Robot death at Fukushima: Bots sent to repair damage at nuclear power plant got their circuits destroyed

On Friday, Japan marked the fifth anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster. Robots sent to repair the site are ‘dying’ – as soon as the robots get close to the damaged reactors, their circuits get destroyed because of the radiation, reported Newsweek. Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco), owner of the power plant, had sent in numerous bots inside the power plant after an earthquake triggered a Tsunami that damaged the Fukushima Daiichi power plant.According to Mirror, the robots were sent in since it was and is impossible for human beings to enter into the core of the pant to remove the fuel rods with the amount of radiation in each of the buildings.These robots, which take close to 2 years to build, are specifically designed to meet the requirements of the plant and can even swim underwater. But soon as they come to close to the reactors to eliminate the fuel rods, the radiation contaminates them, destroys their wiring and renders them useless.[caption id="attachment_2669992" align="alignleft" width="380"]

Representational image. AFP[/caption]Ice wallTepco is building a massive ice wall to keep the groundwater clean and uncontaminated with all the radiation emanating basements of damaged buildings, said the Newsweek report.Keeping the groundwater from getting contaminated ensures the Pacific Ocean doesn’t get polluted. While some of the radiation has permeated into Pacific, the ice wall has significantly reduced the amount.The earthquake and the Tsunami killed 19,000 people, according to Mirror and displaced some 16,000 people – a disaster that will go down as one of the worst.Tepco has been active in cleaning up the plant after the disaster and has managed to bring radiation levels. Parts of the operation are laying piping, dismantling parts, building storage tanks, removing the debris.