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Scramble to prevent nuclear meltdowns in 3 Japanese reactors

Authorities are now scrambling to prevent meltdowns in three of the plant’s four nuclear reactors…..

Third blast at Japanese nuclear plant, ABC Radio, The World Today with Eleanor Hall, Hayden Cooper, 15 March 11-– This morning, there’s been another explosion at the Fukushima nuclear plant, which was badly damaged in last Friday’s powerful earthquake and tsunami.

Wire agencies say the roof of the No. 2 reactor was damaged, radiation levels in the air surrounding the power plant have risen four-fold and workers have been ordered to leave parts of the plant.

Authorities are now scrambling to prevent meltdowns in three of the plant’s four nuclear reactors…..
HAYDEN COOPER: Well, they agree with many other people that this is a potentially a very serious development. What has happened is that, unlike the other two explosions, this explosion happened much closer to the container structure that protects the reactor core.

Now it happened somewhere called the suppression pool or suppression chamber, that’s at the bottom of the reactor core and the very real fear seems to be that this blast could have damaged either the walls of the suppression pool or the walls of the container structure itself, and that would be the first time that that has happened since the earthquake.

And it would open up the possibility of a much more serious leak of radiation, either radioactive liquid in the water or radioactive gases.

ELEANOR HALL: Hayden, why are authorities thinking that this may have breached the container wall this time?

HAYDEN COOPER: Well, because this time the blast was actually heard in the vicinity of this suppression chamber, so it’s somewhere inside near the container structure. That’s what they’re worried about.

March 15, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Japan, safety