APSN | Progress, peril, at Fukushima nuclear plant

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Progress, peril, at Fukushima nuclear plant

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Rick Wallace, Tokyo – Japanese authorities have told journalists visiting the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant for the first time since the disaster that dangers remain despite the stabilisation of the damaged reactors.

Authorities opened parts of the plant to inspection by a party of Japanese and foreign journalists on Saturday to convince the national and global communities that progress was being made.

Nuclear Disaster Minister Goshi Hosono also toured the plant, 250km north of Tokyo, where 1600 workers were busy on furthering decontamination and stabilisation efforts.

The March 11 tsunami cut cooling systems at the plant, prompting a series of explosions and meltdowns that sent radiation spewing into the sky, sea and soil. More than 100,000 people were displaced by the disaster, which has caused widespread contamination and food scares.

The chief of the plant, Masao Yoshida – who admitted he feared he and his staff would all die in the early stages of the crisis – said his team was now on track to achieve cold shutdown by year's end.

"From the data at the plant that I have seen, there is no doubt that the reactors have been stabilised," he said. "(However,) it is still dangerous to work. The reactors are finally at a level that you can go there, but this is still not a situation where regular people can go in."

Journalists were taken through the stricken plant on a bus and wore protective suits, gloves, radiation dosimeters and, at times, gas masks.

It is clear from the account of the one pool reporter allowed to visit the plant that the 3200 men working at the plant continue to face significant hardships and high radiation levels.

Radiation readings during the visit – which took attendees to the heart of the crippled plant in a bus – peaked at 300 microsieverts an hour. That's enough for someone to be exposed to about 2600mSV over the course of a year – more than 10 times the maximum allowable yearly exposure for workers at the plant.

Journalists said the No 1 reactor building – which was blown up in the disaster by a hydrogen explosion – had been covered by a new superstructure.

The reactor's No 3 building, the other one to suffer extensive damage from a hydrogen blast, remained a concrete skeleton, although cranes were removing rubble to prepare for capping this reactor with a superstructure.

Efforts at the plant still centre on decontaminating the vast quantities of water being pumped through the stricken reactors for cooling.

A team of specialists, working in a command centre shielded by sandbags, were marshalling the pumping and decontamination operations while other workers clad in protective gear were building extra tanks for storage.

More than 40,000 tonnes of water remain at the bottom of the reactor buildings.

The bus drove between the reactors and sea and reporters saw a 4m-high sea wall built with rocks in black nets plant operator the Tokyo Electric Power Company said was a makeshift defence against another tsunami.

TEPCO said all vital electronics and pumps for the new cooling system were 30m above the reactors, keeping them safely out of tsunami's reach – as opposed to March 11, when all sources of back-up power were swamped by the tsunami.