Radioactive reactor equipment may be exposed at Fukushima plant+

TOKYO, June 19 Kyodo -
Highly radioactive equipment removed from and kept under water near a suspended reactor at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant may be partially exposed and emitting radiation into the air, officials of the plant operator said Sunday.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. began injecting water for the equipment the same day at the building of the No. 4 reactor, which was suspended for regular inspection when it lost cooling functions in the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, the officials said.
Since a pool containing nuclear fuel that had been taken out of the reactor cannot be cooled, water is evaporating and causing a pit connected to it, with equipment including a shroud to adjust the flow of coolant water and a steam dryer inside, to also lose water.
The 7.6 meter-deep pit contained water, which shields against radiation, only up to 2.5 meters as of June 11 and the highly radioactive part of the shroud, that was originally 6.8 meters in height but has been cut to fit in the pit, may be exposed to the air, the officials said.
But the fuel in the storage pool is not believed to have been exposed or suffered damage, probably because water from the pit helped slow the reduction of water in the pool, company spokesman Junichi Matsumoto told a press conference.
The utility known as TEPCO, meanwhile, began releasing air possibly containing low levels of radioactive substances from the No. 2 reactor building in the evening by gradually opening the doors through early Monday.
The step, which will take hours to prevent the stirring up of dust containing toxic materials, is aimed at lowering the over 99 percent humidity inside to enable work to be conducted there, TEPCO said, denying that the move will have an impact on the environment.
After the venting, TEPCO will start injecting nitrogen into the reactor to prevent a hydrogen explosion and adjusting measuring equipment, it said.