Robot dies from radiation at Fukushima nuclear plant

Robots sent to the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan could not withstand the high levels of radiation that caused the wires to dry out.

A nuclear waste disposal robot made by Toshiba. Photo: Toshiba.

Five years ago, a magnitude 9 earthquake and tsunami struck the northeastern coast of Japan, completely destroying several districts, killing 19,000 people and damaging four reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, causing the worst radioactive contamination disaster in the country, according to Discovery News.

The cleanup at the nuclear power plant was slow. Remote-controlled robots sent to the reactor to remove the melted nuclear fuel rods were dead. Their wires were fried by the high levels of radiation emitted from the reactor.

The deaths of these robots have left Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) in a difficult position as it tries to deal with the disaster and the radioactive material leaking into the water. According to Science Alert, Tepco has only managed to deal with 10% of the radioactive waste caused by the tsunami and the reactor core meltdown.

Robots built by Toshiba removed 1,535 unburned fuel rods from reactor number 4, where the radiation levels were relatively low, allowing the work to proceed easily. Reactor number 3 had much higher radiation levels, exceeding the tolerance of the sensitive electronic equipment and wiring inside the robots.

Tepco can’t bring in new robots to the plant to complete the job because each robot has its own specialty and it would take two years to build them. In fact, engineers can’t create a robot that can operate in such a highly radioactive environment. Tepco says it will restart cleanup work at the nuclear plant in 2021 and complete it in 30 to 40 years.

According to VNE

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