Japan: Third Explosion at Fukushima Nuclear Plant Since The Earthquake

“There was a huge explosion,” between 0600 and 06h15 in the morning in the reactor 2, a spokesman for Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO), the electric company that manages the plant.

It is “possible” that has caused “damage to the pool of condensation, located at the bottom of the containment enclosure which serves to cool the reactor and control the pressure inside the enclosure, said government spokesman Yukio Edan. Apparently the containment enclosure is not bored, according to the Nuclear Security Agency.

From Friday, the central Fukushima 1 located just 250 km from Tokyo, the most world’s largest megacities with 35 million inhabitants, total accidents, fueling fears of a radiation leak.

Finished cooling the systems failed in three of the six reactors at this station constructed in the 1970’s by the 8.9 magnitude quake.

After several operations to stop a principle of fusion, two hydrogen steam explosions occurred on Saturday and Monday in constructions where are the reactors 1 and 3.

The Japanese government ruled out the “possibility of a Chernobyl,” referring to the accident, the worst civil nuclear history, which occurred in central Ukraine in 1986.

In Vienna, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Yuyika Amano, deemed highly unlikely that the situation degenerate into a new Chernobyl.

Given the seriousness of the situation in central Fukushima-1, in which three reactors have cooling problems, Japan sought help from the IAEA and the United States. For its part the European Commission called a special meeting of the IAEA in Vienna next week.

A rate higher than normal radioactivity was measured in Ibaraki Prefecture, located between those of Fukushima, where a nuclear accident, and Tokyo, Kyodo said the Japanese press, while the operator center evacuated to their employees on the site.

The Prime Minister, Naoto Kan, the weekend ordered the evacuation of residents within a radius of 20 km around Fukushima.

In areas devastated by the 8.9 magnitude quake followed by tsunami, rescuers launched a “race against time to save possible survivors under a huge mountain of rubble,” said a Red Cross spokesman Patrick Fuller.

The balance of the earthquake and tsunami not to increase.

More than 10,000 people may have lost their lives in the coastal prefecture of Miyagi, the closest to the epicenter.

Rescuers found about 2,000 bodies already there.

Millions of Japanese were trying to survive without water, electricity, fuel and enough food and hundreds of thousands were forced to stay in emergency centers.

United Nations announced in Geneva that 590,000 people were evacuated from the disaster area, including 210,000 who live near nuclear plants in Fukushima. The NGO Save the Children said that 100,000 children were displaced.

“The ability of Japan to rebuild depends on each one of us,” said Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Friday wearing the uniform of the emergency services. The country faces, he said, the “worst crisis in 65 years, since the Second World War.”

Disasters also dealt a blow to the third world economy, Tokyo Stock Exchange on Monday fell more than 6%.

The major Japanese car manufacturers ceased production because of the difficulties in supplies.

The cost for insurance quake could reach 34,600 million dollars as an initial estimate of AIR Worldwide, a firm specializing in risk assessment.

Lifeguards from around the world came to the archipelago to assist more than 100,000 soldiers trying to assist a country still living at the rate of aftershocks and constantly startled by the false alarms of new tsunamis.

Image via Wikipedia