Although the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami wrecked the Fukushima No. 1 plant in Fukushima Prefecture, the younger Onagawa plant in neighboring in Miyagi was “remarkably undamaged” by the violent temblor and tsunami and safely shut down, experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency said Friday.
Category Archives: News
Mission Accomplished
Woody and members of the IAEA have inspected the Onagawa atomic plant in Miyagi Prefecture, and found it to be “remarkably undamaged.” Due to the limited time available, the experts were only able to perform visual inspection of equipment samples. In doing so, they found no trace of the damage which caused a catastrophic failure …
NHK Video: IAEA
A delegation from the International Atomic Energy Agency has begun inspecting a nuclear power plant in northeastern Japan. The Onagawa plant in Miyagi Prefecture was one of several that were hit by the March 11th earthquake last year. The team’s goal is to collect data on the quake’s impact on the plant’s structure and electric …
IAEA and Experts to Assess Onagawa Plant
The week of July 30th, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and a select group of foreign experts will examine the Onagawa nuclear plant in northeastern Japan. Woody is honored to be a member of this team. For more information and the video, please visit IAEA to assess quake resistance at Onagawa plant by NHK …
Not losing to the rain
With all of the disarray in the nuclear village of Japan, there had to be a story of someone doing something right. I finally found one: Tōhoku Electric Power Company, called Tōho Den, which is located in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, which runs the Onagawa nuclear power plant.
Why did the Onagawa NPP survive the disaster of March 11? It experienced the highest ground shaking of all of the NPP in Japan and also survived a 13m tsunami.
The story begins in 1968 when Hirai Yanosuke joined the costal planning committee for the construction of the Onagawa NPP. Hirai-san was a former VP at Tōho Den and a former head of technology research at the Central Research Institute of the Electric Power Industry. He died in 1986.
Hirai-san was apparently the only person on the entire project to push for the 14.8-meter breakwater. Many of his colleagues said that 12 meters would be sufficient, and they derided Hirai-san’s proposal as excessive. Hirai-san’s authority and drive, however, eventually prevailed, and Tōhoku Electric spent the extra money to build the 14.8m tsunami wall. Some 40 years later, on March 11, 2011, the 13m tsunami struck the coast at Onagawa.