Japan: Inspectors Study Plant That Avoided Disaster

[phantom power]

The nuclear power plant that was closest to the epicenter of last year’s earthquake endured more ground-shaking than the Fukushima plant did, but was largely undamaged because it was designed with enough safety margins, nuclear inspectors said Friday. The Onagawa plant in northern Japan recorded temblors that exceeded its design capacity, and the basement of one of its reactor buildings flooded. But the plant maintained its cooling capacity, its reactors shut down without damage to their cores and there were no signs of major damage to crucial safety systems. The United Nations nuclear watchdog’s inspectors found that the Onagawa plant managed to avoid a catastrophe like Fukushima because its safety systems successfully functioned, said Sujit Samaddar, who led the International Atomic Energy Agency mission.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/11/world/asia/japan-inspectors-study-plant-that-avoided-disaster.html?_r=1

[Xipe Totec]

1. I want the people to know that they still have one out of three reactors working for them...

and that ain't bad...

[obxhead]

2. Here's another article on this subject

http://thesop.org/story/20120812/un-japanese-nuclear-plant-remarkably-undamaged-in-earthquake.html

The nuclear plant closest to the epicentre of the March 2011 earthquake that struck Japan, resulting in a devastating tsunami and radiation leakage at another facility, was remarkably undamaged, " according to a report delivered today by the United Nations nuclear watchdog.

The structural elements of the NPS were remarkably undamaged given the magnitude of ground motion experienced and the duration and size of this great earthquake, " according to the draft report of an expert team of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), following its two-week mission to the Onagawa Nuclear Power Station.



A quick wiki search shows that this plant is 14 or so years newer that Fukushima Daiichi. That might have had something to do with it.