Page 33 - Radio Activity News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Much. when the quake hit they were turned off. what those three reactors have, the reason we are talking about them now is because they have spent fuel pools inside them. as far as we can tell, they are just protected by outer containment walls. we've had two fires and an explosion at one of the reactors with spent fuel pool in it. we've had reports of the water level dropping at two other spent fuel pools. these are the spent fuel pools at fukushima. there is trouble there keeping them cool, and there is a danger because of it. at reactor 4, there has been an explosion and there have now been...

Off disaster so far. but he said, if those fuel rods start to melt, it's just a matter of days before there's a significant release of radio activity. >> anne thompson in london, thank you very much, indeed. as we've heard, japan is turning to desperate measures to get the nuclear crisis under control. but experts say the latest efforts are about as effective as shooting a water pistol at a raging fire. itn's paul davis has more. >> reporter: if it looks like a desperate measure, that's because it is. military helicopters dropping thousands of liters of seawater on to the overheating nuclear...

Was failing. this happened at various levels on three reactors now. amazing in the short time, suddenly we have all become versed on the basics of nuclear physics and it isn't good. we hear different reports from experts, sometimes from the same agency that don't add up. the prime minister moved forward to form the creation of a joint taskforce or joint command between the government and the authority that operates those plants. and we heard varying reports as to how serious all this is, what a meltdown would mean with the actual container that the reactors were in, would that melt through and...

Latest updates on this topic from reliable sources.

And so -- but the -- if fuel is damaged the volatile radio activity, which can be boiled off at low temperatures, will already -- a lot of it will already be release flood the atmosphere, the containment. so the issue is how much gets out of the containment? >> the chernobyl disaster of 1986 didn't involve an earthquake, it was an accident. but are there similar anxieties of consequences that, of course, occurred then? >> well, so far the wind seem to be blowing offshore. i think that's why the carrier detected it. i don't think the release would be as large as the release from chernobyl becau...