2nd Explosion Rocks Japan's Fukushima Nuclear Plant in Quake's Wake

An explosion shakes reactor 3 of the Fukushima No. 1 plant but initial reports say the reactor has not been breached. Japan's nuclear safety agency says it is caused by hydrogen. Aerials of the explosion and damage to the reactor by NHK television. EPA/BG

A second explosion has occurred at the Fukushima 1 nuclear power plant in Japan as a result of the damage the facilities suffered in the recent devastating 9.0-magnitude earthquake.

Japanese officials cited by international media say a hydrogen explosion occurred on Monday at reactor 3 the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, similar to the explosion that took place in reactor 1 of the plant on Saturday.

Government spokesman Yukio Edano is quoted as saying that based on initial reports, the explosion did not damage the container vessel of the reactor. Radiation level near the plant will go up, as happened with Saturday's explosion.

Ever since the largest earthquake in Japan hit the country on Friday, TEPCO, the Tokyo Electric Power Co., has been struggling with failures at its two Fukushima nuclear complexes.

TEPCO is using fire pumps to inject tens of seawater into two reactors to contain partial meltdowns of ultra-hot fuel rods.

Pumping seawater into the plants produced high pressures and vapors that the company vented into its containment structures and then into the air, raising concerns about radioactivity levels in the surrounding area where people have already been evacuated.

The utility said that at one of the huge, complicated reactors, a safety relief valve was opened manually to lower the pressure levels in a containment vessel.

The limited vapor emissions were seen as far less dire than the consequences of failure in the fight against a more far-reaching partial or complete meltdown that would occur if the rods blazed their way through the reactor's layers of steel and concrete walls.

Three nuclear facilities in Japan – Fukushima, Onagawa, and Tokai – have faced serious technical problems as a result of earthquake damages. The situation in Fukushima is the most problematic. The authorities have evacuated a total of 210 000 living within a 20 km radius of the Fukushima NPP.

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