earthquake. since then, they had four of three of four diesel generators are up and working providing the necessary power so that the coolant is moving and keeping, obviously, the rods cool. so that plant is okay, we re told. everything worked as it should have. and the key now is to see if they can get that other generator back up and running. but that s not really a safety issue so it s an astonishing day here, a 5.le earthquake. the epicenter in the middle of the rolling hills of virginia here, but a small town and nobody injured. and the damage seems to be, for the most part, minor or obviously, if it s your home it s a big deal. i was talking to the mayor, pam harlow a little while ago, towns, states, all over the country, having financial problems and i asked her how worried she was about that and she said we ll have to tally
the nuclear reactor to shutdown the nuclear reactor immediately to stop it from generating electricities and as we know from the fukushima plant in japan, that is not enough. you have need the generators the keep the water going to keep the rods cool, and there is every indication that is the case at the north anna plant, and no tsunami to go with the earthquake and just an earthquake and shut down as it should, and the earthquake was not strong enough as any of the other major power plants up and down the north and middle atlantic states to even have to shut down. so they shutdown the nuclear reactor at lake anna, and we know that the generators are working properly and no danger from that. but this earthquake raises the spectrum of what happens when there is an earthquake on the east coast where i have pointed out before that we have ten
three of four diesel generators are up and working so that the coolant is working and keeping the rods cool. that plant is okay, and the key now is to see if they can get that other generator back up and running. 5.8 earthquake. this is the epicenter, this beautiful dr the rolling hills of virginia here, but a small town. the damage seems minor, but obviously if it s your own home, it s a big deal. i was talking to pam harlo, towns, counties, states all over the country having financial problems. i asked her how worried she was, and she said we would have to
i want to draw people s attention to these incredible pictures. yeah. harris: this person who got in beyond that barrier, that is a lot of earthquake damage. and then you have a tsunami move in. you say that things could go at any moment. what do you mean by that? right. here in this footage you see this is still a ghost town. no one s there which is one of the reasons the authorities have now mandated that no one can go in within 12 miles of the zone, in part to prevent theft. but also because of the steady radiation damage. you have to understand that there are three reactors there, plus approximately seven fuel ponds jammed with spent fuel. and all of those have major coolant problems. they re not able to keep the rods cool, and that s why they keep pumping water in. the water leaks, they have a radiation water problem. but these facilities have been subjected to stresses that no plant was ever designed to withstand. another aftershock or even the pumping of the water into these
[ audio interruption ] around the plant. the plant is not entirely sure where exactly the leak is coming from, whether it s coming from the cooling system or coming from within that. because the workers can only go in at 15 minutes at a time, it makes at it slow protest. we hear from the petco officials, that is the utility company managing the plant, saying that the radioactive substances are in reactor water at all four of the troubled reactor plants now. suggesting that fuel rods have been either exposed or damaged. they have to contain that. at the moment, they deal with the cooling crisis and they have to keep rods cool. that is a difficult job. they were using sea water and that s causing corossive effect on the fa facility and now using fresh water to contain the situation. the u.s. watchdog, atomic watchdog says it will be months before the crisis is solved. shannon: dominic, live for us from japan. thank you very much. in libya now.