Reply #2: Ya Think? Officials think melted fuel burned a hole in #1 and leakage

[flamingdem]

“Nuclear meltdown at Fukushima” — TEPCO worried fuel burned a hole through bottom of containment vessel
May 12th, 2011 at 10:10 AM


Nuclear meltdown at Fukushima plant, Telegraph, May 12, 2011:

One of the reactors at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi power plant did suffer a nuclear meltdown, Japanese officials admitted for the first time today, describing a pool of molten fuel at the bottom of the reactor’s containment vessel.

<..> Now the company is worried that the molten pool of radioactive fuel may have burned a hole through the bottom of the containment vessel, causing water to leak.

“We will have to revise our plans,” said Junichi Matsumoto, a spokesman for Tepco. “We cannot deny the possibility that a hole in the pressure vessel caused water to leak”.

Tepco has not clarified what other barriers there are to stop radioactive fuel leaking if the steel containment vessel has been breached. Greenpeace said the situation could escalate rapidly if “the lava melts through the vessel”.