More than 70 percent of the fuel may have melted in one of the three reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant that suffered meltdowns in the wake of the 2011 nuclear disaster, researchers reported on Sept. 26.
The group, which includes researchers from Nagoya University, concluded that it is highly likely that 70 to 100 percent of the fuel has melted in the No. 2 reactor through inspecting the interior using a fluoroscopic device, which utilizes elementary particles called muons.
It was the second time that researchers successfully scanned the interior of the damaged reactors using a fluoroscopic device since a group led by Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the crippled plant, announced the results of its survey inside the No. 1 reactor in March.
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The survey detected few signs of nuclear fuel remaining in the reactor core, in contrast to the No. 5 reactor, which was not affected by the nuclear disaster, triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.
The researchers released their report at a meeting of the Physical Society of Japan in Osaka on Sept. 26.
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