Fukushima operators send robot into worst-hit melted reactor

By MARI YAMAGUCHI
Associated Press

TOKYO (AP) — A remote-controlled robot is being used to probe the hardest-hit nuclear reactor at Japan’s wrecked Fukushima plant, as officials push forward with clean-up operations that have been mired in delays. The plant’s operator Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings said on Tuesday the submersible robot was sent into Unit 1 to prepare the way for further probes assessing melted fuel within the reactor. Officials say that removal of the highly dangerous melted fuel will take 30-40 years, but critics claims that’s overly optimistic. An earthquake and tsunami in 2011 unleashed a disastrous meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi’s three reactors that partly sunk their radioactive cores into the plant’s concrete foundations, making removal extremely difficult.