Tokyo, Apr.7 (ANI): Plant Operators Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) have started injecting nitrogen into one of the reactors at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to reduce the risk of a possible hydrogen explosion.
Hidehiko Nishiyama, a Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency spokesman, said there is no immediate danger of an explosion, adding that nitrogen, an inert gas, was injected into the reactor only as a preventive measure.
Nishiyama said past hydrogen explosions have probably occurred due to hydrogen accumulation caused by the reaction of melted fuel rods' zirconium with steam from the coolant water.
TEPCO has estimated that around 25 percent of the nuclear fuel rods have been damaged at the No 3 reactor. The company had earlier said that 70 percent of the No 1 reactor's fuel rods and 30 percent of the No 2 reactor's fuel rods have been damaged.
New concerns have risen that hydrogen could accumulate in the No 1 reactor under a different process involving radiation-induced decomposition of water into hydrogen and oxygen.
Announcing TEPCO's decision to inject nitrogen into the reactor's containment vessel, the nuclear agency said that radioactive leaks are "unlikely to significantly rise" even if the pressure inside the vessel increases as a result of the injection.
Nishiyama said he also expects nitrogen to be injected into the Nos. 2 and 3 reactors in the future, Kyodo News reports.
The utility has been pouring massive amounts of water into the reactors and their spent nuclear fuel pools as a stopgap measure to cool them down.
Japan has been battling to control the overheated reactors at the Fukushima plant after their cooling systems failed to operate when an the 8.9 magnitude earthquake and ensuing tsunami hit the country on March 11, resulting in partial melting of reactor cores and hydrogen explosions. (ANI)
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