Oops - TEPCO should check its cables

November 28, 2013

Workers accidentally drop camera inside Fukushima No. 3 unit pool

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2013/11/258955.html

FUKUSHIMA, Japan, Nov. 28, Kyodo

Workers at the disaster-struck Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on Thursday accidentally dropped an underwater camera inside the No. 3 unit spent fuel pool, but it is unlikely to have damaged nuclear fuel there, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said.

In the unit where the reactor core melted and the reactor building was severely damaged by a hydrogen explosion in the March 2011 crisis, TEPCO has been cleaning the upper floor to prepare for spent fuel removal. Workers were preparing to remove rubble in the pool when the camera was dropped, it said.

The monitoring camera, weighing about 5.5 kilograms and remotely controlled, dropped shortly after 11 a.m. when the cable suspending it from a crane snapped, and a safety device also did not work, TEPCO said.