14 DAY TRIAL // Only a couple of days ago, the news broke that the already infamous Fukushima nuclear plant had been hit by a power failure. At that time, several people questioned whether or not engineers might be able to restore power before the plant went haywire once again.
However, Tepco (Tokyo Electric Power Company) stressed the fact that the situation was well under control and that experts were doing their best to deal with that unexpected problem.
“Since it takes a certain amount of time for the spent fuel pool / common pool water temperatures to increase, the temperatures will not immediately reach the maximum allowed temperature,” the company said shortly after the power failure took place.
Recent news on this topic says that the nuclear plant's cooling systems are now up and running, meaning that there is no need to worry about what might happen to the pools used to store radioactive fuel rods in this part of Japan.
Safety concerns aside, it is the following piece of information that might come as a bit of a shock to some people: by the looks of it, Fukushima's recent power failure was caused by a rat. Inhabitat reports that, following investigations carried out by trained staff, the charred remains of one such rodent were found inside one of the plant's switchboards.
Because of this, specialists working with Tepco speculate that the power failure came as a direct result of the rat's chewing on some cables and causing a short circuit to take place.
The same source informs us that, in the aftermath of this incident, Tepco was forced to admit that it had not taken any measures to prevent wildlife from interfering with the nuclear plant's systems.
Hopefully, this incident will force them into paying closer attention to any potential threats that might disturb the plant's stability.
For the time being, the only good news is that Tepco is expected to have the plant fitted with a new switchboard by the end of the month.