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A woman walks through snow-covered debris in the quake-hit area of Miyagi Prefecture Wednesday. Heavy snows on Miyagi and Iwate Prefectures have hampered relief work after Friday's quake and tsunami. Photo: Xinhua By Qiu Wei in Niigata and Zhu Shanshan in Beijing Japan continued grappling with its simmering nuclear crisis Wednesday amid mounting problems at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant, with nearby residents in a growing state of fear as pressure mounts on the government as rapidly as it has been building inside the reactors. Radiation levels spiked Wednesday after plumes of white vapor were seen pouring from the plant's No. 3 reactor, according to the plant's operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), which later ordered its 50 remaining staff members to temporarily evacuate from the site. TEPCO and nuclear safety authorities said part of the reactor's reinforced containment vessel may have been damaged, but technicians were unable to determine the exact source of the vapor leak. Radiation levels then rose sharply at the plant, with the peak dose reaching 6,400 microsieverts per hour - about 10,000 times the normal background radiation. The radiation fell to about a third of that level soon afterward. In another setback, a fire broke out for the second time at the building housing the No. 4 reactor, according to TEPCO. The reactor was offline when the earthquake struck, but some spent fuel rods were being stored in pools of water in the building, and the rods may have been exposed to the air, releasing radiation. The fast-changing situation has seemingly outpaced authorities' counter-measures. Plans to send helicopters from Japan's Self Defense Forces to dump water on the No. 3 and 4 reactors were canceled after excessive radiation levels were measured above the plant. Instead, a police water cannon, usually used to quell rioters, was sent to help. Water was also being poured into reactors No. 5 and 6, indicating that the entire six-reactor facility was now at risk of overheating, Reuters reported. Some experts said Japanese authorities were downplaying the severity of the incident. Arnie Gundersen, a 39-year veteran of the nuclear industry, who worked on reactor designs similar to those at the Fukushima plant, told Reuters that just 50 or so people could not monitor the six reactors. "That evacuation (of 750 workers) is a sign that they may be throwing in the towel," Gundersen said. Yang Bojiang, director of Japanese studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, told the Global Times that the Japanese government could have better monitored the nuclear plant prior to the earthquake. |
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