The cooling system for a nuclear reactor at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi plant lost power for hours Friday afternoon but was operational again, officials at the Tokyo Electric Power Company said.
The outage is one of
several that has hampered the facility recently. There have been many
repairs at the plant since the devastating earthquake and tsunami in
March 2011 that triggered a nuclear disaster there.
Last month, power outages at the critical nuclear facility were blamed on rats short circuiting a switchboard,
Japan's Kyodo news agency reported. Officials said at that time that
the temporary power loss did not trigger a known release of radioactive
material.
Read: More U.S. military join lawsuit over Fukushima exposure
Rat may have caused nuclear power outage
Metal panels were to be
installed Friday around the cooling system to ward off small animals, a
Tokyo Electric Power Company spokesman said.
The tsunami that hit
Fukushima Daiichi after Japan's historic earthquake knocked out power
and coolant systems at the plant, resulting in meltdowns in three
reactors. The result was the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, as
the crippled reactors spewed enormous amounts of radioactive particles
into the environment.
The Tokyo Electric Power
Company, the operator of the Fukushima plant, has said it is monitoring
radiation contamination levels around the plant.
