By Antoni Slodkowski
TOKYO, July 18 (Reuters) – Steam is rising from a destroyed
building that houses a reactor at Japan’s crippled Fukushima
Daiichi nuclear power plant, the operator of the plant, Tokyo
Electric Power Co, said on Thursday.
The utility, widely known as Tepco, said the levels of
radioactivity around the plant had remained unchanged and it was
still looking into what triggered the emission.
“We think it’s possible that rain made its way through the
reactor building and having fallen on the primary containment
vessel, which is hot, evaporated creating steam,” said Tepco
spokeswoman Maymi Yoshida, adding it was still investigating the
matter.
Each reactor is surrounded by a primary containment vessel.
This is made of strengthened steel four to eight inches thick.
It provides the most critical line of defence against leaking
radiation from the reactor.
A massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011 killed nearly
20,000 people and set off the world’s worst nuclear crisis in 25
years when the Fukushima plant was destroyed causing reactor
meltdowns, hydrogen explosions and leaking radiation into the
sea and air.
The steam rising from the reactor No.3 building was spotted
at 8:20 am (0520 GMT) by a subcontractor who was filming the
destroyed building and preparing to remove rubble from the site.
It was still visible some two hours later, Yoshida said.
The latest findings underscore the difficulties Tepco is
facing in trying to keep the ravaged plant under control. About
a week ago a huge spike in radioactive cesium was detected in
groundwater 25 meters from the sea.
The operator has been flushing water over the damaged
reactors to keep them cool for more than two years, but
contaminated water has been building up at the rate of an
Olympic-size swimming pool per week.
In April, Tepco warned it may run out of space to store the
water and asked for approval to channel what it has described
groundwater with low levels of radiation around the plant and to
the sea through a “bypass”. Local fishermen oppose the proposal.
(Editing by Ed Davies)
