PH officials shut eyes to meltdown scenarios

RACING against the clock, Japanese engineers connected a cable to the tsunami-hit Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima at the weekend, raising hopes that it would restart water pumps to prevent deadly radiation from an accident rated as lethal as America’s Three Mile Island in 1979.

The engineers hope, through the cable, to supply electricity that will restart the water pumps needed to cool the overheated nuclear fuel rods at four of the plant’s six reactors. But Japanese power authorities cautioned against undue optimism that the procedure had averted a total meltdown at the plant.

All Tokyo Electric Power Co. could say was that it had “connected the external transmission line with the receiving point for the plant and confirmed that electricity had been supplied.” The engineers were under pressure to restart the pumps at Reactor No. 2, then at Reactors Nos. 1, 3 and 4 over the weekend as the rest of the world was on edge.

A scientist at Britain’s University of Central Lancashire, Laurence William, said: “If they can get those electric pumps on and can start pushing that water successfully up the core, quite slowly so you don’t cause any brittle failure, they should be able to get it under control in the next couple of days.”

If these failed, technicians would be forced to take an “option of last resort under consideration” to bury the plant in sand and concrete to prevent catastrophic radiation release—a method used to seal huge leakages from the l986 Chernobyl disaster in the Ukraine.

Amazing conviction

Despite the uncertainty of the desperate effort by Japanese engineers to avert a full meltdown, Philippine health and nuclear experts have deluged Filipinos with assurances, with amazing conviction, over the past seven days, that the country “is safe from radiation.”

This assurance from Health Secretary Enrique Ona, who said on March 13 that “the wind pattern in Japan showed that the Philippines is unlikely to be hit by any radioactive fallout from Fukushima,” came days before Japan on Tuesday raised the alert level at its quake-damaged nuclear plant from 4 to 5 on a 7-point international scale of atomic incidents.

The emergency at the Dai-ichi site, previously rated as a local problem, was described as having “wider consequences.”

Hidehiko Nishiyama, deputy general at Japan’s Nuclear Safety Agency, said, “We are making progress (in the battle to avert a total meltdown) … (but) we shouldn’t be too optimistic.”

BBC News reports that the United Nations has described the battle to stabilize the plant as a “race against time, and that Japanese nuclear officials said core damage to Reactors No. 2 and 3 had prompted the raising of the severity grade.”

The 1979 incident at Three Mile Island in the United States was also rated at 5 on the scale and the 1986 Chernobyl disaster at 7. Japan has imposed a 20-kilometer exclusion zone around Fukushima and has urged people living up to 30 km away to stay indoors.

According to a Reuters report, Harold Denton, a senior official with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission at the time of the Three Mile Island disaster, said the Fukushima emergency “is certainly far worse than Three Mile Island.” He said the Three Mile accident was a case of a valve malfunction compounded by human error, while Dai-ichi was the result of a massive earthquake and tsunami.

The extent of the damage at the two nuclear power plants is clearly one of the most noticeable, he said. Three Mile Island suffered no structural damage.

By contrast, the Dai-ichi reactor suffered numerous hydrogen explosions that partially destroyed the roof and walls, cracked the primary containment vessels in at least two of its six reactors, and damaged pools holding spent fuel.

The Associated Press reports that, in the first sign that contamination from the Dai-ichi plant had seeped into the food, officials said radiation levels in spinach and milk from farms near the complex exceeded government safety.

Minuscule amounts of radioactive iodine also were found elsewhere, although experts said none of these tests showed any health risks.

There was no assurance that if a big blowup occurs at the Fukushima plant, the radiation fallout might not spread beyond Japan to other areas in the Pacific.

Fearless forecast

Philippine officials last week assured the public that even if the radiation from the Fukushima plant moved up to the Chernobyl levels, the Philippines would still be relatively safe.

Science Secretary Mario Montejo said the Chernobyl disaster was the only one in history classified as level 7.

He said that in the Chernobyl accident, the fallout spread as far as the Netherlands, “but the Philippines is far from Japan … by then, the (composition) would have already dissipated.”

In case there is a plume, the Philippines is still protected from the direction of the wind, he said.

Alumanda dela Rosa, director of the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute, echoed Montejo, saying the Philippines was still safe from the effects of a radioactive plume from Fukushima because the wind was blowing eastward, away from the Philippines.

Based on the latest test calculation, “there is no risk of the Philippines being affected by the radioactive plume,” Dela Rosa said.

Both these calculations are based on nothing more solid than the assumption that, first, wind direction won’t change. Second, they rule out the ever-present contingency of a more severe meltdown of the Dai-ichi plant.

Suppose these two worst-case scenarios take place, putting Filipinos at risk from a massive radioactive fallout, are they ready to commit hara-kiri Japanese style?