meltdown

Dr Helen Caldicott says that the Fukushima nuclear disaster has the potential to make Japan “uninhabitable”, yet the mainstream media in Australia continue to ignore the crisis. Managing editor David Donovan reports. Yesterday – the same day Germany announced it would close all its nuclear...

The confirmation of core meltdowns hitting reactors 1 through 3, accompanied by breaches to the critical pressure vessels that hold the nuclear fuel, has led officials to believe that "there will be a major delay to work" to contain the situation, one official said. Tepco, the plant's...

NEW YORK (Kyodo) -- A senior official of the U.S. nuclear regulatory agency said Thursday he had believed there was a "strong likelihood" of serious core damage and core melt in reactors at the Fukushima nuclear plant in the days after the March disaster in Japan. "There were numerous...

New readings show levels of radioisotopes found up to 30 kilometers offshore from the on-going crisis at Fukushima are ten times higher than those measured in the Baltic and Black Seas during Chernobyl. "When it comes to the oceans, says Ken Buesseler, a chemical oceonographer at the Woods...

Fukushima No. 1 eyed as site for nuke fuel graveyard Bloomberg The Atomic Energy Society of Japan is discussing a plan to make the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant a storage site for radioactive waste from the crippled station. Building a repository would cost several trillion yen, Muneo...

The operator of the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan says there might have been partial meltdowns in its No. 2 and 3 reactors from damage after the earthquake and tsunami in March. The latest announcement means all three reactors with active fuel inside the Fukushima plant, north-east...

A meltdown occurred at one of the reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant three and a half hours after its cooling system started malfunctioning, according to the result of a simulation using "severe accident" analyzing software developed by the Idaho National Laboratory. Chris...

WASHINGTON — The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Wednesday that some of the core of a stricken Japanese reactor had probably leaked from its steel pressure vessel into the bottom of the containment structure, implying that the damage was even worse than previously thought. The...

China Syndrome “might just have happened at Fukushima” — Molten fuel may have “melted through everything into the earth. China Syndrome refers to a scenario in which a molten nuclear reactor core could could fission its way through its containment vessel, melt through the basement of the power...

Hiroaki Koide of Kyoto University: "No One Knows How Fukushima Could Be Wound Down" As the Corium May Be Melting Through the Foundation "So says Hiroaki Koide of Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute, in a telephone interview on May 19 with independent video-journalist Tetsuo Jinbo of...

The president of the power company behind Japan's nuclear disaster has stepped down in disgrace after taking responsibility for the crisis. Masataka Shimizi was criticised for his apparent inaction during the early days of the earthquake and tsunami disaster when the Fukushima Daiichi plant...

Tokyo Electric Power Co. has made misleading statements about when it will stabilize its nuclear reactors crippled by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, said Tetsuo Ito, head of the Atomic Energy Research Institute at Kinki University in western Japan. The company, known as Tepco...

So it turns out that there *was* a meltdown around reactor #1. Quite a lot of people suspected this from the visual evidence, but TEPCO and the Japanese government denied, denied, denied. Accusations that those arguing for a meltdown were all internet conspiracy theorists (which also occurred...

The China Syndrome refers to a scenario in which a molten nuclear reactor core could could fission its way through its containment vessel, melt through the basement of the power plant and down into the earth. While a molten reactor core wouldn't burn "all the way through to China" it could enter...

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said fuel in other reactors at its damaged nuclear plant may have melted, after confirming rods in the No. 1 unit had fallen from their assembly, potentially delaying plans to resolve the crisis. “The findings at the No. 1 reactor indicate the likelihood that the...

BEIJING, May 16 (Xinhuanet) --Turning to Japan, where new evacuations have begun beyond the 30-kilometer exclusion zone around the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant. Meanwhile, a giant barge to store radioactive water has been sent to the damaged facility to bolster stabilization efforts...

Reuters) - Japanese officials are readying a new approach to stabilizing a reactor at a nuclear plant crippled by an earthquake and tsunami after discovering a leak from the containment vessel of enough radioactive water to fill an Olympic swimming pool. The discovery has forced officials to...

Visual evidence now confirms what earlier was known: namely, that Tokyo Electric’s (TEPCO) Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station experienced at least one core nuclear meltdown, perhaps much worse than now admitted. An earlier article explained, accessed through the following link: Link...

Plant operator Tepco reveals meltdown and breach of pressure vessel, with Greenpeace warning against pumping water in. Greenpeace has urged Tepco to abandon plans to flood the container with water, given the likelihood that melted fuel had damaged it. Shaun Burnie, nuclear adviser to Greenpeace...