As the world watches with apprehension at how Fukushima’s decommissioning work unfolds, prominent Japanese-Canadian scientist David Suzuki warned last week that another nearby earthquake of magnitude 7 or higher could trigger a serious nuclear catastrophe, decimating Japan and reaching the US west coast. “If the fourth [reactor] goes under an earthquake and those rods are exposed, then it’s bye, bye, Japan and everybody on the west coast of North America should be evacuated. And if that isn’t terrifying, I don’t know what is,” Suzuki said. Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), Fukushima’s operator, is set to begin the unprecedented and ambitious operation of removing 400 tons of hazardous spent fuel from the devastated plant. The work has already run into some obstacles, as some of the assemblies turned out to have been damaged even before the March 2011 disaster, making them unsuitable for the planned transportation.
Posted on: Sat, 16 Nov 2013 22:08:26 +0000
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