Two more Fukushima N-reactors melt down

Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) said fuel rods melted in two more reactors at its Fukushima nuclear plant, indicating for the first time that damage from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami is matching worse-case-scenarios.

Fuel rods in reactors 2 and 3 had almost complete meltdowns, spokesman Junichi Matsumoto told reporters in Tokyo today. That’s in line with US assessments in the early days of the crisis that suggested damage to the station was more severe than Tokyo Electric officials estimated.

The meltdown of the cores is the “greatest at the number 1 reactor, followed by the number 3 unit and then number 2,” Matsumoto said. The analysis of the damage became possible “after data from the central control room was retrieved”.

Japan’s biggest utility, known as Tepco, raised the possibility of more extensive destruction when it announced last week — more than two months after the disaster — that fuel rods in the number 1 reactor had melted within 16 hours of the quake and cooling water was below the base of the rods.