Monday, August 9, 2004
At least five dead at Japan nuclear plant
Elaine Lies (Reuters) Tokyo, August 9
A steam leak at a Japanese nuclear power plant killed five workers on Monday, police said, but officials said no radiation had escaped in the accident, the worst ever in terms of deaths at a Japanese nuclear facility. Several others were injured, some seriously, officials said.
The incident, which took place on the anniversary of the 1945 atomic bombing of the city of Nagasaki, is certain to increase distrust of the nuclear industry among ordinary people in Japan, which depends on nuclear power for a third of its energy needs.
"Radioactive materials weren't contained in the steam that leaked out ... We've received a report that there is no impact from radiation on the surrounding environment," an official for the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency told a news conference.
The accident occurred in a building housing turbines for the Number 3 reactor at the Mihama nuclear plant in Fukui prefecture, 320 km (200 miles) west of Tokyo.
Kansai Electric Power Co. Inc., which runs the plant, said it had shut the 826,000 kilowatt nuclear power generation unit at the facility after the accident.
The company said it was unsure when it would restart. "We are now investigating the cause," a Kansai Electric official told a news conference.
The accident occurred at around 3:30 p.m. (0630 GMT) just after some workers had entered the facility to take measurements, national broadcaster NHK reported.
The temperature of the steam that filled the room was probably about 200 degrees Celsius (390 Fahrenheit), media reports said.
The Fukui prefectural government said the cause of the accident was under investigation, but a trade ministry spokesman briefing reporters said there was no technical problem with the core nuclear reactor at the plant.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said he had not heard the particulars of the accident. "But I think we must do our best to investigate the cause, to prevent a repeat, and to implement safety measures," he told reporters. Worst since Tokaimura
Japan's worst previous accident at a nuclear facility took place at a uranium processing plant in Tokaimura, a town north of Tokyo, on September 30, 1999, when an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction was triggered after three poorly trained workers were using buckets to mix nuclear fuel in a tub.
The resulting release of radiation killed two workers and forced the evacuation of thousands of nearby residents.
In a separate incident involving a nuclear facility, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), Japan's biggest power producer, said on Monday that it had shut a nuclear power generation unit at its Fukushima-Daini plant due to a water leak.
TEPCO was forced to close all its 17 nuclear power plants temporarily by April 2003 after admitting that it had falsified safety documents for more than a decade, revelations that severely undermined public confidence in the nuclear industry.
A number of towns in Japan have held referendums in the past few years and voted against construction of more nuclear plants. The Mihama plant was the first nuclear plant built by Kansai Electric. The No. 1 reactor began service in November 1970.
A Tokyo-based oil trader said "Kansai is not a big customer of oil. "I think the impact (to the oil market) is small."
(Additional reporting by David Dolan, Ritsuko Ando, Ikuko Kao and Yoko Nishikawa)
© HT Media Ltd. 2004.