Japan earthquake/tsunami

[Van]

After the earthquake and tsunami, there were difficulties powering the cooling system for unit 1 of the Fukushima Daiichi plant. After a buildup of hydrogen gas in the secondary containment structure at the plant, there was an explosion at that reactor on March 12.

The explosion caused a breach in the secondary containment. However, the primary containment that houses and protects the reactor vessel and fuel remains intact and is safe. This structure is made of steel and is extremely robust. The primary and secondary containment are designed to prevent radiation from being released into the environment in the case of an accident. However, TEPCO intentionally vented steam from the secondary containment building in an effort to reduce pressure in that building. For a diagram of the reactor type used at Fukushima Daiichi, click here.

It appears that as the level of coolant in the reactor vessel lowered, a portion of the top of the uranium fuel rods was exposed. This may have caused zirconium cladding of the fuel rods to react with water to create hydrogen. This hydrogen was vented, then somehow ignited, causing the explosion.

As the explosion did not occur inside the reactor core—and the primary containment was not breached—there has not been a significant public health impact from the release of radiation from the containment structure.

Reactors 2 and 3 at Fukushima Daiichi were shut down in response to the earthquake. Units 4, 5 and 6 had been shut down prior to the earthquake for inspections and scheduled outages.