Tokyo japan nuclear plant

TOKYO: The operator of the crippled nuclear power plant leaking radiation in northern Japan announced a plan Sunday that would bring the crisis under control within six to nine months and allow evacuated residents to return to their homes.The phased road map for ending the crisis at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, announced by Tokyo Electric Power Co. chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata at a news conference, includes plans to cover the damaged reactor buildings to contain the radiation and eventually remove the nuclear fuel.Frustrations have been mounting over TEPCO’s failure to resolve the nuclear crisis more than a month after a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami hit Japan on March 11, knocking out power and cooling systems at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex.
In the first three months of the plan, the company hopes to steadily reduce the level of leaking radiation, Katsumata said. Three to six months after that, it hopes to get the release of radioactive materials under control.
”We would like to see evacuees return to their homes as early as possible,” Katsumata said.
The company is focusing on cooling the reactors and spent fuel pools, decontaminating water that has been contaminated by radiation, mitigating the release of radiation into the atmosphere and soil, and measuring and reducing the amount of radiation affecting the evacuation area, he said.TEPCO Vice President Sakae Muto said that in addition to covering the reactor buildings, the company will also work with authorities to decontaminate areas affected by the radiation.In a show of support for a staunch American ally, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton expressed admiration and sympathy for the Japanese as she visited Tokyo on Sunday.
”We pledge our steadfast support for you and your future recovery. We are very confident that Japan will demonstrate the resilience that we have seen during this crisis in the months ahead,” Clinton told reporters after meeting with Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto.

tokyo:nuclear power plant leaking

TOKYO: The operator of the crippled nuclear power plant leaking radiation in northern Japan announced a plan Sunday that would bring the crisis under control within six to nine months and allow evacuated residents to return to their homes.The phased road map for ending the crisis at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, announced by Tokyo Electric Power Co. chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata at a news conference, includes plans to cover the damaged reactor buildings to contain the radiation and eventually remove the nuclear fuel.Frustrations have been mounting over TEPCO’s failure to resolve the nuclear crisis more than a month after a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami hit Japan on March 11, knocking out power and cooling systems at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex.
In the first three months of the plan, the company hopes to steadily reduce the level of leaking radiation, Katsumata said. Three to six months after that, it hopes to get the release of radioactive materials under control.
”We would like to see evacuees return to their homes as early as possible,” Katsumata said.
The company is focusing on cooling the reactors and spent fuel pools, decontaminating water that has been contaminated by radiation, mitigating the release of radiation into the atmosphere and soil, and measuring and reducing the amount of radiation affecting the evacuation area, he said.TEPCO Vice President Sakae Muto said that in addition to covering the reactor buildings, the company will also work with authorities to decontaminate areas affected by the radiation.In a show of support for a staunch American ally, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton expressed admiration and sympathy for the Japanese as she visited Tokyo on Sunday.
”We pledge our steadfast support for you and your future recovery. We are very confident that Japan will demonstrate the resilience that we have seen during this crisis in the months ahead,” Clinton told reporters after meeting with Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto.

jakarta:worlds biggest nuclear plant

The skeleton of what will soon be one of the world’s biggest nuclear plants is slowly taking shape along China’s southeastern coast right on the doorstep of Hong Kong’s bustling metropolis.Three other facilities nearby are up and running or under construction.Like Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant they lie within a few hundred miles (kilometers) of the type of fault known to unleash the largest tsunami spawning earthquakes.Called subduction zones, these happen when one tectonic plate is lodged beneath another. And because the so-called Manila Trench hasn’t been the source of a huge quake in at least 440 years, some experts say tremendous stresses are building, increasing the chances of a major rupture.Should that happen, the four plants in southern China, and a fifth perched on Taiwan’s southern tip, could be in the path of a towering wave like the one that struck Fukushima.But China, Taiwan, India and several other countries frantically building coastal facilities have made little use of new science to determine whether these areas are safe. At least 32 plants in operation or under construction in Asia are at risk of one day being hit by a tsunami, nuclear experts and geologists warn.And even when nations have conducted appropriate seismic hazard assessments, in many cases they have not shared the findings with the UN International Atomic Energy Agency, leaving experts frustrated and in the dark.In assessing the tsunami risks to nuclear power stations, scientists focus on their proximity to subduction faults, volcanoes and areas frequently hit by underwater landslides all of which can trigger seismic waves. Because giant tsunamis recur, they also look at historic and scientific records, going back up to 4,000 years if possibleThe greatest threat comes from the subduction faults crisscrossing the globe, some far from the minds of policymakers, nuclear industry officials and the public because it has been so long since they exploded.In places where tectonic plates that form these faults are ”coupled,” or stuck together, the stresses are the biggest, especially if centuries have passed without a major energy releasing earthquake.When the strain eventually forces one plate to pop up or dive under the other, the resulting temblor can spawn mammoth waves like the one that struck off Japan’s northeast coast on March 11, triggering the nuclear crisis that has carried on for more than a month.While there is some ”coupling” at the Manila Trench, there is debate about just how much. Scientists say more research needs to be done to determine if pressure is building and along which segments.A computerized simulation by Yuen’s students shows a magnitude-9.0 quake along the Manila Trench sending waves racing along the South China Sea, before slamming Taiwan’s southern shore 15 minutes later. The tsunami reaches China’s southeast coast in around two hours. It also strikes Hong Kong, which sits just 30 miles from the nearest nuclear plant close enough to see increased radiation levels if a plant were to be damaged by a Fukushima-like event.
Scientists paint a worst-case scenario in which waves 15 to 24 feet high (5 to 8 meters) could strike the plants in China and Taiwan.Science has come a long way since the first nuclear plant was built in the 1950s.By carbon dating the ash, pollen or other organic material attached to tsunami sand deposits swept inland with the giant walls of water, geologists can determine to the decade, and sometimes even the year, when the wave hit and how big it was when it roared ashore.
That’s important because some tsunamis only strike once a millennium.

ONAGAWA, OSAKA,FUKUSHIMA,JAPAN EARTHQUAKE,TSUNAMI

 Hundreds of aftershocks have rocked the ground and frayed nerves in the five weeks since Japan’s massive earthquake and tsunami, forcing survivors to relive the terror almost daily.The incessant rumbling of the Earth’s stressed crust has held back relief work, imperilled already dangerous operations to contain a nuclear crisis and fuelled fears far beyond the coast that was devastated by the giant wave.Many now complain of “earthquake sickness” — the sensation that the ground is swaying beneath their feet even when it is not — a condition blamed on confused inner-ear balance receptors and a heightened state of anxiety.
For the tens of thousands living in spartan and crowded evacuation shelters in and near the tsunami wastelands, the creaking of already weakened buildings and the risk of another killer wave spark mortal fears.Since the 9.0-magnitude quake shifted the seafloor by 24 metres (yards) and sent a huge wave crashing into Japan, more than 400 quakes above magnitude 5.0 have hit, most below the sea but many beneath Japan itself.Maps show their epicentres spread out like an angry rash across the Pacific seafloor east of Japan, one of the world’s most quake-prone and volcanic places on the intersection of several tectonic plates.
Geophysicists agree that the jolts and rumbles will not stop any time soon.They only differ on whether they will go on for months, years or even a decade.
A powerful 7.1-magnitude aftershock struck on April 7 followed by a series of shocks above 6.0 this week, with the biggest one prompting a tsunami scare, one of several issued and lifted since the monster quake.At the Onagawa evacuation centre, the lights went off on April 7 and hundreds poured out of the buildings where they shivered in the cold for about an hour until the tremors subsided and they were allowed back inside.Aftershocks centred near the tsunami-damaged Fukushima nuclear plant have also repeatedly forced emergency crews there to evacuate, and led to fears the charred reactor buildings and water pipes may be further compromised.Radiation fears have also haunted some in the Onagawa evacuation centre, which lies just five kilometres (three miles) from a coastal nuclear plant of the same name that was also damaged on March 11 but went into full shutdown.I am afraid that another tsunami may knock out the Onagawa nuclear plant and cause it to leak radioactive material, like in Fukushima.