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Japanese official says pumping system caused nuclear disaster

(CNN) -- An explosion at an earthquake-struck nuclear plant was not caused by damage to the nuclear reactor but by a pumping system that failed as crews tried to bring the reactor's temperature down, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said Saturday.

Workers at the Fukushima Daiichi plant have begun flooding the reactor containment structure with sea water to bring the reactor's temperature down to safe levels, he said. The effort is expected to take two days.

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If the reactors are not kept cool, the fuel rods inside the reactor can melt down, which can cause enormous damage to the reactor or, in a worse case, cause the release of radioactive material into the air or water, raising the threat of cancer and other health problems, experts say.

The government was also preparing to distribute iodine tablets to residents, the IAEA said. Iodine is commonly prescribed as to help prevent the thyroid gland from taking in too much radioactivity, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency website.

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"This is a situation that has the potential for a nuclear catastrophe. It's basically a race against time, because what has happened is that plant operators have not been able to cool down the core of at least two reactors," said Robert Alvarez, a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said Friday on its website that the quake and tsunami knocked out a Daiichi reactor's off-site power source, which is used to cool down the radioactive material inside. Then, the tsunami waves disabled the backup source -- diesel generators -- and authorities were working to get these operating.

On Saturday, Japanese nuclear authorities said the cooling system had also failed at three of the four reactors at the Fukushima Daini plant.

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"The big problem is if it can't cool and the (reactors') core starts to melt -- then you have the possibility of a greater release of radioactivity into the environment," Acton said. If that happens, "there's a possibility of cancer in the long term -- that's the main hazard here."

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<http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/12/japan.nuclear/index.html>