Japan weighs need to bury nuclear plant; tries to restore power

TOKYO, (Reuters) – Japanese engineers conceded today that burying a crippled nuclear plant in sand and  concrete may be a last resort to prevent a catastrophic  radiation release, the method used to seal huge leakages from  Chernobyl in 1986.
But they still hoped to solve the crisis by fixing a power  cable to two reactors by Saturday to restart water pumps needed  to cool overheating nuclear fuel rods. Workers also sprayed  water on the No.3 reactor, the most critical of the plant’s six.
It was the first time the facility operator had acknowledged  burying the sprawling complex was possible, a sign that  piecemeal actions such as dumping water from military  helicopters or scrambling to restart cooling pumps may not work.
“It is not impossible to encase the reactors in concrete.  But our priority right now is to try and cool them down first,”  an official from the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co,  told a news conference.
As Japan entered its second week after a 9.0-magnitude  earthquake and 10-metre (33-foot) tsunami flattened coastal  cities and killed thousands of people, the world’s worst nuclear  crisis since Chernobyl looked far from over.
The nuclear disaster has triggered global alarm and reviews  of safety at atomic power plants around the world.
“This is something that will take some time to work through,  possibly weeks, as you eventually remove the majority of the  heat from the reactors and then the spent-fuel pools,” Gregory  Jaczko, chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, told  a news conference at the White House.
Millions of people in Tokyo continued to work from home,  some fearing a blast of radioactive material from the complex,  240 km (150 miles) to the north, although the International  Atomic Energy Agency said radiation levels in the capital were  not harmful.
That is little solace for about 300 nuclear plant workers  toiling in the radioactive wreckage. They are wearing masks,  goggles and protective suits whose seams are sealed off with  duct tape to prevent radioactive particles from creeping in.
“My eyes well with tears at the thought of the work they are  doing,” Kazuya Aoki, a safety official at Japan’s Nuclear and  Industrial Safety Agency, told Reuters.
Even if engineers restore power at the plant, the pumps may  be too damaged from the earthquake, tsunami or subsequent  explosions to work. The first step is to restore electricity to  pumps for reactors No. 1 and 2 by Saturday.
By Sunday, the government expects cooling pumps for badly  damaged reactors No.3 and No.4 to have power, said Hidehiko  Nishiyama, Japan’s nuclear agency spokesman.
Asked about burying the reactors in sand and concrete, he  said: “That solution is in the back of our minds, but we are  focused on cooling the reactors down.”
Some experts said dumping water from helicopters to try to  cool spent-fuel pools would have little impact.
“One can put out forest fires like this — by pouring water  from far above,” said Gennady Pshakin, a Russian nuclear expert.   “It is not clear where this water is falling. There is no  control.”
Japan raised the incident level at the crippled plant to 5  on a scale called INES to rank nuclear accidents, up from 4 on a  1-7 scale.
That puts it on a par with the Three Mile Island accident in  the United States in 1979, although some experts say it is more  serious. Chernobyl was a 7 on the INES scale.