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Germany offers Japan robots for nuclear clean-up

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BERLIN | Wed Mar 30, 2011 2:12pm EDT

BERLIN (Reuters) - Japan has been offered German remote-controlled robots to help clean up and repair damage at its Fukushima nuclear reactors, which are leaking radiation after being hit by an earthquake and tsunami.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has offered Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan "to make available special radio-controlled equipment from Germany that can be used for cleanup and repairs of reactors," her spokesman Steffen Seibert said in a statement.

Japan was considering the offer, the statement said on Wednesday. A government spokesman could not immediately verify which devices could be sent.

Operators are struggling to regain control of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi reactors, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo, where radiation continues to leak and health dangers may rise as radioactive elements increasingly surface outside the buildings.

It could take weeks or months of work under extremely dangerous conditions to re-start the cooling systems vital to control the reactors and avert a disastrous total meltdown.

The United States has already agreed to send some radiation-detecting robots to help explore the reactor cores and spent fuel pools at the stricken nuclear complex.
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Comments (5)
jburt56 wrote:
One possibility is an international robotics “hack-a-thon”. Start with the bots we have now and then have robotics engineers do modifications on the fly to suit requirements at Fukushima. Maybe setup at Tokyo Institute of Technology’s labs as a base. . .

Mar 30, 2011 4:06pm EDT  --  Report as abuse
SkinnyCat wrote:
What’s there to consider, Kan? Get the robots and start working on it!

Mar 30, 2011 4:09pm EDT  --  Report as abuse
uzanabria1 wrote:
Let’s help Japan Mr. President.
Japan needs our help now.
In Lybia, we do not know who we are helping.
It could very well be that we are helping our enemies in Lybia.
On the other hand, we know Japan is our friend and they need all of our resources now.

Mar 30, 2011 4:14pm EDT  --  Report as abuse
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