Japan approved Tepco nuclear claims plan, reactor leaks

Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan (C) speaks during a cabinet ministers' meeting to discuss crippled nuclear power plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company's (TEPCO) compensation plan in Tokyo May 12, 2011.
Credit: Reuters/Kim Kyung-Hoon
By Kiyoshi Takenaka and Yoko Kubota
TOKYO | Sat May 14, 2011 2:31am EDT

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan on Friday announced a plan to help Tokyo Electric Power compensate victims of the crisis at its tsunami-crippled nuclear plant without going broke while it struggles to resolve the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.

The plan, agreed after weeks of wrangling between government officials, bankers and Tokyo Electric executives over who should pay for the crisis, allays investors' fears that a collapse of the power firm would roil financial markets.

It comes as engineers are still working to bring reactors under control at Tokyo Electric's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant north of Tokyo two months after the earthquake and tsunami that led to radiation leaks.

Ratings agency Standard and Poors lowered Tokyo Electric, known as Tepco, to BBB from BBB+, saying in a statement: "The upper limit of compensation remains unclear at this stage, and we expect Tepco's profitability to remain under significant pressure for a very long period."
The government will issue special-purpose bonds to help finance a fund that will allow Asia's largest utility to handle compensation claims expected to run into tens of billions of dollars. No ceiling was set on Tokyo Electric's liabilities.

The government is also considering buying preferred shares from Tokyo Electric, also known as Tepco, if it runs short of capital. It did not provide details on the size of its planned fund injection but lawmakers told reporters earlier this week the bond issue would total about 5 trillion yen ($62 billion).
In return for public backing, the government said it will exert control "for a certain period of time" over management of Tokyo Electric and other power utilities, which will also be asked to pay annual premiums into the fund.

Though relieved that the worst may have been averted, investors sold utility stocks, unsettled by the prospect of the government's hands-on role in running the sector.

Bank shares also slid after Japan's top government spokesman said a distinction should be made between loans made before the March 11 earthquake and tsunami and those extended after the disaster and that banks should be asked to cooperate in easing Tokyo Electric's financial burden.

The market interpreted the comments from Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano as an indication banks may be asked to forgive loans or make other concessions. Shares of Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, the utility's main creditor bank, dropped 3.8 percent.

"The government is infringing on private firms' profits. It has violated the profits of utilities and now it's trying to lower the burden for the taxpayer by encroaching on banks' profits," said Kiyoshi Noda, chief fund manager at MU Investments.
PUBLIC BURDEN
Government officials made great efforts to fend off criticism of the scheme as an unjustified use of taxpayer funds. Some have argued the utility, which has a history of safety lapses and is known for its cozy ties with regulators, should have been allowed to fail.

"This framework is not meant as a bailout of Tepco. We made this framework so that compensation can take place swiftly for the victims ... and so that Tepco can supply electricity in a stable way," Trade Minister Banri Kaieda told reporters.
Ministers also sought to alleviate concerns that consumers would end up shouldering much of the burden either in the form of higher electricity tariffs or new taxes, saying the implications for both should be kept to a minimum.

The government will need to pass a new law in parliament to implement the plan and analysts said the opposition, however critical of the scheme, will find it hard to block it as it will effectively mean a delay in compensating disaster victims.
The special-purpose bonds can be turned into cash to handle the initial burst of payouts and Tepco said it aimed to make the first payments to farmers and fishermen affected by the disaster by the end of this month.

More than 70,000 people living in a largely rural area within a 20-km (12 mile) radius of the plant were forced to evacuate. About 136,000 people living within a zone extending another 10 km were advised to stay indoors.
Some analysts have estimated that compensation claims could be anywhere between $20 billion and $130 billion, depending on how long the crisis continues.
S&P said the likelihood that Tepco would receive extraordinary support from the government was very high, but among other factors an increase in radiation leaks from the nuclear plant could raise the risk of further ratings cuts.

DELAY

While the government tried to navigate the political minefield surrounding the compensation plan, workers at the Fukushima Daiichi plant 240 km north of Tokyo faced another setback after a water leak was discovered in one of the reactors this week.
Tepco said on Friday that the discovery of leaking water from the stricken plant's No.1 reactor could complicate its plan to set up a more permanent cooling system for the facility. Some outside experts have been skeptical for weeks about Japan's plan to stabilize the Fukushima Daiichi reactors by January.
Kaieda said a delay in that timetable was now likely.

"I think this is a major factor that will require a change in Tokyo Electric's road map for bringing the situation under control," Kaieda said.
Earlier in the week, Tepco said it had sealed a leak of radioactive water outside the plant's No.3 reactor. The No.2 reactor developed similar leaks which were sealed in April with liquid glass and other substances.
The 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami that followed killed more than 15,000 people, the National Policy Agency said. More than 9,500 people are still missing.

Since the disaster disabled the Fukushima Daiichi plant's cooling systems, Tepco has poured water on the reactors to forestall disastrous meltdowns. The utility has scrambled to find means of storing the contaminated water, some of which has seeped into the ocean.
The world's worst nuclear crisis in a quarter of a century prompted Tokyo to rethink its energy policy that heavily relied on nuclear power as the main alternative to fossil fuels.

Last week, Prime Minister Naoto Kan asked another power utility to close a nuclear plant in an earthquake-prone area. He drew both applause for bold action and fire for what critics said was a rash and poorly planned policy move.
The move also rekindled fears that household and businesses will be hit by rolling blackouts during the summer when electricity use is the highest.
Tepco on Friday said it planned to restart conventional thermal plants shut since the March 11 quake and that by the end of July it should be able to supply enough power to meet peak demand.

Kaieda also said the government would do its best to avoid power blackouts.
(Additional reporting by Yoshifumi Takemoto, Leika Kihara, Yoko Kubota, Chikako Mogi, Kevin Krolicki, and Antoni Slokowski; Writing by Nathan Layne and Tomasz Janowski; Editing by Edmund Klamann and Neil Fullick)
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Japan promotes a wider evacuation of reactor area

TOKYO - developed new characters on Friday that parts crippled nuclear power station Fukushima Daiichi were so damaged and contaminated that it would be even more difficult to bring the plant under control soon.

At the same time, Japanese began officials who encourage people to evacuate a larger band of territory around the complex.

In an interview with a national audience at a press conference on Friday night, two weeks after the earthquake of magnitude 9.0 and the devastating tsunami, which it followed Prime Minister Naoto Kan dodged a reporter of the question whether the Government was ordering a complete evacuation, said officials were simply follows the recommendation of the Commission for Japan nuclear safety.

"The situation requires more caution," Mr Kan, heavy and tired looking, said the nation. "Our measures are designed to prevent, that the circumstances worse." The authorities said she would now help people leave wanted the range of 12 to 19 miles outside the plant, and that they now "voluntary evacuation" promotion, from the area.

These people indoors, had stay March 15 get, while to evacuate the facility had ordered within a 12-mile radius. The United States has to remain at least 50 miles recommended its citizens.

Mr Kan said "The State of the system is still very precarious,". "We work hard to ensure that it not be worse." "We must ensure that it no further deterioration."

In a new sign of the contamination problem that said nuclear and industrial Agency on Saturday a sample of sea water taken Friday from a monitoring station in the work the level showed the iodine-131 to 50 becquerel per cubic centimeter - 1,250 times of the permitted.

Drink a half litre of water would be tantamount to getting a 1 milliSievert dose, the Agency said, as the amount that a person obtains a year from natural sources.

Hidehiko Nishiyama, Deputy Director of the Agency, said that he expected the iodine quickly, dilute to minimize the impact on wildlife, General and noted that fishing activities in the area was suspended after the Quake and tsunami.

A sign of the possible deterioration of the plant itself came to the reactor workers, the attempted, an electric cable with a pump in a turbine connect no. 3. building next to the reactor were injured when she entered into water, which was found significantly more radioactive than normal be. On Friday, officials and experts offered conflicting explanations of what wrong gegangen-but stressed all greater damage to the reactor systems and more pollution had earlier indicated it as officials.

Two workers were when poured water over their boots and said to their feet and ankles, officials burned and exposed to radiation. A third worker was not the same exposure higher boots and suffering.

As the affected workers, many of those are subcontractors of Tokyo electric power, who are paid a small daily wage for hours of work in dangerous conditions risk of their lives. They are sometimes ill-equipped and trained for their job.

On the Saturday concentrated to the workers to try, the lighting reactor No. 2 central control room, an important step towards the restoration of unity cooling system restore. You were once again pump prepare units, the No. 1, no. 2 and no. 3 after days with salt water to fresh water.

Said the National Institute of radiological sciences, that the radioactivity of the water, the the three injured workers in joined had 10,000 times the level normally in the coolant water was seen in the work. It said that the amount of radiation that the workers were intended, to the water exposed to have two to six Sieverts was.

Eight times, the new 250 milliSievert is even two Sieverts annual exposure limit value for workers in total be set in the days following the disaster; the previous limit was 100. Tokyo Electric officials said that water had been found with an equally high radiation in the reactor No. 1 building, reported the associated press.

Skin demands from two to six of Sieverts j. Brenner, Director of the Center for radiological research at Columbia University caused severe burns, according to Dr. David. But if these cans reach the whole body and not only the skin "You are a very high risk of dying," he said.

Hiroko Tabuchi and David Jolly reported from Tokyo and Keith Bradsher from Hong Kong. Takeshi Takizawa from New York reporting helped Tokyo and Denise Grady.

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Reactor core can be violated

Japan nuclear core may LeakingNEW: A Tokyo Electric official apologizes for poor communication on tainted WaterNEW: a Japanese official says the company parts needs water, not sea water, information of the public TrustFresh to keep is pumped in paragraphs 1, 2 and 3 ReactorsHigh levels of emissions in the water in these 3 reactors turbine buildings are recognized

Tokyo (CNN) --eine power company apologized Saturday and the exposure of three men working in the power station of Fukushima Daiichi highly radioactive water could be avoided with better communication, said.

March 24 incident, in addition to three men dangerously high radiation, forced questions about the source of the contamination in water, to spoil their potential sea water in the vicinity, and the view on, it could be evidence of a leak in one or more of the installation of six reactor cores.

It invited other criticism of Tokyo electric power company, which runs the plant, and how well their backup almost the work on 500 people, more emissions may cancer radioactive materials to prevent, that more than two weeks after a 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami rocked the facility.

On Saturday not the company's Associate Director Hideyuki Koyama recognised that this Thursday for the first time, that high radiation found in pooled water at the plant.

Specifically, he said that tests found in the basement of the No. 1 reactor water turbine building on 18 March showed high radiation. But, that Tatsache-and the general feeling, that water in the turbine and other buildings in the work may be dangerous radioaktiven-- do not seem to six days later resonate.

On this day, radiation, joined three workers laying cables tainted water between 173 and 181 millisieverts, including two with direct exposure to their skin, while laying cable suspend.

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters that such incidents threatened electric undermine the confidence of the public in Tokyo. He added the Japanese Government "want," the company to give stronger statements that it as possible completely should disclose as much information on conditions in the work.

"Each piece of information accurately and quickly Japan's nuclear and industrial Agency must be provided", said Edano. "Without this communication, it is very difficult for the Government produce (adequate safety measures)."

As important, the Chief Secretary said, was the need for Tokyo Electric front with Japanese civil-millions of which will make of the company, and millions more have been effected by radioactive emissions from the crisis.

"We want to ensure that (Tokyo Electric) is not in any way Act, the mistrust, want to create" Edano said.

Koyama reporters earlier Saturday that radiation alarms went during the three men worked, but their mission for continued between 40 and 50 minutes after assuming that it was a false alarm.

Later they were admitted to the hospital after it was found that between 173 and 181 millisieverts Strahlung--two of them with direct exposure to their skin were exposed to. Comparison is exposed to, course 3 millisieverts per year a person in an industrialized country, even though Japanese Ministry of health has said that those who may be exposed directly to the nuclear crisis as 250 millisieverts before they must leave the website.

Hours before the apology on Saturday, an official Tokyo Electric also told reporters that the water from the turbine buildings for the No. 1 and 2 reactors samples had high radiation. However, were these readings of half recognized earlier in the basement of building No. 3.

The question of possible leakage of such material gained urgency Saturday after Japan's nuclear and industrial agency reported that the amount of radiation iodine 330 metres has been included in sea water from the plant 1,250 times higher than normal. A Tokyo Electric official speculated water outflow or leakage from the turbine building may have caused the sudden increase in, when he said that other factors as may also have contributed.

On Friday said Hidehiko Nishiyama Japan's nuclear and industrial Agency, proposes "a kind of leakage" contaminated water of the No. 3 of the Reaktorkern--signalling a possible violation of the vessel containment, the houses the core.

These developments come information from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the airborne radiation to the plant, which is 240 kilometers (150 miles) North of Tokyo, "continue to decrease."

Tokyo Electric reports on its website at 7 am Saturday, radiation at the main gate of the plant 0.219 millisieverts per hour –-a fraction of the 400 millisieverts per hour measured between units 3 and 4 March were.

Last week, the measurements are a major at the same gate drop measurements after.

The presence of highly radioactive water in buildings at reactors lines: 1, 2 and 3 has stopped some efforts to curb the release of more emissions. Yet, others continue and there is the last evidence of progress.

"We can easily say that we take measures so that the situation has not deteriorated,", said Edano. "We have some steps to front could." "Still, vigilance is required."

Fresh water was, that pumped Saturday at the No. 1, 2 and 3 reactors. This replaced the sea water, previously with the goal of fresh water at the same time to cool down nuclear fuel have been used and rinse you also the accumulation of salt, that the reactors could hamper existing cooling systems.

The reactor No. 3 was cause for concern, experts said, because the only use it a combination of uranium and plutonium fuel, named MOX, more dangerous than pure uranium fuel in other reactors as.

The Japan Atomic Industrial Forum, an industry trade group, which tracks official accounts the effort at the Fukushima Daiichi plan, said that the pressure containment vessel has been updated by the No. 3 reactor to "stable".

While the Group had declared Friday that damage to the reactor on the Saturday of the evaluation in "unknown"-amended a further confirmation of uncertainty has been suggested the contaminated water was the result of a leak in the reactor core or had some other cause.

Workers had already the Appendix No. 1 reactor in which the announcement of the similar contaminated water into his own turbine monitored buildings. The person concerned had, that an increase in the pressure's off, that reactor could be a problematic sign. Previously buildups of hydrogen gas pressure had been driven, the explosions reactors, including the No. 1 unit in three of the nuclear power plant.

Nishiyama conceded that "the control of the temperature and pressure been difficult," said which was on Friday for this reactor, stable.

Also on the reactor No. 4, 5 and 6-each, which have less concerns, pronounced as the units on scheduled outages were haunted as the earthquake.

None of these three units had nuclear fuel in their reactors, although efforts to control temperatures within the spent fuel pools.CNN's Jennifer Rizzo contributed to this report.

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Setback in Japan's reactor fight

Japan's nuclear crisis deepened as a fresh fire broke out in a quake-ravaged nuclear complex and expats fled Tokyo over warnings of radiation leaks. WSJ's Mariko Sanchanta and Yumiko Ono discuss.

REUTERS Snow falls Wednesday as rescue workers search a devastated factory area in Sendai, northern Japan.

TOKYO?Japan faced new setbacks in its struggle to tame a quake-ravaged nuclear complex as a fresh fire broke out there early Wednesday, workers were temporarily moved to safer locations, and new threats emerged in previously unaffected parts of the plant.

Radiation levels began rising sharply around 10 a.m. local time, according to a government spokesman, forcing outdoor workers at the power plant to move indoors, away from the most radioactive areas. But by 11:30 a.m. the workers were back on the job, the government's nuclear safety agency said.

It was the latest in a string of troubling turns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Japan's nuclear safety agency said two workers are missing at the stricken plant's No. 4 reactor, the same one where the new fire had broken out. Wednesday morning's blaze was the second fire in the No. 4 reactor in consecutive days. That fire appeared to get extinguished. Later in the morning, white steam began billowing from the No. 3 reactor, raising the prospect of reactor damage and the potential release of radiation.

Separately, officials at the plant are weighing whether to use a helicopter to dump water into pools where radioactive waste is stored and cooled, in hopes of preventing the waste from igniting and releasing radioactivity.

The latest developments suggest that the disaster at facility is far from tamed. The plant has been emitting radiation for days, at levels that generally wouldn't cause an immediate health threat beyond the plant property, following severe damage from last week's quake and tsunami.

With the troubled reactors dominating the news, developments that might have seemed dramatic in calmer times drew only brief notice. Japan has been rocked by a stream of aftershocks since the big one Friday.

Two of the largest came Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning, crossing the 6.0 magnitude level. The epicenter for one was just 72 miles from Tokyo, and buildings in the city swayed steadily for an extended period of time. In nearby Shizuoka prefecture, more than 20,000 homes immediately lost power, 20 people were taken to the hospital, and one city hall office had ceilings collapse. But nobody was reported killed and no major damage was reported at the prefecture's Hamaoka nuclear plant.

At 8 a.m. Japan Standard Time, the National Police Agency reported that the new death total since Friday's quake and tsunami had reached 3,676. There were 7,558 confirmed missing, putting the combined tally past 10,000.

Japan's unfolding nuclear crisis could hamper assistance to quake victims if relief organizations withdraw to protect their workers. "The Japanese Red Cross Society is committed to rescue any victims, including those of nuclear radiation," JRCS spokesman Mutsuhiko Owaki said. "But we cannot send rescue workers to places where there is a clear risk of radiation exposure," he said, indicating that the group will have to limit its operations to areas where such risks are low. The group currently has about 500 doctors, nurses and other staff in hard-hit zones, including about 20 in Fukushima prefecture itself.

Until now, the focus of the crisis at the nuclear plant has been on its badly damaged nuclear reactors, which have been at risk of catastrophic overheating. Before the fires in the No. 4 reactor, officials had appeared to be gaining ground in their battle to cool down the reactors by pumping seawater into them.

But on Tuesday, officials were forced to turn their attention to the facility's waste-storage pools. These pools are used to warehouse spent fuel rods, which are no longer being used but remain highly radioactive and must also be cooled.

Officials say the water level that covers the rods plummeted in at least one of the storage pools, forcing them to inject new water. Temperatures were also rising in at least two other pools, requiring monitoring, according to the Japanese Government Emergency Headquarters. It is critical that the spent fuel rods remain covered in water, otherwise they can emit lethal doses of radioactivity.

At the fuel pool near reactor No. 4, where the water level at one point went to zero, the helicopter remains an option, officials say.

The concerns over the spent fuel pools are centered on reactors Nos. 4, 5, and 6?all of which were offline Friday when the mammoth quake hit Japan. But the situation at one of those offline reactors, No. 4, became dire on Tuesday when the spent fuel heated up and generated hydrogen that led to a fire, according to government officials.

That fire was extinguished in a few hours. But meantime, radiation levels at the plant's gate shot up to over 11,000 microsievert per hour. That level dropped back to below 600 (roughly equivalent to a medical X-ray) by midafternoon.

The currently reported Japanese radiation measurements are "well below" the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's dose limits of 10,000 microsieverts per nuclear event, according to an NRC statement. The annual occupational limit for workers who deal with radiation on the job is 50,000 microsieverts, according to an NRC spokesman.

Doctors have tested radiation levels in about 150 people from the close vicinity of the Fukushima Daiichi site. Authorities have taken measures to decontaminate 23 people, the IAEA says.

Officials were forced to evacuate all nonessential employees at the plant. The population was evacuated in a radius of 12 miles from the plant; residents in an 18 mile radius are asked to remain indoors; and an 18 mile no-fly zone has been established around the plant. The Japanese coast guard has banned shipping within six miles of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and within two miles of the Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant.

"This is an accident that has not finished," IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano said.

Associated Press Members of Japan's Self-Defense Forces prepared for radioactive decontamination operations near a stricken nuclear facility Tuesday.

Until Tuesday, when fire broke out at the Fukushima Daiichi Plant's No. 4 reactor, officials had focused most of their efforts on trying to cool other reactors that had been operating when the quake struck. Electricity was cut to all three of those reactors?Nos. 1, 2, and 3?and officials pumped seawater into them to prevent radioactive material from melting.

Those efforts triggered chemical reactions that caused explosions in each of the reactor buildings. The International Atomic Energy Agency says Japan authorities believe the all-important "containment vessels" that encase the radioactive material in reactors 1 and 3 are intact. The state of the reactor 2 containment vessel is unclear.

The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi plant, Tokyo Electric Power Co., in 2009 told the government it had designed the facility against a radiation spill. According to that presentation, written in Japanese and posted on a government Web site, Tepco said safety measures would suspend operations at the reactors, cool them and shut them down with no danger of radiation escaping. "With even a large earthquake, the plant has been designed so that there will be no radiation impact in its vicinity," Tepco said in the presentation to the country's Nuclear Safety Commission.

By Wednesday, radiation at the nuclear plant had dropped significantly but concern about the spent fuel pools remained. Officials say temperatures in the pools at reactors 5 and 6 were rising Tuesday but that by early Wednesday, pumps were working and heating problems appeared to be resolved.

Six of seven pools are adjacent to the main reactors, in secondary containment structures that are not as robust as the containment structures that surround the reactors. They look somewhat like large swimming pools, but they are laced with boron, which gives them an irridescent blue hue. They are approximately 45 feet deep, so that the 15-foot fuel rods, which are vertically arranged in racks, have up to 30 feet of water on top of them to keep them cool.

If water boils or drains away, exposing the fuel rods, the metal cladding around the rods could begin to fail, in the process creating explosive hydrogen gas.

?Mitsuru Obe, Rebecca Smith, David Crawford and Ben Lefebvre contributed to this article.

Write to Yuka Hayashi at yuka.hayashi@wsj.com and Phred Dvorak at phred.dvorak@wsj.com

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Japan says that reactor can have broken 2, with radioactive release

Tokyo electric power, via Kyodo News, via connected PressAt that Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, reactors No. 3, links, and no. 4, Center, were damaged.

TOKYO - Japan's nuclear crisis intensified again Wednesday, with Japanese authorities announced that a containment vessel in a second reaction unit in the northeastern Japan knit Fukushima Daiichi plant ruptured and released radioactive steam release. This would be the second ship in two days might be affected.

Japanese television showed, which apparently gets to steam out reactor No. 3 at the Fukushima Daiichi site about 10 am on Wednesday.

The ship had seemed completely get the last line of defense against large-scale releases of radioactive material from the reactor to be, but it was not clear how serious the possible injury might be.

The announcement came after Japanese broadcasters live shots of thick plume steam over the plant showed.

Yukio Edano, Chief Cabinet Secretary, said that the Government believed that the steam from the reactor No. 3 was in the part of surrounding containment vessel building blew an explosion on Monday.

The reactor has protection in three layers: the building; the ship containment and the metal casing to fuel rods, which are in the reactor. The Government has said that these rods in the reactor No. 3 is probably already damaged.

A spike in the levels of emissions in the works for the steam rises some of the relatively few workers in the factory leave was forced indoors, withdraw some to keep cool critical efforts to pump water in several reactors continue.

Early in the morning reported that a fire was burning only hours after officials said company that runs the plant, on a different reactor, flames that broke out Tuesday had been poured over.

A government official in Japan's nuclear regulatory agency soon after said that not more visible, but he warned flame and smoke, that it was unclear whether the fire in the reactor No. 4 building, died from was. He was also not clear if it was a new fire or still the fire Tuesday never way out.

There are a total of six reactors at the plant.

The developments are memories of the difficulties that the company is disturbing the plant, which has suffered several explosions since Saturday, to bring under control. And the confusion happened a symbol for days of often contradictory reports about the plant.

The company, Tokyo electric power, says that it can certainly know what is happening in many cases, because it too dangerous for workers too close to some reactors to get.

The situation was especially dire on Tuesday, as releases of radiation led the company to draw most of their employees from the plant.

Main concerns of the authorities are pools for spent nuclear fuel rods to several reactors in this work, including reactor No. 4, where the pool has lost some water to the fuel rods to keep stable. The stakes are still radioactive, and potentially as hot and dangerous as the fuel in the reactors.

Minoru Ogoda, the official of Japan's nuclear regulatory agency, a proposed plan use helicopters said unlikely sought patents to more cold water.

The hole or holes in the roof by a previous blast not large enough to sufficient amounts of water in allow appropriate, he said.

He said, electric would probably try Tokyo, spraying you water in the reactor building through a gaping hole in the wall blasted open by the explosion.

This explosion on Tuesday was caused by hydrogen gas bubbles up from chemical reactions set off by the fuel rods in the pool, Japanese officials said. Inspectors of the United States nuclear regulatory Commission said that she had said of the Japanese authorities that what burned oil machines close to lubricate the pool was.

Concern about the memory pools on two other types of reactors, no. 5, and 6 remained high. None of these three reactors at the plant, 140 miles worked on Friday afternoon, northeast of Tokyo, when an offshore earthquake with a magnitude 9.0 now estimated that shook website. A tsunami minutes rolled into the North-East coast of the Japanese later, that the plant flooded replication data.

At least 750 employees were evacuated rupturiert the inner control building at the reactor number two in the Daiichi plant, which crippled by the Friday earthquake and tsunami on Tuesday morning after a separate explosion. A wave of radiation published the closely spaced but seemingly random explosions in reactors No. 2 and 4 together 800 times more intense than the featured hourly exposure limit in Japan.

Hiroko Tabuchi reported from Tokyo and Keith Bradsher from Hong Kong. David E. Sanger and Matthew L. Wald contributed reporting from Washington.

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Experts had criticised long potential weakness in the design of the reactor

Now, with a mark i containment vessel damaged in the competitive Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant and other ships it under heavy pressure, which developed in the 1960s General Electric - weaknesses of design - could that development will contribute to disaster.

If the possibility of a reactor cooling is compromised, the ship is containing the last line of Defense. Usually made of steel and concrete, it is intended to prevent - fuel slur for a while - from spewing radiation into the environment, if cooling efforts complete failure.

In some reactors, known as pressurized water reactors the system in a thick steel and cement tomb is sealed. The most nuclear reactors around the world are this type.

But the nature of the containment vessel and pressure fire suppression system in the faulty reactors in the Japanese Fukushima Daiichi plant used physically is less robust, and it long was adopted, has that more prone to error in an emergency than competing designs. In the United States, 23 reactors of 16 sites using the mark i design, including the Oyster Creek plans the Dresden plant near the city of Chicago and the plant of Monticello in Minneapolis in Central New Jersey.

G.e. the mark began, i boiling water reactors in the 1960s, marketing as cheaper and easier to make - part, because they used a relatively smaller and less expensive containment structure.

American regulators began very early weaknesses identify.

1972 Stephen H. recommended Hanau, then a security with the Atomic Energy Commission, official, set the mark i system because it unacceptable security risks. The smaller containment design which more vulnerable was for explosion and rupture of a building in hydrogen - a situation that may have had in the Prefecture Fukushima Daiichi plant was among the concerns cited. In the same year, said Joseph Hendrie, later Chairman of the nuclear regulatory Commission, a successor to the nuclear Commission, was the idea of a ban on such systems was attractive. But the technology adopted so far by the industry and regulatory officials, he said that "reverse this sacred policy, particularly at this time could be the end of nuclear power."

In an E-mail on Tuesday, said David hole tree, Director of the nuclear safety program at the Union of concerned scientists, these words now, ironically seemed the potential global waves from the Japanese accident given.

"she not to ban the end of nuclear power, could be", said Mr hole tree, a nuclear engineer, spent 17 years in nuclear facilities, including three that design uses the g.e.

Ask about the design of its mid-1980s, when Harold Denton, an official with the nuclear regulatory Commission, claims that mark had a 90 percent chance burst 1 reactors should the fuel rods overheat and melt in an accident.

Industry officials denied that assessment, saying that the chance of failure was only about 10 percent.

Michael Tetuan, a spokesman for g.e.'s water and makes sharing, staunchly defended the technology of this week, called it "the industry's workhorse with a proven track record of safety and reliability for more than 40 years."

Mr Tetuan said there are currently 32 mark i boiling water reactors operate safely around the globe. "Never was a violation of a mark i containment system," he said.

Some utilities and system operator threatened to sue g.e. in the late 1980s after providing these corporate documents from the 1975, which proposed that the containment designs either not enough were ship tested or had defects that could compromise security.

The mark have undergone 1 reactors in the United States a large number of changes since the initial concerns have been raised. Among these, according to Mr hole tree, changes to the torus - a water-filled ship were encircling the primary containment vessel, to reduce the pressure of the reactor. In early iterations may steam blast from the primary vessel in the torus under high pressure the ship out of the ground to jump.

At the end of the 1980s all mark were 1 reactors in the United States also with venting systems to help reduce the pressure in an overheating situation retrofitted.

It is not clear exactly what changes were now fail reactors in the Japanese boiling water, but James Klapproth, senior engineer at nuclear for General Electric, Hitachi, said a ventilation system on the Fukushima was plants to relieve pressure.

The special role of the design g.e. in the Prefecture, Fukushima crisis is expected to be a debate, and it is possible that all reactor design could succumb the one-two punch of earthquakes and tsunami such as those that occurred last week in Japan.

Although the g.e. would - appear limited liability in Japan above all, because the regulatory system in this country the most liability attaches to operators - the company's shares fell 31 cents to $19,61 in trading Tuesday.

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