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Christof Lehmann (nsnbc),- After a 6.0 earthquake shook Fukushima on Sunday, the crippled nuclear power plant has attracted renewed national and international attention. Now, Shinji Kinjo, the head of Japan´s Nuclear Regulatory Authority, NRA, admits to a Reuters journalist, that “right now, we have an emergency”.
On Sunday, an earthquake, measuring 6.0 on the Richter Scale, shook the Fukushima Prefecture in Japan. The epicenter of Sunday´s earthquake was near the epicenter of the 2011, 9.0 earthquake, that caused the death of more than 15.000 during a subsequent Tsunami, and which crippled the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, causing the meltdown of the core of several reactors, and as some experts claim, the meltdown of stored fuel rods.
The earthquake on Sunday directed renewed national and international attention to the situation at the crippled Fukushima power plant. The immediate response from the side of the operator of the plant, TEPCO, was that the earthquake had not caused any new or additional damage.
However, in July it transpired, that the plant continues leaking highly radioactive contaminated water directly into the Pacific Ocean. Now, the head of Japan´s Nuclear Regular Authority, NRA, admits that “Right now, we have an emergency”.
Approximately 400 tons of groundwater percolate into the basements of the crippled plant every day. There, the groundwater mixes with the water, which is pumped into the plant in the, according to some sources desperate” attempts to cool down the reactor cores which are in a state of meltdown. The temperature of the cores however, continues to rise. The highly contaminated water is escaping directly into the Pacific Ocean.
On Sunday, a nuclear physicist stated to nsnbc international, on condition of anonymity, that the situation at Fukushima can best be described as an open air nuclear power plant in meltdown mode, with the cooling water being pumped directly into the ocean.
Moreover, the contaminated water is also entering the surface soil and the groundwater. The consequences could be described as catastrophic.
The Fukushima plant operator, TEPCO, has over the last two years claimed that it has managed to prevent the escape of radioactive contaminated water into the groundwater, because it is storing spent cooling water in storage tanks, and because it has “hardened the earth” around the reactors by injecting a chemical compound into the earth surrounding the reactors, which, so TEPCO, contains the water in a kind of basin.
In July, TEPCO then had to admit, that the lethally toxic water could not be contained anyway. The shell or basin around the crippled reactors “is not holding water”. The technique only works from a depths of 1.8 meters and below, but the contaminated water is spilling from the basements and onto the top soil because more water, including groundwater enters, than TEPCO can pump out. A nuclear engineer who has been working for TEPCO told the Reuters news agency:
“If you build a wall, of course the water is going to accumulate there. And there is no other way for the water to go but up or sideways and eventually to the ocean. So now, the question is how long do we have?”
According to some Japanese experts and news media, a massive leak could appear within no more than three weeks. TEPCO has promised to begin pumping enough of the highly contaminated water by the end of the week, to stop the water from rising, but does not explain how it will manage to make good on the guaranty, since its available storage tanks are 85 % full already. An entirely different question is, how long can one poor water into a leaking bucket in the hope that the hole will fix itself ?
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