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### The number of spent radioactive nuclear fuel rods at Fukushima is enough to kill the whole planet.
Rats causing power outage by short-circuiting temporary switchboards as workers install anti-rat nets. Holes in the linings of huge underground tanks leaking radioactive water.
Japan's crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant has run into multiple problems recently that highlight its highly precarious state since its reactors melted down. A makeshift system of pipes, tanks and power cables meant to carry cooling water into the melted reactors and spent fuel pools inside shattered buildings remains highly vulnerable, Nuclear Regulation Authority chairman Shunichi Tanaka acknowledged.
"Fukushima Dai-ichi is still in an extremely unstable condition, there is no mistake about that," Tanaka said.
### It's questionable whether the plant can stay intact through a decommissioning process that could take 40 years as a moderate earthquake could bring down the whole plant.
In the past 3 weeks, there's been at least 8 accidents at the plant. A blackout lasted 30 hours saw storage pools for fuel rods lost cooling during the outage. Tokyo Electric Power Co acknowledged that it had added backup power only to the reactors, despite repeated concerns raised over a pool meltdown.
3 of the plant's 7 underground tanks are leaking radioactive water.
"The contaminated water situation is on the verge of collapse," Tanaka said. But he said there was no choice but to keep adding water, while trying to seek ways to minimize the leaks.
"The nuclear crisis is far from over and there is a limit to what the patchwork operation can do."
Rats causing power outage by short-circuiting temporary switchboards as workers install anti-rat nets. Holes in the linings of huge underground tanks leaking radioactive water.
Japan's crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant has run into multiple problems recently that highlight its highly precarious state since its reactors melted down. A makeshift system of pipes, tanks and power cables meant to carry cooling water into the melted reactors and spent fuel pools inside shattered buildings remains highly vulnerable, Nuclear Regulation Authority chairman Shunichi Tanaka acknowledged.
"Fukushima Dai-ichi is still in an extremely unstable condition, there is no mistake about that," Tanaka said.
### It's questionable whether the plant can stay intact through a decommissioning process that could take 40 years as a moderate earthquake could bring down the whole plant.
In the past 3 weeks, there's been at least 8 accidents at the plant. A blackout lasted 30 hours saw storage pools for fuel rods lost cooling during the outage. Tokyo Electric Power Co acknowledged that it had added backup power only to the reactors, despite repeated concerns raised over a pool meltdown.
3 of the plant's 7 underground tanks are leaking radioactive water.
"The contaminated water situation is on the verge of collapse," Tanaka said. But he said there was no choice but to keep adding water, while trying to seek ways to minimize the leaks.
"The nuclear crisis is far from over and there is a limit to what the patchwork operation can do."