Japan pleads for calm in face of spiralling nuclear crisis
MARK MACKINNON
Morioka, Japan— Globe and Mail Update
Published Tuesday, Mar. 15, 2011 2:26PM EDT
Last updated Tuesday, Mar. 15, 2011 7:33PM EDT
When Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan addressed his country Tuesday, he acknowledged the country was facing a dangerous nuclear crisis, and urged Japanese to “act calmly,” as they mostly have despite a string of catastrophes in recent days.
What he didn’t say was that he and his government have the situation under control. Because they don’t.
Japan’s nuclear crisis has steadily worsened since a magnitude-9.0 earthquake on Friday that shook the region around the Fukushima nuclear plant – 260 kilometres northeast of Tokyo – and set in motion a dangerous chain of events that by some measures already ranks as one of the worst nuclear accidents ever.
On Tuesday, the government ordered 140,000 people in the Fukushima region to seal themselves indoors as radiation began seeping from the plant, which has been hit by four explosions and a major fire since the earthquake.
The latest incident, the fire at reactor No. 4, was extinguished late Tuesday but a new fire was discovered early Wednesday morning. Tokyo Electric Power Co. spokesman Hajimi Motujuku said the blaze erupted early Wednesday in the outer housing of the reactor's containment vessel because the initial fire had not been fully extinguished. The new fire was brought under control shortly after its discovery, The Associated Press reported.
The first fire was caused by falling water levels in the fuel-storage pond – an area where used nuclear fuel is kept cool – at reactor No. 4, leading to “radioactivity … being released directly into the atmosphere,” according to a Japanese statement to the International Atomic Energy Agency. When it was extinguished, workers believed they had scored a major victory with a sharp decline in radiation levels.
Officials said 70 workers remained at the Fukushima complex, struggling with its myriad problems. Clad in protective gear, they worked in shifts to reduce their radiation exposure.
“The possibility of further radioactive leakage is heightening,” a grim-faced Mr. Kan said in a televised press conference. “We are making every effort to prevent the leak from spreading. I know that people are very worried, but I would like to ask you to act calmly.”
The plant’s owner, Tokyo Electric Power Co., has already removed 800 staff. Fifteen workers have been injured, and up to 190 have been exposed to elevated radiation during the battle to keep Fukushima from complete meltdown.
The country now faces the prospect of large-scale evacuations, depending on how fast workers can cool the partially exposed reactor cores – and which way the wind blows over the coming days. Some 200,000 people have already been evacuated from the 20-kilometre radius around the plant.
A 30-kilometre no-fly zone is also being enforced around the plant to prevent planes spreading the radiation further.
The next concern is Tokyo and its metropolitan population of 30 million. Radiation levels 10 times higher than normal were detected in the city Tuesday, not yet high enough to pose a threat to human health, the city government said.
France has advised its citizens to leave the Japanese capital, while Canada and the United States have warned against unnecessary travel to Tokyo and the Fukushima region. Citing radiation concerns, Austria moved its embassy from Tokyo to Osaka, farther to the south and away from Fukushima.
Though the streets remained calm and orderly – even as people waited hours for food and fuel – many tourists and residents packed the airports looking for a flight out of the country.
France’s Nuclear Safety Authority said on Tuesday that the accident at Fukushima now ranked a 6 on the an international scale of 1 to 7. That would make the disaster already worse than the 1979 radiation leak at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, which ranked a 5 and saw a reactor meltdown but no breach of the steel containment shell.
The only Level 7 warning ever assessed was the 1986 disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear plant, in northern Ukraine, where far more radioactive material was released into the atmosphere because there was no containment shell.
Most experts say it’s improbable Fukushima will get as bad as Chernobyl because Fukushima automatically shut down after the earthquake, removing the worst-case scenario of a chain reaction at the reactors.
Nonetheless, the unfolding nuclear drama is seen as so dangerous that it has pushed onto the back pages – even in Japan – the news of Japan’s efforts to recover the dead and discover the fates of the tens of thousands of people still missing after Friday’s earthquake and tsunami. The official death toll rose to 3,373 on Tuesday, though most estimates expect it will eventually go well past 10,000. More than 500,000 have been made homeless.
The country has been hit by some 200 aftershocks, including three sizable tremors late Tuesday that shook buildings in both Tokyo and Morioka, some 550 kilometres to the north.
The earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crises have badly hurt Japan’s economy, which was already struggling to pull out of long stagnation. The benchmark Nikkei 225 stock average plunged for a second day Tuesday, sliding more than 10 per cent to close at 8,605.15 while the broader Topix lost more than 8 per cent.
Initial estimates put the costs of rebuilding at tens of billions of dollars. That kind of public spending would add to an already massive public debt. At 200 per cent of gross domestic product, Japan’s debt is already the biggest among industrialized nations.
With a report from The Associated Press
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