Earthquake and Tsunami Hit Japan

femme fatale wrote:NBC, msnbc.com and news services
updated 6 minutes ago 2011-03-12
T09:35:41
breaking news

"Explosion rocks quake-hit Japanese nuke plant TV footage shows building's crumbled walls; 'We are now trying to analyze what is behind the explosion,' official says "

I do not like this head line. I do not like it one little bit.

Chief cabinet secretary Chief Yukio Edano confirmed this was the case, saying: "The concrete building collapsed. We found out that the reactor container inside didn't explode."

He attributed the explosion to a build-up of hydrogen, related in turn to the cooling problem.[/url]

The explosion was caused, he said, by a failure in a pumping system as workers tried to prevent the reactor's temperature from racing out of control.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, citing Japanese authorities, said the explosion occurred outside the plant's primary containment vessel and that the vessel remained intact. The explosion injured four workers, it said.

To limit damage to the reactor core, Tokyo Electric Power Company began injecting sea water mixed with boron into the primary containment vessel in an operation that got under way Saturday night, IAEA said.
Nuclear plants

The use of sea water and boron was described as a "Hail Mary pass" by Robert Alvarez, senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies focused on energy policies and a former senior policy adviser to the U.S. secretary of energy.

"My understanding is that the situation has become desperate enough that they apparently don't have the capability to deliver fresh water or plain water to cool the reactor and stabilize it and now, in an act of desperation, are having to resort to diverting and using sea water," he said.

Boron, a chemical element, was being added to the water "to sort of stymie other potential nuclear reactions," he said.