Press Releases 2013

Due to the Tohoku-Chihou-Taiheiyou-Oki Earthquake which occurred on March 11, 2011, TEPCO's facilities including our nuclear power stations have been severely damaged. We deeply apologize for the anxiety and inconvenience caused.
With regard to the accident at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, on April 17, 2011, we have compiled the roadmap towards restoration from the accident and on July 19 we accomplished the Step1 target "Radiation dose is in steady decline". Then on December 16 we confirmed the accomplishment of the Step 2 target "Release of radioactive materials is under control and radiation doses are being significantly held down".
In addition, on December 21, 2011, we have compiled the "Mid-to-long-Term Roadmap toward the Decommissioning of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Units 1-4, TEPCO".
In addition to the maintenance of the plant's stable condition, we will implement Mid-to-Long Term countermeasures towards the decommissioning of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Units 1-4 to enable evacuees to return to their homes as soon as possible and reduce the anxiety of the people in Fukushima and the whole nation as soon as possible.

Below is the status of TEPCO's nuclear power stations (Fukushima Daiichi and Fukushima Daini).

* The updates are underlined.

[Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station]
·Unit 1 to 4: Abolishment (April 19, 2012)
·Unit 5 to 6: Outage due to regular inspections before the earthquake

-At around 10:46 AM on January 24, 2013, a fire alarm went off in the west side of the basement of the Auxiliary Operation Shared Facility (Common Pool Building) at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. Later, smoke coming out of the building was reported by a worker at the site. At 10:59 AM, the incident was reported to the fire department. Smoke came out of the auxiliary power cable of cleaning equipment used to polish the floor during decontamination. As a worker immediately pulled out the power cable, smoke stopped coming out. Since no fire or smoke was found at the site as a result of investigation by a TEPCO employee, the fire alarm was reset at 11:15 AM. Then at 12:38 PM, the fire department judged the incident to be a fire and confirmed that the fire had been extinguished. The cause of the fire is to be investigated. There has been no injury reported due to the incident. The incident has caused no impact on the plant conditions so far and the common pool cooling has been continued. No significant change in the monitoring post data has been found.

-At 11:03 AM on January 24, we started transferring the accumulated water in Unit 3 Turbine Building basement to the Central Radioactive Waste Treatment Facility (Miscellaneous Solid Waste Volume Reduction Treatment Building [High Temperature Incinerator Building]).

-At 9:00 AM on January 15, the second cesium absorption apparatus was suspended for a soundness inspection of its piping, etc. At 10:37 AM on January 22, the cesium absorption apparatus was started considering the water level at the Turbine Building affected by the suspension of the second cesium absorption apparatus. At 11:28 AM on January 24, the second cesium absorption apparatus was started after the inspection was completed and the steady flow rate was achieved at 12:07 PM on the same day. At 12:30 PM, the cesium absorption apparatus was stopped.

-From 1:54 PM to 2:22 PM on January 24, Unit 1 spent fuel pool alternative cooling system was suspended while feeding water to the skimmer surge tank of Unit 1 spent fuel pool by a fire pump car. The spent fuel pool water temperature when the cooling system was restarted was 10.0℃, which was the same as that of when the cooling was suspended. (Though usually water is fed into Unit 1 spent fuel pool skimmer surge tank via the filtrate water pipe, a fire pump car was used instead since the main valve of the filtrate water pipe is closed due to leakage from the valve installed on the filtrate water pipe header found on January 19.) While feeding water into the skimmer surge tank by a fire pump car, water (filtrate water) leakage was found at the flange of the water feeding pipe installed in the large carry-in entrance at Unit 1 Reactor Building. The amount of leaked water is approx.2L (Affected area: Approx. 2mx1m with a small depth). The leakage stopped after water feeding into the skimmer surge tank was stopped.

-On January 24, nitrogen injection into Unit 1 PCV was temporarily suspended for power supply related construction and was restarted afterwards. Nitrogen injection was suspended from 2:10 PM to 2:54 PM. Nitrogen injection into the RPV continued during that time.

[Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Station]
·Unit 1 to 4: Shutdown due to the earthquake.

-The anemometer will be removed for a regular inspection and the measurement will be performed utilizing alternative observational equipment. Data during the following time period will be unavailable due to adjustment and installation of the alternative equipment.
From 9:20 AM to 6:10 PM on January 22
From 9:20 AM to 5:50 PM on January 23

* Revised past progress

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