Nuclear plant buildings ‘still too dangerous’
Readings from a robot that entered two crippled buildings at Japan’s tsunami-flooded nuclear plant for the first time in more than a month displayed a harsh environment still too radioactive for workers to enter.
Nuclear officials said the radiation readings for units one and three at the tsunami-flooded Fukushima Dai-ichi plant do not alter plans for stabilising the complex by the end of the year.
The US-made robot haltingly entered the two buildings on Sunday and took readings for temperature, pressure and radioactivity. More data must be collected and radioactivity must be further reduced before workers are allowed inside, said Hidehiko Nishiyama of Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.
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Hide AdIt was still possible, he added, to achieve plant operator Tokyo Electric Power’s goal of achieving a cold shutdown within six to nine months, as laid out in a timetable announced by the company at the weekend.