Japan says stricken nuclear power plant in cold shutdown (Reuters)

By Kiyoshi Takenaka and Shinichi Saoshiro Kiyoshi Takenaka And Shinichi Saoshiro – Fri Dec 16, 7:59 am ET

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan declared its tsunami-stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant to be in cold shutdown on Friday, taking a major step to resolving the world's worst nuclear crisis in 25 years but some critics questioned whether the plant was really under control.

The Fukushima Daiichi plant, 240 km (150 miles) northeast of Tokyo, was wrecked on March 11 by a huge earthquake and a towering tsunami which knocked out its cooling systems, triggering meltdowns, radiation leaks and mass evacuations.

In making the much-anticipated announcement, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda tried to draw a line under the most acute phase of the crisis and highlighted the next challenges: the clean-up and the safe dismantling of the plant, something the government says may take more than 30 years.

"The reactors have reached a state of cold shutdown," Noda told a government nuclear emergency response meeting.

"A stable condition has been achieved," he added, noting radiation levels at the boundary of the plant could now be kept at low levels, even in the event of "unforeseeable incidents."

A cold shutdown is when water used to cool nuclear fuel rods remains below boiling point, preventing the fuel from reheating. One of the chief aims of the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), had been to bring the reactors to that state by the year-end.

The declaration of a cold shutdown could have repercussions well beyond the plant. It is a government pre-condition for allowing about 80,000 residents evacuated from within a 20 km (12 mile) radius of the plant to go home.

Both Noda and his environment and nuclear crisis minister Goshi Hosono said that while the government still faced huge challenges, the situation at the plant was under control.

That provoked an angry response from senior local officials, Greenpeace and some reporters even as the Vienna-based U.N. nuclear agency welcomed "significant progress" at the plant.

"We hope that this will be a fresh step towards going back home but it does not change the fact that the path to bringing the crisis under control is long and tough," Fukushima governor Yuhei Sato said, according to the Asahi newspaper website.

Greenpeace dismissed the announcement as a publicity stunt.

"By triumphantly declaring a cold shutdown, the Japanese authorities are clearly anxious to give the impression that the crisis has come to an end, which is clearly not the case," Greenpeace Japan said in a statement.

Hosono acknowledged that there were some areas where it would be difficult to bring people back and said there could be small difficulties here and there, but he told a briefing: "I believe there will be absolutely no situation in which problems escalate and nearby residents are forced to evacuate."

The water temperature in all three of the affected reactors fell below boiling point by September, but Tepco had said it would declare a state of cold shutdown only once it was satisfied that the temperatures and the amount of radiation emitted from the plant remained stable.

Jonathan Cobb, an expert at the British-based World Nuclear Association, said the authorities had been conservative in choosing the timing of the announcement.

"The government has delayed declaration of cold shutdown conditions, one reason being to ensure that the situation at the plant was stable," Cobb said, adding that the evacuation zone should get progressively smaller as more of it was decontaminated.

Kazuhiko Kudo, professor of nuclear engineering at Kyushu University, said authorities needed to determine exactly the status of melted fuel inside the reactors and stabilize a makeshift cooling system, which handles the tens of thousands of tons of contaminated water accumulated on-site.

HUGE COSTS, ANXIETY

The government and Tepco will aim to begin removing the undamaged nuclear rods from the plant's spent fuel pools next year. However, retrieval of fuel that melted down in their reactors may not begin for another decade.

The enormous cost of the cleanup and compensating the victims has drained Tepco financially. The government may inject about $13 billion into the company as early as next summer in a de facto nationalization, sources told Reuters last week.

An official advisory panel estimates Tepco may have to pay about 4.5 trillion yen ($57 billion) in compensation in the first two years after the nuclear crisis, and that it will cost 1.15 trillion yen to decommission the plant, though some experts put it at 4 trillion yen ($51 billion) or even more.

Japan also faces a massive cleanup task outside the east coast plant if residents are to be allowed to go home. The Environment Ministry says about 2,400 square km (930 square miles) of land around the plant may need to be decontaminated, an area roughly the size of Luxembourg.

The crisis shook the public's faith in nuclear energy and Japan is now reviewing an earlier plan to raise the proportion of electricity generated from nuclear power to 50 percent by 2030 from 30 percent in 2010.

Japan may not immediately walk away from nuclear power, but few doubt that nuclear power will play a lesser role in future.

Living in fear of radiation is part of life for residents both near and far from the plant. Cases of excessive radiation in vegetables, tea, milk, seafood and water have stoked anxiety despite assurances from public officials that the levels detected are not dangerous.

Chernobyl's experience shows that anxiety is likely to persist for years, with residents living near the former Soviet plant still regularly checking produce for radiation before consuming it 25 years after the disaster.

(Additional reporting by Yoko Kubota, Fredrik Dahl in VIENNA and Nina Chestney in LONDON; Writing by Tomasz Janowski; Editing by Mark Bendeich and Robert Birsel)

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Japan set to declare nuclear plant stable (AP)

TOKYO – Japan's government was to declare Friday that the tsunami-devastated Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant had finally achieved a "cold shutdown," meaning it has stabilized and is no longer leaking substantial amounts of radiation.

The announcement would mark a big milestone nine months after the March 11 tsunami touched off a crisis at the plant and sent three of its reactors into meltdowns. Experts noted, however, that the facility remains vulnerable to more problems and will take decades of difficult and dangerous work to safely close down.

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda was to announce the government's assessment of conditions at the plant in a news conference later Friday.

The government's official endorsement of the claim by Tokyo Electric Power Co. that the reactors have reached cold shutdown status is a necessary step toward revising evacuation zones around the plant and focusing efforts from simply stabilizing the facility to actually starting the arduous process of shutting it down.

But the assessment has some important caveats.

The announcement is expected to say Fukushima has reached cold shutdown "conditions"_ a less definitive phrasing reflecting the fact that TEPCO cannot measure temperatures of melted fuel in the damaged reactors in the same way as with normally functioning ones. So the government also attached additional conditions to be met, including minimizing radiation leaks around the plant and taking backup safety measures to ensure Fukushima's wrecked reactors are safely cooled.

Even so, the announcement would mark the end of the second phase of the government's lengthy roadmap to completely decommission the plant, which is expected to take 30 years or more.

Officials can now start discussing whether to allow some evacuated residents who lived in areas with lesser damage from the plant to return home — although a 12-mile (20-kilometer) zone around the plant is expected to remain off limits for years to come.

Some 100,000 people were displaced by the crisis.

A cold shutdown normally means a nuclear reactor's coolant system is at atmospheric pressure and the its reactor core is at a temperature below 212 degrees Fahrenheit (100 degrees Celsius), making it impossible for a chain reaction to take place.

According to TEPCO, temperature gauges inside the Fukushima reactors show the pressure vessel is at around 70 C (158 F). The government also says the amount of radiation now being released around the plant is at or below 1 millisievert per year — equivalent to the annual legal exposure limit for ordinary citizens before the crisis began.

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Magnitude-5.9 quake hits near Japan nuclear site (AP)

TOKYO – A strong earthquake struck Thursday morning near the Japan nuclear power plant hit by a powerful tsunami earlier this year. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the magnitude-5.9 quake struck shortly before 4:30 a.m. local time. It hit 62 miles (101 kilometers) east of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant. The quake struck at a depth of 23 miles (37 kilometers).

The quake struck 151 miles (244 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center did not immediately issue a tsunami alert.

Similar quakes have struck in the region since a March 11 magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami wiped out part of Japan's northeastern coast and left nearly 20,000 people dead or missing.

The March tsunami also touched off a nuclear crisis when it heavily damaged the Fukushima plant, forcing about 100,000 people to flee their homes. They still have no idea when they can return.

The region lies on the "Ring of Fire" — an arc of earthquake and volcanic zones that stretches around the Pacific Rim. About 90 percent of the world's quakes occur in the region.

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Japan allows partial glimpse inside crippled nuclear plant (Reuters)

TOKYO (Reuters) – Conditions at Japan's wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant, devastated by a tsunami in March, were slowly improving to the point where a "cold shutdown" would be possible as planned, officials said on Saturday during a tour of the facility.

Officials shepherded a group of about 30 mainly Japanese journalists through the plant for the first time since the meltdown of the plant's reactors, the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl 25 years ago.

Cooling systems at the plant, 240 km (150 miles) northeast of Tokyo, were knocked out by the powerful tsunami and evidence of the devastation was clear to see.

The nuclear reactor buildings were still surrounded by crumpled trucks, twisted metal fences, and large, dented water tanks. Smaller office buildings around the reactors were left as they were abandoned on March 11, when the tsunami hit.

Cranes filled the skyline in testimony to recovery efforts.

Journalists on the tour mainly stayed on a bus as they were driven around the plant and were not allowed near the reactor buildings. Still, they all had to wear protective suits, double layers of gloves and plastic boot covers and hair nets.

All carried respiration masks and radiation detectors.

"From the data at the plant that I have seen, there is no doubt that the reactors have been stabilized," Masao Yoshida, chief of the Daiichi plant, told the group.

The compound may still be littered with rubble, but Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), the utility operating the plant, has succeeded in bringing down the temperatures at the three damaged reactors from levels considered dangerous.

They are confident they will be able to declare a "cold shutdown" -- when temperatures are stable below boiling point -- as scheduled by the end of this year.

While Tepco had managed to stabilize conditions so workers could enter the reactor buildings, Yoshida said there was still danger involved for those working there.

The disaster prompted the government to declare a 20 km (12 miles) no-entry zone around the plant, forcing the evacuation of about 80,000 residents.

A cold shutdown is one of the conditions that must be met before the government considers lifting its entry ban.

As an emergency measure early in the crisis, Tepco tried to cool the damaged reactors by pumping in huge volumes of water, much of it from the sea, only to leave a vast amount of tainted runoff that threatened to leak out into the ocean.

It solved the problem by building a cooling system to clean the radioactive runoff, using some of the water to cool the reactors.

A group of white tents houses the cleaning facility. In front were hoisted the flags of the United States, France and Japan -- the countries that provided the technology for the decontamination system.

"Every time I come back, I feel conditions have improved. This is due to your hard work ," Japan's environment and nuclear crisis minister Goshi Hosono told workers at the plant.

However, Hosono warned it would still take about 30 years to dismantle the reactors after a cold shutdown was achieved.

Workers engaged in the recovery effort are stationed at J-Village, a national soccer training center near Daiichi that has been converted into an operational base.

Tepco says up to 3,300 workers a day arrive from J-Village, located on the edge of the 20 km no-entry zone.

At J-Village, workers on their way to the plant lined up at a white tent to change into protective gear. Every day when they return, the workers discard their protective clothing, which is treated as radioactive waste and stored.

A Tepco guide said every piece of discarded clothing has been kept there since March 17, about 480,000 sets heaped in large piles or put in bed-sized containers and stacked in rows.

(Reporting by a pool reporter representing foreign media in Japan; Writing by Shinichi Saoshiro; Editing by Paul Tait)

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Possible new "fission" found at Japan's wrecked nuclear plant (Reuters)

TOKYO (Reuters) – The operator of tsunami-hit nuclear power plant in Japan said on Wednesday it had found substances in a reactor which could be a result of nuclear fission, a possible setback in efforts to bring the plant to a safe, cold shutdown this year.

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was struck by a devastating earthquake and tsunami in March and has released radiation into the atmosphere ever since.

Tokyo Electric Power said that it discovered xenon, a substance produced as a byproduct of fission from the No 2 reactor, and had poured in a mixture of water and boric acid, an agent that helps prevent nuclear reactions, as a precaution.

"It can be assumed that isolated criticality took place for a short period of time judging from the presence of xenon," Tepco spokesman Junichi Matsumoto told reporters.

Criticality is a state when controlled nuclear reactions take place and nuclear power plants harness the resulting heat to produce electricity.

The amount of detected xenon was small and the nuclear fuel in the No 2 reactor is unlikely to have melted down again, Tepco said. The fuel in the No 2 reactor, along with two other reactors, had melted down early in the crisis after the tsunami knocked out the plant's cooling system triggering the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl 25 years ago.

Analysts said there was minimal risk of further radiation.

Kazuhiko Kudo, a professor of nuclear engineering at Kyushu University, suggested two possibilities.

"Some of the lumps of fuel that melted off early in the accident may have caused the nuclear fission. I would not rule it out completely but this possibility is highly unlikely as many elements, like temperature and the amount water, have to be at a right balance for fission to occur."

The other possibility, Kudo said, was tiny radioactive elements produced by the nuclear reaction early in the crisis colliding and moving neutrons inside the reactor, in turn causing the neutrons to collide and split uranium, causing tiny nuclear fissions.

"The initiating amount in this case is so small that any nuclear fissions would not leave a significant impact," Kudo said.

Tepco said temperature and pressure at the No 2 reactor remained stable.

Through various cooling efforts the utility has succeeded in bringing down the temperatures at the three damaged reactors from levels considered dangerous and hopes to declare a cold shutdown -- when temperatures are stable below boiling point -- this year.

Tepco said in October that the amount of radiation being emitted from the complex had halved from a month earlier, in the latest sign that efforts to bring the facility under control are progressing.

(Additional reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka; Editing by Tomasz Janowski and Nick Macfie)

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New PM: Japan should aim to reduce nuclear power (AP)

TOKYO – Japan's new prime minister has promised to restart nuclear plants following safety checks ordered after the crisis at the tsunami-damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant.

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda also said Tuesday in his first policy speech since taking office two weeks ago that the country should reduce its reliance on atomic energy over the long term, but offered no specifics.

More than 30 of Japan's 54 reactors have been idled, causing electricity shortages amid sweltering summer temperatures.

Noda also said he would press ahead with the recovery of the tsunami-battered northeastern region, calling on his fellow citizens not to forget "the spirit of dignity of all Japanese" in the face of disaster.

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UN chief visits Japan nuclear disaster zone (AFP)

FUKUSHIMA, Japan (AFP) – UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Monday pledged the world body's solidarity with Japan after its quake, tsunami and nuclear disasters and encouraged radiation evacuees to "hang in there".

Travelling in the disaster-struck northeast, Ban became one of the most senior foreign leaders to visit the region close to the crippled Fukushima Daiichi atomic power plant, which is still leaking radiation.

"I came here to express my solidarity, the United Nations' solidarity for the government of Fukushima, and particularly for affected people in Fukushima," Ban told prefectural governor Yuhei Sato.

"Particularly this Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident has given us great lessons," he said. "We need to carefully review to improve our safety and improve our capacity tools in such an emergency response."

Some 85,000 people have fled the region around the plant after the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl 25 years ago.

Ban, who has convened a nuclear safety summit for the UN General Assembly in New York in September, is expected to reinforce his calls for tougher international standards.

Joined by his wife, Ban visited a shelter where more than 300 evacuees, mainly from Minamisoma city and a 20-kilometre (12-mile) no-go zone around the plant, have lived in cramped conditions for the past five months.

"You will hang in there," Ban said in Japanese to the evacuees, who live in tiny spaces separated by cardboard partitions.

Ban, who arrived in Japan Sunday, then visited Fukushima Minami High School, where he also gave words of encouragement to some 100 teenagers, telling them, "the entire world and the United Nations are behind you".

Five months on from the disaster, Japan's government and the plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) are struggling to stabilise three reactors at the plant following a series of meltdowns and explosions.

Japan wants to bring all reactors to stable "cold shutdown" by January.

But lethal hotspots were detected inside the crippled plant last week, with radiation so high that they threaten to prevent emergency workers from making progress in the effort to control the crisis.

TEPCO has also faced a series of technical glitches affecting a system to decontaminate radioactive runoff water used to cool the reactors.

At the meeting with Ban, Fukushima governor Sato asked him for cooperation from the world body.

"Five months have passed since the disaster and amid this ordeal Fukushima's people are making their utmost effort to build a new Fukushima," he said.

"I would like to ask you, secretary-general, and the United Nations to especially remember Fukushima and cooperate with us."

The UN chief then visited tsunami-ravaged Haragama beach in Soma city, 40 kilometres north of the Fukushima plant, to assess the damage.

Ban walked with the local mayor past demolished buildings, destroyed cars and mangled fishing nets still piled up high on road sides, stopping to observe a moment of silence.

"I also was struck by the level of destruction and sadness for all the loss of life here," Ban said. "However, you have shown such strength to the world, and unbreaking will to overcome."

Later in the day, Ban will travel to Tokyo to meet Prime Minister Naoto Kan and Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto.

The UN chief is also expected to request that Japan dispatch troops from its Self-Defence Forces for a peacekeeping operation in South Sudan.

Ban came to Japan as part of an Asian tour that will also take him to his native South Korea on Tuesday, where he will launch a UN youth conference, the Global Model United Nations, in Incheon.

He will also address an academic forum in Seoul and meet President Lee Myung-Bak and Foreign Minister Kim Sung-Hwan during his five-day stay there.

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US nuclear lab to reopen after wildfire threat ends (AFP)

LOS ANGELES (AFP) – Officials at the Los Alamos National Laboratory said they will re-open the nuclear research center on Wednesday after it was closed in late June due to an encroaching wildfire.

The site in the southwestern state of New Mexico, where the atomic bomb was developed during World War II, "appears to have escaped serious damage from the Las Conchas fire," read a lab statement Sunday.

The site "will re-open to employees on Wednesday, July 6" following "the largest wildfire in New Mexico history," the statement read.

"Only senior leaders and essential services will be be permitted at the Lab on Tuesday," it added.

Flames reached laboratory property on June 27, but caused no damage. However the lab closed down temporarily, in part because the nearby town of Los Alamos, where half the lab employees live, was forced to evacuate.

All hazardous and radioactive materials were accounted for and protected during the shutdown, as were key lab facilities such as its proton accelerator and supercomputing centers, officials said.

Firefighters on Sunday gave the all-clear for the town of Los Alamos, and the 10,000 residents that had been ordered to leave began streaming back home.

The fire, the largest in New Mexico history, currently measures more than 121,000 acres (49,000 hectares). As of Sunday, it was 11% contained and had destroyed dozens of homes, according to the government-run New Mexico Fire Information website.

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Nebraska residents shrug off flood risk to nuclear plant (Reuters)

BROWNVILLE, Neb (Reuters) – Residents near a nuclear plant on the rain-swollen Missouri River were largely unconcerned about any potential safety risks from flooding ahead of a nuclear regulator's visit on Sunday.

Gregory Jaczko, the chair of the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission will monitor flood preparations during a visit to the Cooper Nuclear Station near Brownville.

The plant is located about 80 miles south of Omaha, where snow melt and heavy rains have forced the waters of the Missouri River over its banks, although they have not flooded the plant and receded slightly on Sunday.

"I just don't think the water is going to get that high," said Brownville resident Kenny Lippold, a retired carpenter who has been following each step of the flood preparations in this riverside village of 148 residents.

"They claim that they are going to keep operating," Lippold said, adding that he will not flee his home of 29 years even though it is less than a mile from the Cooper reactor.

Jaczko will be briefed on Sunday by NRC resident inspectors -- the agency staff who work on-site every day -- plant officials and executives, said Mark Becker, a spokesman at the Nebraska Public Power District, the agency that runs the plant.

Water levels there are down after upstream levees failed, Becker said, relieving worries that water will rise around the Brownville plant as it has at another nuclear plant north of Omaha in Fort Calhoun.

Local shop owner Katy Morgan, 28, said her fears have been assuaged by information she has received via plant officials, who give out emergency radio equipment to residents within a 10-mile radius of the Cooper plant.

"I know everybody freaks out when they talk about nuclear," said Morton, who runs a boutique on Brownville's main thoroughfare. "I suppose if there was a drastic increase in the river I would be concerned. If they say 'evacuate' then I would be concerned," Morton said.

Jaczko will also visit on Monday the Fort Calhoun plant in the town of Fort Calhoun, Nebraska, about 20 miles north of Omaha, an agency official said.

Flood water up to 2-feet deep is standing on the site of the 478-megawatt Fort Calhoun plant, which will stay shut down until the water recedes, the NRC said.

On Sunday afternoon, workers accidentally deflated an auxiliary berm at the plant, said Omaha Public Power District spokesman Jeff Hanson.

Hanson said the "aqua dam" was a supplemental measure that provided workers "more freedom" but was not essential to keeping the plant dry.

"The plant itself is still protected," Hanson said. Floodwater would need to rise over 7 feet to flow over the berms and enter the plant, Hanson said, adding that the supplemental dam was not in original flood prevention plans.

An NRC inspection at Fort Calhoun two years ago indicated deficiencies in the flood preparation area, which have now been remedied, the agency said.

(Writing by Eric Johnson; Editing by Tim Gaynor)

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Drone copter nearly crashes at Japan nuclear plant (AP)

TOKYO – A drone helicopter has made an emergency rooftop landing after developing engine trouble while measuring radiation over Japan's tsunami-hit nuclear power plant.

Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said no major damage occurred Friday to the aircraft or the reactor building roof. It was still being assessed further.

The U.S.-made drone has been used regularly to inspect hard-to-access areas of the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant crippled by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

A Japanese robot also failed to complete its debut mission because of mechanical problems.

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U.N. nuclear report shows Japan safety shortcomings (Reuters)

VIENNA (Reuters) – Japanese nuclear regulators failed to review and approve steps taken after 2002 to protect against tsunamis at the Fukushima plant and these proved insufficient to prevent the tidal wave disaster three months ago, a U.N. report showed.

A detailed assessment by experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency -- the first outside review of Japan's nuclear crisis -- suggested several shortcomings both before and after a tidal wave crippled the power station three months ago.

But it also praised the way workers on the ground dealt with the situation at Fukushima Daiichi after the massive earthquake and huge tsunami devastated its reactors on March 11, triggering the world's worst nuclear catastrophe in a quarter of a century.

Given the extreme circumstances it is doubtful "that any better solutions than the ones actually chosen could have been realistically implemented," said the 160-page report, prepared for a ministerial nuclear safety meeting in Vienna next week.

A three-page summary was issued at the end of the 18-member team's May 24-June 2 inspector mission to Japan. It said the country underestimated the threat from tsunamis to the Fukushima plant and urged sweeping changes to its regulatory system.

Japanese authorities have been criticized for failing to plan for a tsunami that would surge over the 5.7 meter (19-ft) wall at the nuclear power station in the country's northeast, despite warnings that such a risk was looming.

The wave that crashed into the complex after the 9.0 magnitude earthquake was about 14 meters (46 feet) high.

In another setback to efforts to restore control over the quake-stricken plant, a rise in radiation halted the clean-up of radioactive water at Fukushima on Saturday only hours after it got under way.

The full IAEA report said there had been "insufficient defense-in-depth provisions" for tsunami hazards, even though they had been considered in the design and siting of the plant operated by Tokyo Electric Power Company, or Tepco.

DECISION DELAYS

Extra protective steps were taken as a result of an evaluation after 2002 -- the projected tsunami height was increased -- but they were insufficient "to cope with the high tsunami run-up values and all associated hazardous phenomena."

"Moreover, those additional protective measures were not reviewed and approved by the regulatory authority," said the report. It added: "Severe accident management provisions were not adequate to cope with multiple plant failures."

The document, obtained by Reuters, was submitted to IAEA member states on Friday but has not yet been made public.

At the June 20-24 IAEA-hosted meeting, some 150 nations will begin charting a strategy on boosting global nuclear safety, but differences on how much international action is needed may hamper follow-up efforts, diplomats say.

Japan's crisis has prompted a rethink of energy policy around the world, underlined by Germany's decision to shut down all its reactors by 2022 and an Italian vote to ban nuclear power for decades.

Three reactors at the Japanese complex went into meltdown when power and cooling functions failed, causing radiation leakage and forcing the evacuation of some 80,000 people.

Japanese officials have come under fire for their handling of the emergency and the authorities have admitted that lax standards and poor oversight contributed to the accident.

In 2007, the IAEA was ignored when it called on Japan to create a more powerful and independent nuclear regulator, and the report underlined the need for greater regulatory control.

"An updating of regulatory requirements and guidelines should be performed reflecting the experience and data obtained during the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami," it said.

Japan has a well organized emergency preparedness and response system but "complicated structures and organizations can result in delays in urgent decision making," it added.

The report also listed wider lessons for improving nuclear safety worldwide and help avert any repeat of the disaster, saying reactors should be built so that they can withstand rare and "complex combinations" of external threats.

(Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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Japan nuclear plant gets radioactive water tanks (AP)

TOKYO – Tanks for storing radioactive water are on their way to the crippled nuclear power plant in northeastern Japan where reactor cores melted after the massive March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

Tokyo Electric Power Co., the utility that operates the troubled Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, says two of the 370 tanks were due to arrive Saturday. Each of the tanks can store either 100 tons or 120 tons of radioactive water.

The tanks will continue arriving through August, and will store a total of 40,000 tons of radioactive water. TEPCO says the radioactive water leaking from the reactors and pooling across the plant could start overflowing from temporary storage areas on June 20, or possibly sooner if there is heavy rainfall.

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Rain pelts Japan disaster zone, stricken nuclear site (AFP)

TOKYO (AFP) – Heavy rain on Monday pelted Japan's northeast region which was devastated in the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, adding to radioactive contaminated water at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant.

A low-pressure system -- the remnant of Typhoon Songda -- hung over the Pacific coast and dumped up to 15 centimetres (six inches) of rain in 24 hours, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

The level of water in the basement of one of the atomic plant's six reactor buildings rose by nearly 20 centimetres (eight inches) in 24 hours by early Monday, the facility's operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) said.

"We presume the level of water has risen due to the rainwater which has seeped into the ground," TEPCO official Junichi Matsumoto said as the water in the number one reactor building reached 5.7 metres (19 feet).

Emergency workers have been pouring thousands of tonnes of water onto reactors and pools for storing spent fuel rods, to control overheating after cooling systems failed in the disaster.

TEPCO says that fuel rods are presumed to have melted in three reactors.

The cooling operations have left four reactor units with radioactive contaminated water pooling inside.

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