TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s nuclear safety agency says 70 percent of the nuclear fuel rods in an earthquake-stricken reactor may have been damaged following an explosion.
An agency spokesman, Minoru Ohgoda, said Wednesday that the damage occurred in Unit 1 of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex. The facility has suffered explosions and fires since Friday’s massive quake and tsunami damaged its cooling system.
Ohgoda said that “it’s likely that roughly about 70 percent of the fuel rods may be damaged.”
But he said “we don’t know the nature of the damage, and it could be either melting, or there might be some holes in them.”
