Fukushima plant failed to probe cause of faulty filters

Officials astatine Japan's wrecked Fukushima atomic powerfulness works person acknowledged they neglected to analyse the origin of faulty exhaust filters that are cardinal to preventing radioactive pollution, aft being forced to regenerate them twice.

Representatives of the operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, made the revelation Monday during a regular reappraisal of the Fukushima Daiichi works astatine a gathering with Japanese regulatory authorities. Three reactors astatine the works melted pursuing a massive earthquake and tsunami successful 2011.

The filters are designed to forestall particles from escaping into the aerial from a contaminated water attraction system—called Advanced Liquid Processing System—that removes selected radioactive isotopes successful the h2o to beneath ineligible limits.

"At the halfway of this occupation is TEPCO's attitude," a Nuclear Regulation Authority commissioner, Nobuhiko Ban, said astatine the meeting.

TEPCO has been repeatedly criticized for coverups and delayed disclosures of problems astatine the plant. In February, it said 2 seismometers astatine 1 reactor had remained breached since past twelvemonth and failed to cod information during a almighty earthquake.

Company officials said that 24 retired of 25 filters attached to the h2o attraction instrumentality had been recovered damaged past month, aft an alarm went disconnected arsenic workers were moving sludge from the portion to a container, temporarily suspending the h2o treatment. The cognition partially resumed past week aft the filters were replaced.

TEPCO said it had detected akin harm successful each of the filters 2 years ago, but ne'er investigated the origin of the occupation and did not instrumentality immoderate preventive steps aft replacing the filters.

Another regulatory commissioner, Satoru Tanaka, said astatine the gathering that the inferior institution should person responded to the occupation much rapidly to minimize the hazard of imaginable radiation leakage into the environment.

TEPCO officials said particulate monitors indicated nary radiation leaks to the extracurricular oregon vulnerability to works workers wrong the h2o attraction facility.

Akira Ono, caput of TEPCO's decommissioning unit, said helium regretted the utility's nonaccomplishment to code the occupation earlier. He promised to amended information management.

Japanese officials are moving with the International Atomic Energy Agency to hole to discharge into the water the wrecked plant's cooling water, treated truthful its radioactivity levels are beneath ineligible limits. Slated to commencement successful outpouring 2023, the arguable program is fiercely opposed by Fukushima's sportfishing community, arsenic good arsenic local residents and adjacent countries.

Fully decommissioning the atomic works is expected to instrumentality decades, experts say.

---

---

© 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This worldly whitethorn not beryllium published, broadcast, rewritten oregon redistributed without permission.