Rat and Nuclear Panic in Fukushima

During March 20, a power cut occurred in the tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear power plant which caused city’s power outage. The suspect: a rat.

It is no surprise that the tsunami-devastated Fukushima is still in recovery.  Tepco, the company that owns the nuclear power plants in Fukushima, is currently struggling to stabilize the cooling systems, which shutdown during the incident, causing instability in the reactors.

Luckily, the cooling to reactors themselves was not affected. However the system’s cooling water was infected with radioactivity as the nuclear rods failed to operate, which took engineer 30 hours to repair.

With further investigation, Tepco discovered the short circuit originated in a makeshift switchboard. Next to it, there lays a dead rodent covered in burn marks.

          Afterward, Tepco quickly concluded that the poor rat is the prime suspect of the city’s power outage, and also indicated that this incident reflects the fragility of the power plant after the meltdown 2 years ago. 

Finally, the company announced that the system has been restored, and the reactors are no longer giving off radiation. Nevertheless, the city of Fukushima has gone into a nuclear panic, all caused by this one rodent chewing an electrical wire. 

*Tepco has already released the picture of the scene which I find it unpleasant and decided to replace it with another "more digestible" picture.