WASHINGTON — Trying to reassure a worried nation, President Barack Obama declared Thursday that “harmful levels” of radiation from the Japanese nuclear disaster are not expected to reach the U.S., even as other officials conceded it could take weeks to bring the crippled nuclear complex under control.
The situation remains dangerous and complicated at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi reactors in northeastern Japan, U.S. officials said.
“We’ve seen an earthquake and tsunami render an unimaginable toll of death and destruction on one of our closest friends and allies in the world,” Obama said at the White House after a visit to the Japanese Embassy to offer his condolences.
Obama said he had asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to conduct a “comprehensive review” of the safety of all U.S. nuclear plants.
“When we see a crisis like the one in Japan, we have a responsibility to learn from this event and to draw from those lessons to ensure the safety and security of our people,” Obama said.
There are 104 nuclear reactors in the United States, providing roughly 20 percent of the nation’s electricity.
“Nuclear energy is an important part of our own energy future,” Obama said.
A leading industry group agreed with the review.
“A review of our nuclear plants is an appropriate step after an event of this scale and we expect that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will conduct its own assessment,” said Marvin Fertel, president of the Nuclear Energy Institute.
Adm. Robert Willard, the top officer overseeing U.S. military assistance to Japan, said he has provided Japan with a “long list” of areas in which the U.S. military can help. Willard said he is cautiously optimistic that Japan will avert a a full meltdown of its crippled reactors.
Obama said he knows that Americans are worried about potential risks from airborne radiation that could drift across the Pacific.
“So I want to be very clear,” he said. “We do not expect harmful levels of radiation to reach the United States, whether it’s the West Coast, Hawaii, Alaska or U.S. territories.”
Work may take weeks
Gregory Jaczko, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, told reporters at a White House briefing it could be some time before the crisis is brought under control as crews work to cool spent fuel rods and get the damaged Japanese reactors under control. The activity could continue for days and “possibly weeks,” Jaczko said.
As the officials spoke, Japanese emergency workers sought to regain control of the dangerously overheated nuclear complex, dousing it with water from police cannons, firetrucks and helicopters to cool nuclear fuel rods that were threatening to release more radiation. The utility that runs the nuclear plant said workers are laying a cable to restore power to the cooling systems. That was expected to take 10 to 15 hours, said nuclear safety agency spokesman Minoru Ohgoda. But the utility is not sure the cooling systems will still function. If they don’t, electricity won’t help.
Early today, Japan’s nuclear safety agency said smoke was rising from a building housing a damaged nuclear reactor. A spokesman said the agency does not know the cause of the smoke rising from Unit 2 at the plant. An explosion occurred in Unit 2 earlier in the week, possibly damaging a chamber next to the reactor core.
A senior official with the United Nations’ nuclear safety agency earlier said there had been “no significant worsening” at the plant but that the situation remained “very serious.”
Graham Andrew told reporters in Vienna that nuclear fuel rods in two reactors were only about half-covered with water and that they were also not completely submerged in a third.
The U.S. Energy Department said it had conducted two separate aerial tests to measure how much radioactive material had been deposited in Japan.
As the crisis worsened, the United States took measures to protect Americans in Japan, sending buses to pick up several hundred U.S. citizens who had been stranded in the quake zone.
The Pentagon said Thursday that it had sent a nine-member team of radiological specialists to Japan from the Colorado-based U.S. Northern Command to advise the Japanese military on responding to nuclear hazards.
Getting the Japanese to accept U.S. detection equipment and technical assistance was a delicate diplomatic maneuver, which some Japanese officials originally resisted. But as it became clear that conditions at the plant were spinning out of control, and with Japanese officials admitting they had little hard evidence about whether there was water in the cooling pools or breaches in the reactor containment structures, they began to accept more help.
Private analysts said the United States was also probably monitoring the reactor crisis with a flotilla of spy satellites that can see small objects on the ground as well as spot the heat from fires.
If the nuclear fuel at the plant is not fully covered with water, rising temperatures will increase the chances of complete meltdowns that would release much larger amounts of radioactive material.
Appeals for more assistance
Meanwhile, supplies of fuel, medicine and other necessities were running short for those evacuated from around the nuclear plant and others who lost their homes. Police said more than 451,000 people were staying in schools and other shelters. Victims and aid workers appealed for more help, as the chances of finding more survivors dwindled.
Noriko Sawaki lives in a battered neighborhood in Sendai that is still without running water and food or gasoline supplies. That, she said, makes life exhausting.
“It’s frustrating because we don’t have a goal, something to strive for. This just keeps on going,” said the 48-year-old.
In the town of Kesennuma, people lined up to get into a supermarket after a delivery of key supplies, such as instant rice packets and diapers. Each person was allowed to buy only 10 items, NHK television reported.
With diapers hard to find in many areas, an NHK program broadcast a how-to session on fashioning a diaper from a plastic shopping bag and a towel.
The Washington Post and The New York Times contributed to this report.
