- At 3:30 pm on Monday 9 August there was a steam leak
in the turbine building of Kansai Electric Power Company's (KEPCO) Mihama-3
reactor (PWR, 826 MW).
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- At the time of writing this message 4 workers had died.
One other was in a critical condition and a further 6 had sustained serious
injuries. All were employees of Kiuchi Instrumentation Pty. Ltd., a subcontractor
at the plant. It appears that the workers were in the room where the leak
occurred and suffered their injuries from direct contact with the high
temperature steam. The steam was over 150 degrees Celcius.
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- The leak occurred while preparations were being made
for the annual inspection, which was to be carried out from August 14th.
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- The reactor shut down automatically and, according to
KEPCO, no radiation was recorded on the radiation monitors. But even if
the monitors were unable to measure the low level of radiation involved,
we don't assume that no radiation was released at all. We would expect
that some tritium would have been released with the steam. The workers
may well have been exposed to radiation, though it certainly seems that
the steam itself is the cause of their immediate injuries.
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- We understand that the accident occurred while the reactor
was operating at full power. Even while it was preparing to enter a phase
of annual inspections, KEPCO was trying to maintain output. The reactor
should first be shut down, then the preparations and the inspections should
begin. In order to maximise profits, power companies try to minimize downtime
for inspections, jeopardizing safety in the process.
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- Mihama-3 commenced operations on 1 December 1976. There
have been many steam leaks in the past, but none comparable with this.
But it is an aging reactor and as such it was an accident waiting to happen.
Attempts to fix problems at old reactors like this are just as likely to
induce problems somewhere else. It should be closed down.
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- KEPCO must conduct a thorough investigation into the
causes of this accident and provide a full explanation to the public.
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- Philip White International Liaison Officer -- Citizens'
Nuclear Information Center 1-58-15-3F, Higashi-nakano, Nakano-ku,Tokyo,
Japan Phone: +81-3-5330-9520 Fax: +81-3-5330-9530 cnic-jp@nifty.com
- http://cnic.jp/english/
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