An official at Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, admitted Wednesday that fuel of the plant’s No. 1 reactor could be melting.
Describing the possible meltdown, Matsumoto said it can be compared to a state in which molten fuel accumulates like lava.
So what happens if that red-hot nuclear lava melts through the bottom of the containment vessel?
Nobody knows.
And meanwhile, what’s happening at Reactor No. 2?
The core at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear reactor has melted through the reactor pressure vessel, Democratic Congressman Edward Markey told a hearing on the nuclear disaster on Wednesday.
“I have been informed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that the core of Unit Two has gotten so hot that part of it has probably melted through the reactor pressure vessel,” said Markey, a prominent nuclear critic in the House of Representatives.
The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency has reported to a Cabinet Office safety panel that nuclear fuel pellets in the Nos. 1 to 3 reactors at the quake-hit Fukushima power station are believed to have partially melted.
And at No. 4?
Fukushima No. 4
100 tons of plutonium are stored in that beautiful facility!