Tokyo Electric Power Co. released video images on April 19 of the mangled interior of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant's No. 2 reactor building.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. released video images on April 19 of the mangled interior of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant's No. 2 reactor building.
The Survey Runner robot, which explored the basement of the reactor building on April 18, found evidence of damage apparently caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami.
Insulation materials were shown dangling from a bare pipe in the ceiling of the room containing the reactor’s suppression pool, a component of the reactor containment vessel. Sheet metal used to fix insulation materials around a pipe had also been dislodged and had fallen on the floor of a passageway previously used by workers.
The insulation is thought to have peeled off because of shocks caused by last year’s March 11 quake, but TEPCO officials said no major damage to the pipes themselves or other equipment had been found in the area.
Junichi Matsumoto, acting general director of TEPCO's Nuclear Power and Plant Siting Division, said the latest evidence “almost totally ruled out” a theory advanced by some experts that an explosion may have occurred in the suppression pool of the No. 2 reactor during the nuclear crisis.
Radiation levels of up to 118 millisieverts per hour were measured in the room containing the suppression pool, which is known as the Torus Room.