Читать книгу Meltdown - Yoichi Funabashi - Страница 20

7:50 P.M. NISA received an almost panicked call from TEPCO, “Aren’t the power trucks ready yet? They still haven’t arrived.”³⁸

How were they going to get the necessary power trucks together and restore the lost AC power? Kan was constantly on his mobile phone to someone. Keisuke Sadamori, a prime ministerial executive assistant originally from METI, was also glued to his mobile phone, trying to locate power trucks. Every time he reported to Kan how many trucks there were from which locations, Kan himself jotted it down on the whiteboard.³⁹

The parliamentary members and secretariat officials at the Kantei were becoming increasingly frustrated with Akio Komori, TEPCO managing director. Komori was at the Kantei, but could not access accurate data from TEPCO onsite. Kan and Edano both voiced their lack of confidence in TEPCO.

“Why isn’t the company president here? What’s the president up to, for goodness sake?”

TEPCO President Masataka Shimizu was in Kansai that day. Kan and Edano were informed a little while later that “it doesn’t seem possible today” for Shimizu to return to Tokyo.⁴⁰

The roads were damaged and impassable in places. There was no assurance that they could get through. So, they were asking for as many power trucks as possible. But how were they to be transported? What route should they take?

“Can’t the power trucks be flown in by helicopter?”

Kan was the first to ask the question.

“Ask the SDF. If they can’t do it, how about the U.S. Forces?”

AFTER 8:00 P.M. The SDF came back with a negative.

“They’re too heavy to put in the helicopter slings.”

The power trucks weighed 9.8 tons. The SDF helicopters could only carry a maximum of 10 tons in their slings. It was not possible to fly a long distance with that kind of payload.

The Western Division of the SDF had tried lifting power trucks by helicopter in their disaster drill with Kyushu Electric Power Company. They had even actually flown them into Amami Oshima when it was hit by torrential rains. They had never carried out any similar exercises with TEPCO, however.

The U.S. Forces response was also “they’re too heavy.” There was no alternative but to transport them by land. A power truck from Mito, Ibaraki Prefecture, was sent in under police escort.⁴¹

At 8:30 p.m., Kan descended once more to the crisis management center. More than a hundred people were working in the ruckus. Taking a microphone in hand, Kan urged them all to “keep in close, appropriate, and steady contact,” then hunkered down in the small room on the mezzanine floor.

Edano, Kaieda, Fukuyama, Hosono, Terada, Madarame, Terasaka, and Takekuro were all there.⁴² Hosono and Terada were discussing the division of roles in the crisis management center hallway.

“Terada, who should be doing what? There’s the power trucks and the evacuation of residents.”

“The secretariat aides are handling the power trucks. I’ve been working with them for a little while, so I’ll handle that. You look after the evacuation.”⁴³

Tereda was 34 and Hosono was 39. Terada, a former employee of Mitsubishi Corporation, was first elected in 2003 at the age of 27. He had served three terms. His father was Sukeshiro Terada, governor of Akita Prefecture. He was from a political family. He had been appointed prime ministerial aide (for national strategy and administrative reform) when the Kan administration was launched in June 2010. Despite being a prime ministerial aide, he had received a desk in the secretariat office and worked from there. He could hear everything the secretaries said. He soon became the first of the parliamentary staff to know what appointments Kan had on any given day.⁴⁴

After working at the Sanwa Research Institute think tank, Hosono was first elected to the Lower House in 2000, at the age of 28. He had served four terms. He was a member of Ryoun-kai, a political faction of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), led by the Lower House member Seiji Maebara (DPJ, Kyoto), but had also been singled out by Ichiro “Backroom Don” Ozawa (DPJ, Iwate), working under him as the party’s deputy secretary-general. He had been appointed only recently, in January of that year, as special adviser to the prime minister.

On that day, the elevators in the Kantei building stopped working. As a result, the physically fit Terada and Hosono ended up acting as the “runners” between the fifth floor and the basement.⁴⁵

SOMETIME AFTER TEN P.M. A report came in that the power trucks sent by Tohoku Electric had arrived at Fukushima Daiichi Station.⁴⁶ On hearing the “power trucks have arrived,” the female staff members in the prime minister’s secretariat office broke into loud applause. Kan thought, “It’s just like scoring a goal at the World Cup.”⁴⁷

A moment later, the bad news came. They learned that the first generator had gone to the offsite center, not to Fukushima Daiichi. Angry voices were raised.

“What on earth’s going on with information management?!”

The power truck in question did not move. The reason given was that they did not know how far it was from the offsite center to Fukushima Daiichi. They heard from the next power truck to arrive that “we can’t get in (to Unit 1).”⁴⁸

Power trucks started arriving from all directions. However, they all immediately ran into a brick wall. They could not connect their cables. They had found a switchboard that had not been flooded, but the cable was not long enough to reach it. Laying the cable itself was also a nightmare. With the power outage, it was pitch-black. There was not a single light. The ground everywhere was cratered with gaping holes. There were no lids on the manholes.⁴⁹ The same words were being shouted on the fifth floor and in the basement.

“The cable! It’s the cable!”

The power truck initiative was switched to the cable.

“Get the SDF to fly a cable in as soon as possible.”

“What? You mean to say the power company doesn’t have a power cable?!”

Someone spat out these words in utter disbelief. There was a wave of heartsick laughter in the room. Madarame also found himself caught up in the laughter, but then suddenly realized, This is even worse than the diesel generators being under water.

The metal-clad switchgear next to the diesel generator must be flooded, too.

The power center must also be under water.

If they’re all under water, each motor will have to be linked up cable by cable. We’ll need an endless supply of cables. ⁵⁰

If the power trucks were 6,900 kilowatts and the motors 460 kilowatts, they needed to have a transformer to drop the voltage. And they would need a transformer for each of the three different voltages of the metal-clad switchgear, the power center, and the motor control center. Without the transformers, the motors would not run. This was what had just dawned on Madarame.

It was also no good taking in any old cable. There were different types for high and low voltages. They each had to have the right dedicated terminals. It was not just a question of taking cables in and linking them up.

“Find us some cables we can link up!”⁵¹

Once again, angry bellows rent the air. Kan was losing his patience.

“The batteries will last eight hours. After eight hours, the water level will start to fall.”

“Will it go into meltdown?”

“The reactor core will be exposed. So, getting a source of power is the most urgent concern.”

“This is going to be just like Chernobyl. This is going to be just like Chernobyl.”

That night, Kan repeated these words over and over.⁵²

Takekuro complained in the videoconference with TEPCO Head Office, “Do you know the term ‘FrusKan’ [a frustrated Prime Minister Kan]? In any event, he gets mad a lot. I’ve been told off six or seven times. Whenever you explain anything to him, he comes back, all guns blazing, with ‘What grounds do you have for that? Can you say that, no matter what happens, things will be all right?’ ”⁵³

9:55 P.M. TEPCO announced in a press conference that “the operating status of No. 2 Reactor is unknown and we are unable to ascertain the water level in the reactor core.”⁵⁴

Left as it was, pressure would continue to mount in the reactor core. The power trucks kept arriving at the site. However, the switchboard power supply was submerged and could not be used. With a last entry of “22:37: two power trucks arrive from the SDF, but connection with Daiichi Unit 1 or 2 unconfirmed,” the power trucks disappeared from the NSC office whiteboard. They had spent all evening arranging for the power trucks and cables. More than sixty power trucks had been procured. But even if they were sent to the site, the all-important switchboard was out of action.

What on earth had been the point of the power truck initiative? What had been the point of the cable maneuver? Eiji Hiraoka, NISA’s deputy director general, remembers his blood running cold when he learned of this.

“The external power supply has been cut. The emergency backup diesel generator has been flooded with water. The battery room is out and there’s no direct current. No wonder they can’t read the instrumentation.”

Fukuyama felt his whole body was sapped of power.

“Even though I got them thirty power trucks, they can’t hook up the power? All thirty are useless? All thirty in vain?”⁵⁵