BBC News
Sunday, March 13, 2011
A former nuclear power plant designer has said Japan is facing an
extremely grave crisis and called on the government to release more
information, which he said was being suppressed. Masashi Goto told a
news conference in Tokyo that one of the reactors at the
Fukushima-Daiichi plant was “highly unstable”, and that if there was a
meltdown the “consequences would be tremendous”. He said such an event
might be very likely indeed. So far, the government has said a meltdown
would not lead to a sizable leak of radioactive materials.
Mr Goto said the reactors at the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant were
suffering pressure build-ups way beyond that for which they were
designed. There was a severe risk of an explosion, with radioactive
material being strewn over a very wide area – beyond the 20km evacuation
zone set up by the authorities – he added. Mr Goto calculated that
because Reactor No 3 at Fukushima-Daiichi – where pressure is rising and
there is a risk of an explosion – used a type of fuel known as Mox, a
mixture of p lutonium oxide and uranium oxide, the radioactive fallout
from any meltdown might be twice as bad.
He described the worst-case scenario: “It is difficult to say, but
that would be a core meltdown. If the rods fall and mix with water, the
result would be an explosion of solid material like a volcano spreading
radioactive material. Steam or a hydrogen explosion caused by the mix
would spread radioactive waste more than 50km. Also, this would be
multiplied. There are many reactors in the area so there would be many
Chernobyls.”
He accused the government of deliberately withholding vital
information that would allow outside experts help solve the problems.
“For example, there has not been enough information about the hydrogen
being vented. We don’t know how much was vented and how radioactive it
was.” He also described the use of sea water to cool the cores of the
reactors at Fukushima-Daiichi as highly unusual and dangerous.
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