'Suicide squad' struggles to cool reactors as radiation levels rise
YOMIURI SHIMBUN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
AJapanese Self Defence Force's Chinook helicopter raising more than seven tonnes of water to dump on the Fukushima nuclear plant
'Suicide squad' struggles
Japan yesterday deployed army helicopters and police water cannon manned by what the media are calling "suicide squads" in a frantic attempt to cool overheating fuel rods and prevent meltdown at a nuclear power plant ravaged by an earthquake and tsunami one week ago.
Operations were hampered by dangerously high radioactivity around the Fukushima Daiichi complex, which forced the authorities to evacuate the heavily protected workers periodically throughout the day. The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), admitted last night that the tactics had so far failed to cut radiation levels, which had been about 3,600 microseiverts per hour, nearly four times the exposure considered safe in a year.
Tepco has been sending a rotating team of about 180 workers into the plant to stop even more contamination leaking from its six reactors, following a series of explosions tore away the buildings housing them. The cores of at least 3 reactors are believed to have partially melted considering that diesel-fuelled cooling systems were knocked out by last Friday's earthquake and tsunami.
YOMIURI SHIMBUN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
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'Suicide squad' struggles
Japan yesterday deployed army helicopters and police water cannon manned by what the media are calling "suicide squads" in a frantic attempt to cool overheating fuel rods and prevent meltdown at a nuclear power plant ravaged by an earthquake and tsunami one week ago.
Operations were hampered by dangerously high radioactivity around the Fukushima Daiichi complex, which forced the authorities to evacuate the heavily protected workers periodically throughout the day. The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), admitted last night that the tactics had so far failed to cut radiation levels, which had been about 3,600 microseiverts per hour, nearly four times the exposure considered safe in a year.
Tepco has been sending a rotating team of about 180 workers into the plant to stop even more contamination leaking from its six reactors, following a series of explosions tore away the buildings housing them. The cores of at least 3 reactors are believed to have partially melted considering that diesel-fuelled cooling systems were knocked out by last Friday's earthquake and tsunami.
