CNN News Japan - Tokyo (CNN) - Helicopters dumped water on Thursday and close to the numbers 3 and 4 units in Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in the latest attempt to stop the nuclear accident that seemed out of control. The helicopters belong to the forces of the nation's self-defense, public broadcaster NHK reported.
Initially, only a few drops were carried out before the operation was suspended. NHK commentator said about 100 would be needed for the operation to succeed.
During the afternoon, engineers were scheduled to begin the process of restoring power to affected nuclear complex, a government official said. The complex lost power on Friday, when a 9.0 earthquake followed by tsunami beaten northeastern Japan.
"Today, we are trying to restore power supply using the power lines from the outside," said an official of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency. "This is one of the priority issues we must address."
Once the power supply has been restored, the cooling system must be operated with seawater, he said. But he warned that the process will not be immediate.
"It will take time to restore the function of the main part of the premises, because the pumps were contaminated by seawater and must be repaired before returning," he said, adding that the temporary pumps used initially.
CNN News Japan - The decision came just hours after the chief U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission stated that the spent fuel rods in Unit 4 of the plant affected by Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear had been exposed, resulting in the issuance of "extremely high" levels of radiation.
"What we believe at this point is that there has been an explosion of hydrogen in this unit due to the discovery of fuel in the fuel pool," said Gregory Jaczko House of Representatives energy and commerce subcommittee hearing on Wednesday. "We believe that the secondary containment has been destroyed and no water in the spent fuel pool, and we believe that radiation levels are very high, which could affect the ability to take corrective action."
A Japanese government spokesman Noriyuki Shikata said Jaczko witness saw, but could not confirm. "I can not comment on the basis of own testimony," he told CNN.
Asked about the report of a high level of radioactivity near the plants, he said, "We have not seen the level that is, for example, dangerous to the human body beyond the close vicinity of the reactors."
In addition, he said, "we have not seen a major violation of containment. "
The water serves both to cool the uranium fuel and the shield. But once the uranium fuel was no longer covered by water, the zirconium cladding surrounding the fuel rods heated, hydrogen generation, said Robert Alvarez, a researcher at the Institute for Policy Studies and a former official of the Department of Energy.
CNN News Japan - That caught fire, leading to a situation that is "very, very serious," he told CNN. He said the next step may involve nuclear plant workers taking heroics. Asked to be more specific, he said, "This is a situation where people can call to sacrifice their lives. ... It is very difficult for me to contemplate that, but it may have reached that point."
Construction Photographs released Wednesday by the power company showed a hole in a wall and the deterioration of the roof.
A Japanese Self-Defense Force helicopter aborted its mission on Wednesday a drop of water in the reactor due to high radiation levels in the area, the Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported Wednesday.
The authorities have been working to solve cooling problems in four of six reactors at Fukushima Daiichi following the earthquake of 9.0 magnitude and tsunami that struck northeastern Japan on Friday.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said the water temperature in the spent fuel pools are usually kept below 25 degrees Celsius (77 degrees Fahrenheit). That requires constant cooling source, which requires a constant energy source, something that is not available at the plant following the earthquake and tsunami on Friday.
"Concerns about spent fuel pools in Fukushima Daiichi is that sources of energy to cool the pools may have been compromised," the IAEA said in a statement. This is a list of temperatures in spent fuel pools Tuesday 84.0 degrees C (183 F) in Unit 4, 60.4 degrees C (141 F) in Unit 5 and 58.5 degrees C (137 F) in Unit 6 .
By Wednesday, he was reporting "no data" for Unit 4 and worrying trends for the other two: Unit 5 had increased to 62.7 degrees C (145 F) and Unit 6 had risen to 60.0 degrees C (140 F).
Three of the reactors were operating when the earthquake measuring 9.0 on Friday and closed at its normal procedures, Jaczko said. They all said, appeared to have suffered "a degree of core damage caused insufficient cooling ultimately by the loss of offsite power and failure of diesel generators in place to operate successfully after the tsunami."
Three reactors are cooled with sea water and primary containment vessels were described as "functional," he said.
But core cooling was not "stable" for the No. 2 unit, said. Although the primary containment seems to be working, "we believe that the spent fuel pool level is decreasing."
In the No. 3 unit, he said, the integrity of the spent fuel pool seemed to have been compromised and may have been a reaction between the zirconium cladding and water.
Jaczko grim announcement confirmed fears that the nuclear crisis would worsen. Which had increased since the beginning of the day, when officers found white steam rising from the reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant 3.
Tests on the water in the city of Fukushima, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) away, are the radiation, albeit at levels not harmful to the human body, and later showed no evidence of radiation in the water, officials said government.
IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano, said Wednesday he will travel to Japan as soon as possible, hopefully (Thursday) "to get the latest on the situation and see how the nuclear watchdog of the UN can best help the Japanese authorities said. He will stay one night, he said.
In Washington, military officials said Wednesday they had deployed an aircraft to detect the atmosphere, the WC-135W Constant Phoenix, to assist in the detection of radioactive materials in the atmosphere around Japan.
The plane, usually based in Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, was transferred on Tuesday to Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska to make his first start, the officials said.
The aircraft can "detect radioactive" clouds "in real time," according to the Air Force.
Chief Cabinet Secretary of Japan, Yukio Edan, initially said a breach in the containment vessel - steel and concrete shell that isolates the radioactive material inside the reactor - could have been the cause of white smoke on Wednesday. But later said it was unlikely that the ship suffered severe damage, Kyodo news agency.
The officials said workers at the plant to evacuate Wednesday after the steam rose over the plant and the radiation levels spiked. Radiation levels later dropped, and the authorities allowed the workers to change, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, said.
The number of nuclear workers remaining on site 800-50 declined Tuesday, but had grown to 180 on Wednesday afternoon, the electricity company said.
About 200. 000 people living within a radius of 20 kilometers from the plant were evacuated, those living 20 to 30 kilometers of the site have said they remain inside. The authorities have also banned flights over the area.
But Japanese precautions were not universally accepted. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Great Britain joined the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo on Wednesday night to ask their citizens to evacuate or take shelter inside if they live within 50 miles (80 kilometers) of the Fukushima plant Daiiachi, both countries said in separate statements.
"Their standards are different from ours based on the distance they must evacuate," said White House spokesman Jay Carney Wednesday. He called the situation "very fluid."
This view was confirmed by Jaczko NRC. "For a comparable situation in the United States, we recommend an evacuation in a radius much larger than it currently is taught in Japan," he said.
The U.S. military also said it will not allow troops within 50 miles of the plant, the coronelDavid Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman said Wednesday.
U.S. President Barack Obama was briefed Wednesday by U.S. President Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the "deteriorating situation" of the damaged nuclear reactor, said Carney.
Time has become a major concern, but on the afternoon of Wednesday, the winds blowing toward the sea, International CNN meteorologist Jennifer Delgado said.
As a result of surveillance of about 150 people around the site Daiichi, 23 have been decontaminated, the IAEA said.
"His situation is not very big," said David Brenner, director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University. "It's pretty clear that they will be receiving very high doses of radiation. Certainly there is the possibility of lethal doses of radiation. They know, and I think you have to call these people heroes."
A crisis occurs when the nuclear fuel rods can not be cooled and melts the nuclear base. In the worst case, fuel is spilled outside the containment unit and the radioactivity spread through the air and water. That, say public health officials, can cause health problems both short and long term, including radiation poisoning and cancer.(CNN News Japan)
