Japan: 'There is a crack at the base of reactor 1 of the Fukushima plant'

TEPCO, the power company that owns the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant, site of the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 2011, told a meeting of Japan's Nuclear Regulator today that a hole in the part is very likely. bottom of the reactor of unit 1 of the plant. This was reported by the Japanese public television NHK. Experts believe the hole was produced by the heat from the molten nuclear fuel debris. Late last month, TEPCO placed a robot inside the containment walls of Unit 1 and photographed the situation directly under the reactor for the first time since the accident. From these images a dark area emerges which, according to the analyses, is in all probability a hole. Furthermore, the footage confirmed that the cooling water in the reactor falls violently just below the central part of the reactor bottom. Immediately after the tsunami hit Unit 1, it became impossible to cool the nuclear fuel, and most of it was assumed to have melted down in a short period of time and breached the bottom of the reactor. TEPCO reserved the right to conduct more detailed analyses.