A report on the condition of the inside of the containment of the first reactor at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant was provided by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) on April 14, reports the NHK television channel.
The station operator claimed in the report that the damage to the base of the reactor turned out to be worse than previously thought. They drew their conclusions from him based on the results of the polls that took place in March.
The station was badly damaged during the strongest earthquake of 2011 and the tsunami that followed. As a consequence of the flooding of the reactor buildings, the core was left without a cooling system. For this reason, the core of the reactors melted down, and to cool them down, the station staff flooded them with water.
As part of the March study, the operator, under the direction of experts, concentrated on the study of the reactor base. The video showed that the pedestal support, on which the remains of the reactor sit, suffered significant destruction.
Also read: New images of Fukushima-1 confirm the destruction of the reactor foundations
Now, TEPCO has filed an official report with the Japan Nuclear Regulatory Agency. The company said the reactor’s reinforced concrete base had collapsed to a height of 1 meter from the bottom, exposing the steel reinforcement.
From the above statement of the operator it follows that the failure occurred in the middle of the circumference of the base. Now TEPCO has reported that similar damage has been reported in the rest of the circle.
At the same time, the company’s specialists suggested that a complete collapse of the reactor is still impossible, since in the event of a fall from a support, the surrounding structures compensate for the process, and therefore the impact on the environment will be limited. .
In this sense, the secretariat of the nuclear regulator pointed out that this assumption is unfounded. The agency issued an order obliging to prevent the spread of radioactive substances into the environment in the event of a reactor collapse.
Local authorities and residents of Fukushima Prefecture are reported to have expressed concern over the situation. They were interested in the capacity of the reactor to withstand possible earthquakes.
Also read: The expert urged to repair the depleted foundations of the reactor at Fukushima-1
The problem of reactor support foundation depletion received publicity after the first inspection of the condition of the inner shell of the first reactor, which took place in May 2022. After that, experts asked TEPCO to take action and prevent the reactor collapse.
Source: Rossa Primavera
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