Report Gives New Details of Chaos at Stricken Plant (Fukushima Daiichi)

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/12/world/asia/report-details-initial-chaos-at-fukushima-daiichi-nuclear-plant-in-japan.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Report Gives New Details of Chaos at Stricken Plant

By MATTHEW L. WALD
Published: November 11, 2011

Fukushima Daiichi Unit 1 was stuck in darkness, and everyone on site feared that the reactor core was damaged. It was the day after a huge earthquake and a towering tsunami devastated the plant, and the workers for Tokyo Electric Power Company knew they were the only hope for halting an unfolding nuclear disaster.

Another power company tried to help. It rushed a mobile electrical generator to the site to power the crucial water pumps that cool the reactor. But connecting it required pulling a thick electrical cable across about 650 feet of ground strewn with debris from the tsunami and made more treacherous by open holes left when manhole covers were washed away.

The cable, four inches in diameter, weighed approximately one ton, and 40 workers were needed to maneuver it into position. Their urgent efforts were interrupted by aftershocks and alarms about possible new tsunamis.

By 3:30 in the afternoon, the workers had managed what many consider a heroic feat: they had hooked up the cable. Six minutes later, a hydrogen explosion ripped through the reactor building, showering the area with radioactive debris and damaging the cable, rendering it useless.

…

[FBaggins]

1. I can't believe that you've become part of the nuclear industry's network of lies!

Sorry. I was channeling.

This is actually a well done summary. Here's a direct link.

http://www.nei.org/filefolder/11_005_Special_Report_on_Fukushima_Daiichi_MASTER_11_08_11_1.pdf