Japan’s nuclear regulator says a massive amount of pumice stones drifting in waters in the country’s southwest could affect domestic nuclear power plants.
Ishiwatari Akira, a member of the Nuclear Regulation Authority, told a regular meeting on Wednesday that the stones may affect the intake of water used for cooling nuclear reactors.
The pumice stones are being washed ashore on the coast of Okinawa Prefecture and the Amami region of Kagoshima Prefecture. They come from an undersea volcanic eruption near the Ogasawara island chain in the Pacific Ocean in August.
This video shows how the pumice spreads over the ocean:
Ishiwatari said the stones will likely come to Japan’s main island of Honshu and called on officials to be prepared.
The authority says accumulated pumice and other objects may clog up the seawater intake equipment for cooling nuclear reactors.
It plans to assess the impact of the stones as the situation develops, and see how it is being addressed by the operators of nuclear power plants.
Officials of the Nuclear Regulation Authority had earlier taken up the impact of pumice stones when they discussed overall consequences of volcanoes on nuclear power plants.
They say one of the best ways to get rid of pumice is the measure being taken at each plant to remove jellyfish in the event of a plague. They also say installing fences in front of the water intake equipment can work.
In case you don’t remember, the Rutenberg power station in the southern city of Ashkelon in Israel almost faced shutting down after thousands of jellyfish were found clogging up the plant’s cooling system back in 2015.
Workers struggled to remove the huge swarm of jellyfish that were overflowing into the site but after several hours, they managed to successfully clean up the system.
Hopefully, the pumice released by the August underwater eruption won’t trigger another nuclear disaster like Fukushima in Japan and around the world! [NHK]
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You should really subscribe to QFiles. You will get very interesting information about strange events around the world.
Japanese people are very smart. I have confidence they will solve this problem. I love their products much better than redchinesey garbage too. F redchinesey bastards!