Page 2 - Containment Shell News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Chernobyl was a big deal because that was a full-blown meltdown. the russians and soviets, their system in chernobyl wasn't as advanced as the japanese. they had no containment shell around the reactor, the japanese do. the soviets built with graphite and the japanese do not. >> at cher global was an he can motion and fire. the graphite which moderated the core of the he actor actually burned and was thrown thousands of feet into the air. and that spread radioactive material across a wide area in europe. so the containment at chernobyl failed. in the japanese situation at least for now the con...

Wind continues n to go north bu at chernobyl the winds shifted on them in the 8 days. it came down on the people they were evacuating. it could be a significant issue. >> what's the name difference? is it the name difference for containment shell between chernobyl and plant? >> i think the main difference is the capsule around it. we melted the core had major releases at three mile. >> three mile island. >> the reactors go along the left radioactive iodine and the left gasses there are. so at this point if there's a major release they are thinking if they are dealing with

The numbers 5 and 6 appear to be the least troubled. so those, apparently, are stable. the big problems are at reactors 3 and 4. smoke seen rising from number 3. they've evacuated all workers. they're not clear if it's come from the reactor itself, but the fear is, the pressure is rising that steam is coming out. remember, number 3 is the only one that uses plutonium. that is much more toxic than uranium. and the concern is, because the containment shell is damaged that you would have that radioactive material, very dangerous, spewing into the atmosphere. we're also learning that 10 days befor...

The only one that has a combination of uranium and bl plutonium which makes it both hotter and ultimately more dangerous if it releases or melts down and releases everything inside, an explosion there, possible structural tear inside that, as well. but now we come to the big one, the one we're all focused on so much, which is reactor number 4, here we've had an explosion and those repeated fires and the problem, once again, as we've been talking about all along is not this part, this part was shut down when this began. it wasn't operating. let's move inside for a closer look. this is the part ...

Them at this minute. the reactors at fukushima, we're concerned about mainly two of them. the number 2 reactor and number 4 reactor. let's begin with number 2. the pressure there is said to be falling and radiation level rising. that's a sign, experts say, that the containment shell might be breached. on top of that, the fuel rods in number 2 are fully exposed. the pool that stores the rods is boiling. if it boils enough and evaporates, it means more radioactive material will be spewed into the air. on to number 4, this is where that fire continues to burn. they're fighting that fire. the cont...