Workers Were Evacuated due to Smoke in Japan’s Nuclear Power Plant

Workers of the nuclear plant in Japan were evacuated on Monday after a gray cloud of smoke emerged from an atomic fuel tank used in the Unit 3 plant, as a consequence of the stabilization of the radioactive leak.

The evacuation stopped part of the work of restoring power lines from the plant and the resumption of pumping systems necessary to prevent nuclear fuel to overheat and release even larger amounts of radiation.

“We are investigating the cause of the smoke,” said Hidehiko Nishiyama, an official of the nuclear security agency, and added that there was not an immediate worsening of the radioactive level in the plant.

In Tokyo, the security agency of Japan issued a report–nine days after the disaster–where the company said that Tokyo Electric Power Co. did not conduct inspections on 33 pieces of equipment, including emergency generators, pumps and other parts of the cooling system after the tsunami flooded the area, this caused overheating in the plant and the release of radioactive gas.

White smoke came out of reactor number 2 of the Fukushima nuclear plant (northeastern Japan) on Monday afternoon, after a similar incident at number 3, which forced the evacuation of the staff struggling to avoid a major catastrophe.

Source: AP-AFP