Defect concealed in Fukushima No. 4 reactor: engineer
Bloomberg
The No. 4 reactor at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant may have been relying on flawed steel to hold the radiation in its core, according to an engineer who helped build its containment vessel four decades ago.
Coping with the unthinkable: A resident explains his fears during a town hall meeting Tuesday in Kawamata, Fukushima Prefecture, on radiation exposure from the nearby Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. AP PHOTO
Mitsuhiko Tanaka says he helped conceal a manufacturing defect in the ¥20 billion steel vessel installed at the reactor while working for a unit of Hitachi in 1974. The reactor, which Tanaka has called a "time bomb," was shut for maintenance when the March 11 earthquake triggered a tsunami that disabled cooling systems at the plant, leading to explosions and radiation leaks.
"Who knows what would have happened if that reactor had been running?" Tanaka, who turned his back on the nuclear industry after the Chernobyl disaster, said in an interview last week. "I have no idea if it could withstand an earthquake like this. It's got a faulty reactor inside."
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