State Dept., Pentagon offer to evacuate family members from Tokyo
TOKYO — Six days into the world’s worst nuclear emergency in 25 years, as the crisis at one of Japan’s damaged power plants worsened, the United States offered Wednesday night to evacuate family members of State Department and Pentagon officials from northern Japan while urging other Americans to stay at least 50 miles from the plant — four times the distance recommended by the Japanese government.
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Video: The operator of Japan's Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant says a fire has broken out again at its No. 4 reactor unit. It says the blaze erupted early Wednesday in the outer housing of the reactor's containment vessel. (March 15)
The U.S. Embassy in Tokyo will remain open, Undersecretary of State Patrick F. Kennedy said in Washington, adding, “We have not ordered [family members] to leave. We have made this opportunity available to them, should they choose to exercise it.”
The messages from U.S. officials came on the heels of congressional testimony from Gregory Jaczko, chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, who said that a deep pool holding uranium fuel at the Fukushima Daiichi facility sat empty of water needed to prevent releases of radiation. “And we believe that radiation levels are extremely high,” he added.
That assessment, the first detailed comments by an American official about Fukushima Daiichi, was rejected Thursday by a spokesman for the utility that owns the nuclear plant, who said that an aerial survey showed that the fuel pool at the unit 4 reactor still contained water. The question is an important one: If exposed to the air, the spent-fuel rods would start to decay and release radioactivity into the air.
Jaczko’s comments provided an even more worrisome picture than the one coming from the government in Tokyo, and they gave millions in Japan a heightened sense of concern about how far and how fast radioactive material might spread.
In their latest efforts to contain the growing problems at the plant, Japanese officials returned Thursday to a plan they had aborted just one day earlier, regarding it as too dangerous. A military helicopter flew four times over the unstable reactors in units 3 and 4 early Thursday — the Boeing CH-47 dropping 7 1 / 2 tons of seawater on the buildings each time in a bid to replenish the water in the buildings’ storage pool.
The spokesman for Tokyo Electric Power said the mission focused on unit 3, which was seen as in more dire need of water than unit 4, and Japan’s defense minister, Toshimi Kitazawa, said the water hit its target on unit 3.
“We believe it will help to cool down the fuel,” Kitazawa said, but he would go no further toward calling the mission successful.
Japanese police also stood ready to address the problem from the ground, using a water cannon to spray the reactors from outside — a plan that NHK television, which broadcast the helicopter mission nationally, characterized as a “last-ditch effort.”
President Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan spoke by phone Thursday morning (Wednesday night in Washington), and the White House said Obama emphasized that the United States would do “everything possible to support Japan in overcoming the effects of the devastating earthquake and tsunami.” Kan briefed Obama on steps taken to contain the nuclear crisis, the White House said.
With Japan’s northeastern coastline ravaged and fears of radiation growing, Emperor Akihito made rare public remarks Wednesday, saying he was “deeply concerned about the nuclear situation.”
The emperor’s televised address — his first at a time of national crisis — underscored the gravity of the moment and highlighted the myriad problems still plaguing Japan nearly a week after the 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami struck: a death toll that grows by the day; conflicting safety and evacuation information; growing distrust by locals and foreigners who call Japan home; a scarcity of gas, food and other resources; and the difficulty some aid workers have had delivering supplies.
The National Police Agency released updated numbers Thursday morning: 5,176 people dead and 8,606 missing. But the list of casualties is expected to reach far higher.
Failed attempts by Japanese officials to bring the Fukushima Daiichi reactors under control, coupled with the U.S. analysis of the situation inside the facility, suggested a greater likelihood that high levels of radiation are leaking from the plant.
Jaczko, speaking in Washington before members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said that Fukushima Daiichi’s unit 4 reactor appeared to have suffered a hydrogen explosion and that there “is no water in the spent-fuel pool.”
A report on the Japanese crisis this week by Barclays Capital said, “Never, never, never allow the water level in a nuclear reactor to fall below the level of the fuel. This is the mantra pounded into the minds of nuclear power plant operators all over the world.” The report added, “It is hard to overemphasize the importance of the ‘keep the fuel covered’ training and design of these plants.” One of the report’s authors formerly provided such training at a U.S. commercial nuclear plant.
The worst-case scenario from a lack of water in a spent-fuel pool: The fuel could catch fire, which would amplify the risk of radiation getting into the atmosphere.
Japanese officials have called for a 121/ 2-mile evacuation zone around the coastal nuclear plant, about 150 miles north of Tokyo, and asked that people between 121 / 2 and 19 miles away stay indoors.
U.S. Ambassador John V. Roos said Wednesday afternoon that he thought Tokyo was still safe from radiation, and he initially supported Japan’s estimation that those beyond the 19-mile radius from the nuclear plants were not at risk. “Our experts continue to be in agreement . . . to continue to follow the advice of the Japanese government in this regard,” Roos said.
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