AREA IN DETAIL AREA IN DETAIL Enlarge AP Photo/Kyodo News A road is fractured after the Monday earthquake. The quake, which left fissures 3 feet wide in the ground along the coast, was centered off Niigata state but caused buildings in Toyko to sway 160 miles away. DAMAGE CONTROL DAMAGE CONTROL Built-in safeguards may have prevented any disaster after the Japanese quake struck a nuclear power plant. The power plant that produced the radioactive-water leak, Kashiwazaki Kariwa No. 6, is a boiling-water reactor. In such a facility, steam heated by the reactor turns turbines that produce electricity. These reactors are designed to shut down during earthquakes to prevent damage from aftershocks, says nuclear engineer Don Williams. "Plants are designed to take damage from very large earthquakes," says Williams, of the Oak Ridge (Tenn.) National Laboratory. Wire reports said 315 gallons of "slightly radioactive" water were released after the quake. "As long as it was 'slightly' radioactive, then it is probably not a hazard," Williams told USA TODAY. Environmental agency officials will need to investigate such a large leak carefully, he adds. "That sounds like a lot and from a PR standpoint, it is. But we are probably still talking about a minor incident." Beginning operations in 1996, the No. 6 reactor produces 1315 megawatts of electricity annually and was designed by Toshiba and General Electric. So far, Japanese officials have not asked for any assistance with the reactor leak, says Ivonne Gouret of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. By Dan Vergano, USA TODAY GE-HITACHI STATEMENT GE-HITACHI STATEMENT Serena Levy, PR Manager for GE Energy, released this information to USA TODAY: "Two of the seven reactors at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear site were supplied by GE in consortium with Hitachi and Toshiba. "Four of the seven reactors at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa were online at the time the earthquake hit and shut down automatically, as they are designed to do. The other three reactors were not on-line at the time of the earthquake. "In the Unit 3 switchyard, a transformer caught fire following the earthquake. That transformer is in a non-nuclear section of the plant. We understand that the transformer fire did not threaten the safety of the plant. Digg



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Facebook The U.S. nuclear agency says a fire and spill of radioactive water at a Japanese nuclear power plant triggered Monday by a deadly earthquake posed minor problems and did not amount to a significant atomic incident. The U.S. government offered technical and other assistance, but Japan has not requested U.S. help, said Eliot Brenner, director of public affairs for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Washington. GALLERY: Quake injures hundreds VIDEO: Japan rattled "The safety systems in Japan worked exactly as designed," he said. "The operating reactors shut down." The 6.8-magnitude earthquake struck at Kashiwazaki along Japan's northwest coast, 160 miles from Tokyo. At least nine people were killed and more than 900 injured. The temblor demolished wooden homes and buckled highways and bridges. The earthquake started a fire in an electrical transformer at one of seven reactors at the Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear plant — the world's largest in terms of electrical output — and caused a loss of water from another, according to Tokyo Electric Power Co. About 315 gallons of slightly radioactive water spilled from a tank at one of the plant's seven reactors and entered a pipe that flushed it into the sea, said Jun Oshima, an executive at the power company. There was no "significant change" in the seawater near the plant, he said. "The radioactivity is one-billionth of the legal limit.". Brenner said that, like U.S. nuclear reactors, those in Japan are designed to shut down automatically when there is an earthquake. He said the episode did not appear to raise concerns about the safety of reactors in earthquake zones. "All nuclear power plants in this country (United States) are built to survive earthquakes," he said. Brenner said the incident was in no way comparable to the release of radiation at Chernobyl in Ukraine, the world's worst nuclear power accident. "The amount of water spilled that we've seen references to is exceptionally small," Brenner said. A second quake hit off Japan's coast late Monday. There were no immediate reports of fresh damage. Some 10,000 people fled to evacuation centers as aftershocks rattled the area. Tens of thousands of homes were left without water or power. The leak was not announced until the evening, many hours after the quake. That fed fresh concerns about the safety of Japan's 55 nuclear reactors, which supply 30% of the quake-prone country's electricity and have suffered a long string of accidents and cover-ups. In Kashiwazaki city, the quake reduced older buildings to piles of lumber. Nine people in their 70s and 80s — six women and three men — died, most of them crushed by collapsing buildings, the Kyodo news agency said early Tuesday. Kyodo reported more than 900 people were hurt, with injuries including broken bones, cuts and bruises. It said 780 buildings sustained damage, and more than 300 of them were destroyed. "I got so dizzy that I could barely stand up," said Kazuaki Kitagami, a worker at a 7-Eleven convenience store in Kashiwazaki, the hardest-hit city. "The jolt came violently from just below the ground." The area was plagued by aftershocks, but there were no immediate reports of additional damage or casualties. Near midnight, Japan's Meteorological Agency said a 6.6-magnitude quake hit off the west coast, shaking wide areas of Japan, but it was unrelated to the Niigata quake to the north and there were no immediate reports of damage. The U.S. Geological Survey put the intital quake's magnitude at 6.6 and the second at 6.8. First word of trouble at the Kashiwazaki Kariwa power plant was a fire that broke out at an electrical transformer. All the reactors were either already shut down or automatically switched off by the quake. The blaze was reported quelled by early afternoon, and the power company announced there was no damage to the reactor and no release of radioactivity. But in the evening, the company released a statement revealing the leak of radioactive water, saying it had taken all day to confirm details of the accident. But the delay raised suspicions among environmentalists, who oppose the government's plan to build more reactors. "The leak itself doesn't sound significant as of yet, but the fact that it went unreported is a concern," said Michael Mariotte at the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, a Maryland-based networking center for environmental activists. "When a company begins by denying a problem, it makes you wonder if there's another shoe to drop." The accident comes as the government is discussing improving the earthquake resistance of such plants, said Aileen Mioko Smith of the Japan-based environmentalist group Green Action. The fire indicated that some facilities at nuclear power plants, such as electrical transformers, were built to lower quake-resistance levels than other equipment, like reactor cores, she said. "That's the Achilles' heel of nuclear power plants," said Mioko Smith, who pointed out that it took plant workers two hours to put out the transformer fire. Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Akira Amari told the power company early Tuesday not to resume plant operations before making a thorough safety check, Kyodo reported. The quake, which hit at 10:13 a.m., was centered off the coast of Niigata. The tremor made buildings sway in the capital 160 miles away and was also felt in northern and central Japan. Tsunami warnings were issued, but the resulting waves were too small to cause any damage. As rescue crews dug through the rubble for survivors or more dead, focus shifted to getting food and water to evacuation centers. Many roads were impassable, though bullet train service to nearby Niigata resumed late Monday. More than 60,000 homes in the quake zone were without water, 34,000 lost natural gas and 25,000 had no electricity as of late Monday afternoon, local official Takashi Takagi said. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, whose ruling party is trailing in the polls heading into July 29 parliamentary elections, interrupted a campaign stop in southern Japan to go to the damaged area. "Many people told me they want to return to their normal lives as quickly as possible," Abe told reporters in Kashiwazaki. "The government will make every effort to help with recovery." Japan sits atop four tectonic plates and is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries. In October 2004, a magnitude-6.8 earthquake hit Niigata, killing 40 people and damaging more than 6,000 homes. It was the deadliest to hit Japan since 1995, when a magnitude-7.2 quake killed 6,433 people in the western city of Kobe. The last major quake to hit Tokyo killed some 142,000 people in 1923, and experts say the capital has a 90% chance of suffering a major quake in the next 50 years. Contributing: William M. Welch, USA TODAY Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Share this story: Digg del.icio.us Newsvine Reddit Facebook Enlarge By Kazuhiro Nogi, AFP/Getty Images Women chat with each other in a shelter located in Kariba village after being evacuated after the earthquake. In October 2004, a magnitude-6.8 earthquake hit Niigata, killing 40 people. It was the deadliest to hit Japan since 1995, when a magnitude-7.2 quake killed 6,433 people in Kobe. A man walks past damaged houses in Kashiwazaki, Japan. Nearly 300 homes in Kashiwazaki were destroyed and some 2,000 people evacuated, officials said.



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