We now know this because TEPCO under intense international scrutiny have admitted it.
NHK - the Japanese TV station reported that:
Tokyo Electric Power Company, the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, says most of the fuel rods in the No.1 reactor had dropped to the bottom of the pressure vessel within 16 hours of the earthquake on March 11th.
The utility revealed its study on the subject on Sunday.
TEPCO said it analyzed the data and calculated a timeline for the developments in the No. 1 reactor on the assumption that the reactor lost its cooling system as soon as it was hit by the tsunami.
The firm said that within about 3 hours after the reactor automatically shut down, the cooling water had evaporated to a level at the top of the rods.
In the next hour and a half, parts of the fuel rods are believed to have begun melting.
***
Almost of all the fuel rods melted and dropped to the bottom of the pressure vessel by 6:50 am on March 12th.
This flatly contradicts what TEPCO had been insisting all along - but confirms what a great many experts had said.
The pro-nuclear lobby were quick to jump on TEPCO's false data and trumpet that all the reactors had shut down 'perfectly' after the quake and that damage to the reactor pressure vessels had not occured.
In fact, all three of the stricken reactors were in meltdown after just 16 hours and some experts now believe that it was the quake itself and not the tsunami which knocked out cooling systems at the plant.
While one might expect pro-nuclear lobbyists to be given free reign to soothe and spin on the BBC - many of us were unprepared for celebrity eco-columnist George Monbiot to jump ship on the basis of this 'good news'
In an article in the Guardian provocatively titled "Why Fukushima made me stop worrying and love nuclear power" he was a suprise supporter of a consensus built on abject lies.
He said;
"A crappy old plant with inadequate safety features was hit by a monster earthquake and a vast tsunami. The electricity supply failed, knocking out the cooling system. The reactors began to explode and melt down. The disaster exposed a familiar legacy of poor design and corner-cutting. Yet, as far as we know, no one has yet received a lethal dose of radiation."
We now know more about the real timeline of events and worse still his delight that no-one died in the accident itsself will surely be tempered by news like this from the Washington Post. just 5 days ago.
"The six-reactor complex on Japan’s northeastern coast continues emitting radiation into the air and water, and Tepco has said that it will not be able to bring the three heavily damaged reactors under control until late this year or early next year.
The radioactive material already spewed by the plant could cause 120 cases of leukemia in Japanese children over the next 10 years, scientists from the National Cancer Institute said at the meeting.
“You can see there might be considerable number of leukemia cases,” said NCI’s Kiyohiko Mabuchi."
Will George Monbiot and others now retract the mis-information they have helped to circulate about the Fukushima disaster?
THEY SHOULD.
Meanwhile wiser heads prevail - the Japanese prime minister has announced that Japan, is dropping plans to double its nuclear power capacity and the construction of 14 new nuclear plants. Instead, Japan will “start from scratch” with its energy policy, by developing wind, solar and biomass energy sources.
Germany too has announed a wholesale abandonment of nuclear. Where will our electricity come from now?
How about the never used word - conservation!
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