U.N. Nuclear Experts to Revisit Fukushima

U.N.nuclear experts will visit Japan again next week to review government efforts to shut down the devastated Fukushima nuclear plant and prevent further worrying leaks, the IAEA said Tuesday. “An IAEA expert team will visit Japan this month at the request of the Japanese government to review the efforts and plans to decommission TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station,” the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement.

Tokyo has drawn up a long-term roadmap toward decommissioning the Fukushima plant, which was the world’s worst nuclear disaster in a generation when it went into meltdown after being hit by an earthquake and tsunami in March 2011. During next week’s visit, the IAEA experts will meet with officials in Tokyo and go to the Fukushima site. (Japantoday.com)

Operators begin hazardous fuel removal process at Fukushima nuclear plant
Operators of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan have started the dangerous task of removing fuel rods from a damaged reactor, the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) said Monday. The procedure is considered a milestone in the estimated $50 billion cleanup operation more than two years after a massive earthquake and tsunami brought disaster to the facility. When the tsunami swamped the plant, located 149 miles (240 kilometers) north of Tokyo on Japan’s eastern seaboard in March 2011, it cut the power to vital cooling systems for the three reactors in use at the time. This resulted in the second-worst nuclear accident in history-after Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union in 1986-as the reactors melted down and leaked radioactive material into the atmosphere.

Ongoing leaks

Scientists who monitor radiation levels offshore have pointed to evidence of an ongoing leak for more than a year..(CNN.com)