Japan nuclear crisis: Fukushima shutdown for January
Baku, May 17 (AZERTAC). Japan still believes it can end its nuclear crisis within months, while accepting damage from March`s quake and tsunami was worse than first thought.
The government and the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant recently revealed the No 1 reactor suffered a near complete meltdown within hours of the disaster.
But they still believe a "cold shutdown" is possible by January.
The crisis forced 80,000 people who lived within 20km of the plant to flee.
In recent days the plant`s operator has revealed that the damage sustained by the reactors immediately after the magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami was far more severe than initially thought.
Officials from the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) say fuel rods at the plant began to melt down as early as six hours after the 11 March tsunami knocked out vital cooling systems.
Within 16 hours most of the fuel in reactor 1 had melted to the floor of the pressurised chamber housing the reactor, creating a hole that allowed 3,000 tonnes of contaminated water to leak into the basement of the building.
Officials said the fuel in reactors number 2 and 3 was also exposed to the air and might have largely melted too.
The plant is located in the Tokai region near a tectonic faultline just 200km from Tokyo, and Prime Minister Naoto Kan called for its closure in light of the catastrophic events at the Fukushima plant.
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