Japan battles partial nuclear meltdown

A Partial Meltdown at two reactors, not good but hopefully not as bad as it could be.
they have pumped sea water into the containment pits that hold the Nuclear fuel rods, this has destroyed the reactors forever, but it was apparently their only hope of cooling the cores down.


FT.com
Japanese nuclear experts are working to contain a partial meltdown at an earthquake-stricken nuclear power plant north of Tokyo, as fears grow that the death toll from Friday’s massive quake and tsunami could reach the tens of thousands.

Yukio Edano, Japan’s chief government spokesman, said there was a “significant chance” that radioactive fuel rods had partially melted in two reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility, 240km north of the capital.

However, Mr Edano said the radiation levels measured outside the plant, operated by Tokyo Electric Power, did not suggest a major health threat.

“I am trying to be careful with words ... This is not a situation where the whole core suffers a meltdown,” Mr Edano said.

A partial meltdown, experts said, would likely mean that some portion of the reactors’ uranium fuel rods had cracked or warped from overheating, releasing radioactive particles into the reactors’ containment vessels. Some of those particles would have escaped into the air outside when engineers vented steam from the vessels to relieve pressure building up inside.