As the crisis worsens at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco) has at last started to be open to assistance from foreign countries. Discussions on bilateral cooperation with Russia's nuclear industry turned positive, it was reported last week. Tepco was also reportedly engaged in talks with retired U.S. government officials who handled the accident at Three Mile Island in 1979.
These are all positive signs that help may be on the way that will enable the nuclear crisis in Fukushima to be managed more effectively. That may offer some relief, since Tepco officials have so far exhibited little inclination to cooperate with foreign specialists in the effort to halt the leakage of radioactive water that is now plaguing the crippled plant. With the severity of the crisis upgraded from level one to level three on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale of eight, Tepco should accept all the help it can get.
With one "fix" after the next failing, Tepco — and by extension Japan — is finally being forced to turn to technology from overseas. That may put a crimp in the government's plan to promote sales of nuclear power plant technology to other countries, but many of the technologies developed by Russia after the Chernobyl explosion in 1986, to take one example, will be needed to solve the current problems.