Choppers dump water to cool reactors

Amid widening alarm in the United States and elsewhere about Japans nuclear crisis,military fire trucks began spraying cooling water on spent fuel rods.

NORIMITSU ONISHI,DAVID E SANGER & MATTHEW L WALD

Amid widening alarm in the United States and elsewhere about Japans nuclear crisis,military fire trucks began spraying cooling water on spent fuel rods at the countrys stricken nuclear power station on Thursday,but later suspended the operation,the NHK broadcaster said.

The development came as the authorities reached for ever more desperate and unconventional methods to cool damaged reactors,deploying helicopters and water cannons in a race to prevent perilous overheating in the spent rods.

Moments before the military began spraying,police in water cannon trucks had been forced back by high radiation in the same area,but it was not clear why the military fire trucks had suspended their operation. Police had been attempting to get within 50 yards of the No. 3 reactor.

Japans efforts focussed on a different part of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station from the reactor depicted in Washington as presenting a far bleaker threat than the Japanese government had offered.

Japans decision to focus their efforts on the No. 3 reactor appeared to suggest that officials believe it is a greater threat,since it is the only one loaded with a mixed fuel,mox (mixed oxide),which includes reclaimed plutonium.

Western nuclear engineers have said the release of mox into the atmosphere will produce a more dangerous radioactive plume than the dispersal of uranium fuel rods at the site.

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On Thursday,Japans Self-Defense Forces dumped seawater from a helicopter on Reactor No. 3,making four passes and dropping a total of about 8,000 gallons over it as a plume of white smoke billowed.

The Forces later said the measure had little effect on reducing the temperature in the pool where the rods are stored.