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Japan nuclear efforts only 'first aid'

Agence France Presse - December 17, 2011

Tokyo – Japanese newspapers Saturday dismissed Tokyo's declaration of a "cold shutdown" at the Fukushima nuclear plant as meaning only "first aid" had been completed, saying a long recovery still lay ahead.

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda on Friday said leaking reactors at the power station on Japan's northeast coast had finally been brought under control, nine months after the atomic crisis began, in what authorities say is a vital step. But major newspapers blasted the government view.

"'The state of cold shutdown' is easy on the ears but the actual state does not allow optimism," the liberal Asahi Shimbun said.

"It is as if a patient came out of a life-or-death condition but remained hospitalised," it said, warning fears remain that problems at the power station could worsen again.

"Molten fuel is still in reactors and its cooling depends on tentatively-built facilities. There is no change to the situation in which the normal cooling systems do not work."

The conservative Yomiuri Shimbun said Noda's declaration meant "nothing more than the first aid measures are over". "The real battle starts from here," it said, noting that melted fuel in the reactors and contaminated water used for cooling still had to be disposed of.

The Nikkei business daily also described efforts so far as "first aid treatment".

"The world has no previous experience of dismantling a nuclear power plant with fuel that has melted this much," it said. "What the world is watching is how Japan will act from here to bring the accident to a final settlement."

The quake-triggered tsunami on March 11 tsunami swamped the reactors' cooling systems, sparking meltdowns, explosions and the release of radioactive material in the world's worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986. Noda himself admitted the recovery was far from over.

Tens of thousands of people were evacuated from their homes in a large area around the plant as it began leaking cancer-causing isotopes in the days after the disaster.

While the natural catastrophe claimed 20,000 lives, the nuclear emergency has recorded no direct casualties. But it has badly dented the reputation of a technology on which Japan previously depended for a third of its electricity.

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