OREANDA-NEWS. April 11, 2011. Volga Dnepr Airlines has completed an urgent delivery from Stuttgart, Germany, to Japan of a large pump to help in the cooling of the damaged reactors at the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

The 60-tons of equipment, transported, included a truck-mounted pump produced by German-based Putzmeister, which has a 62-meter boom, enabling it to discharge water over the edge of the reactor buildings and into the buildings from above. The pumps may also be used for any necessary concreting work.

On arrival onboard one of Volga-Dnepr’s AN-124-100 freighters at Tokyo’s Narita Airport, the equipment was transferred to the Tokyo Electric Power Company, which operates the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

In the next few days, Volga-Dnepr Airlines will deliver three more pumps to Fukushima from Stuttgart (Germany), Atlanta and Los Angeles (USA) using An-124 ‘Ruslan’ freighters.

The atomic crisis was prompted by the huge earthquake and tsunami, which claimed the lives of over 12,000 people. It damaged the power supply to Fukushima and back-up generators failed. Since then, there have been a number of explosions in the reactor buildings.

Volga-Dnepr has some 20 years’ experience of providing fast air cargo deliveries of large, outsize shipments and humanitarian supplies to emergency zones all over the world. Last year alone, the airline operated three urgent flights to Haiti and the Dominican Republic carrying helicopters for rescue work after another earthquake. This was followed later by four more flights with helicopters to Pakistan after devastating floods hit the country.