What’s critical is, are they able to restore cooling and prevent fuel damage? If the fuel starts to get damaged, eventually it will melt through the reactor vessel and drop to the floor of the containment building,” raising the odds that highly radioactive materials could be released into the environment, he said. Video: Japan in shock: ‘Nothing compares to what happened’ (on this page) But Steve Kerekes, spokesman for the U.S.-based Nuclear Energy Institute, said that while the situation was serious, a meltdown remains unlikely and, even if it occurred would not necessarily pose a threat to public health and safety. “Obviously that wouldn’t be a good thing, but at Three Mile Island about half the core melted and, at the end of the day … there were no adverse impacts to the public,” he said. Earlier, experts downplayed the seriousness of the trace levels of radiation detected at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. Japan’s Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported Friday that radiation levels per hour in the area near the front entrance of the No. 1 Fukushima plant reached 0.59 micro Sievert, which is eight times the normal levels. The central control room of the reactor recorded radiation levels 1,000 times the normal level, which would be approximately 70 microsieverts per hour, or 7 millirems, according to calculations by msnbc.com.

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Generally it would take much higher levels of outside exposure to cause health problems in humans. Radiation exposure is often measured in units called “millirem,” which is 1/1000 of a rem. The average American is exposed to about 620 millirem each year, with about half from natural sources and half from manmade sources, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. A chest X-ray results in an exposure of about 8 to 10 millirems per film. A cross-country airplane flight results in a dose of 4 millirems. Exposures of less than 50 millirem typically produce changes in blood chemistry, but no symptoms, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. By comparison, normal exposure rates range from approximately 0.03 microsieverts per hour to 0.23 microsieverts per hour in La Paz, Bolivia, the highest city in the world. Video: Northern Japan engulfed in destruction (on this page) Dr. Fred Mettler, emeritus professor of radiology at the University of New Mexico, studied the health effects of the Chernobyl explosions in Ukraine and has spent decades researching and writing about radiation exposure. Mettler said the plants in the U.S. and Japan are far advanced from Chernobyl, which he likened to an airplane hangar with the nuclear reactor core sitting out in the open. Japanese scientists have had more than 60 years since World War II to study the health effects of radiation poisoning and they won’t take any step lightly, including releasing radioactive vapors into the atmosphere to ease building pressure in a reactor, he said. “These people are more knowledgeable about radiation than anyone,” Mettler said. “People don’t become acutely sick until they’re over 50 rem and more like 100 rem,” Mettler said. However, he noted that Japanese scientists studying health effects since Hiroshima have determined that some health effects can start to occur at exposures of 15 rem, even if the results aren’t apparent for 10 years. World Blog: Tokyo street ‘rippling like water’ There were about 80,000 survivors of the atomic bomb, for instance, with an average exposure of 23 rem, Mettler said. During the next 50 years about 9,000 of those survivors died of cancer.

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However, Japanese scientists concluded that the toll included about 500 excess deaths, that is, deaths that would not otherwise have been expected. The Daiichi site is located in Onahama city. The 460-megawatt Unit 1 began operating in 1971 and is the oldest at the facility. It is a boiling water reactor that drives the turbine with radioactive water, unlike pressurized water reactors usually found in the United States. Japanese regulators decided in February to allow it to run another 10 years. The reactors were manufactured by GE. (Msnbc.com is a joint venture between NBC Universal and Microsoft. GE is a part owner of NBC Universal.) The quake, the most powerful since Japan started keeping records 140 years ago, sparked at least 80 fires in cities and towns along the coast. Oil refineries were shut down and one refinery was ablaze. Power to millions of homes and businesses was knocked out. Severe power shortages were also expected over the weekend.

Nuclear Reactor Meltdown: The Three Mile Island Accident Nuclear Reactor Meltdown: The Chernobyl Disaster International Nuclear Event Scale
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