The company doesn't know when the water treatment system can be re-started, as the repair work needs to be done in a very high radiation environment (100 to 150 millisieverts/hour) and each worker can remain there only for 1 to 2 minutes.
Who could have known? (Any comment from AREVA engineers?)
Well, this could be a lesson for the Japanese government who wants to push the so-called "stress test" on all nuclear power plants in Japan, assuming big earthquakes and tsunami. The pipe joints failed in three different ways: plastic cracked, cast iron corroded, and plastic broke off. If the government thinks the next nuclear disaster will happen the same way as the Fukushima accident, they may be very, very wrong.
Just when I thought, "Maybe Murphy is taking a summer vacation away from Fukushima..."
From TEPCO's handout for the press on July 14 in English:
