Page 19 - Treactor Core News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

How much water is in those pools. if the water level starts to drop and the rods start to overheat.cladding can get to a temperature where it essentially com busts and burns. not like a piece of paper, but a similar result. if that happens, then we're going to end up getting slumping and fuel melting in those pools. they don't have the same kind of containment that the reactor core does. so that's a very dangerous situation. >> you're saying if there is some water that would still happened versus no water at all? >> that had very well happen at the top of the rod. we believe any amount of wate...

Happened? we've seen the pictures of the reactors. what happened since you were here on monday? >> the situation continues to be very dynamic in japan. as we looked at a lot of the available information, we saw greater challenges, i think, with providing cooling to the spent fuel, and so that was a major change that allowed us to come up with the recommendation as we did. >> and the attempts to put what are in there don't seem to have done much? >> i would say right now they're continuing to do that. they're providing cooling to the reactor core. that is really what their focus will have to be...

Expansion of the ring, now 18.6 miles, detecting high levels of radiation, tell us what that means. >> well, it is only going to continue to get worse, that is wise to expand the raid yaws, because reactor core 3 uses a mixed oxide fuel which has plutonium in it and right now the situation is nascent but will get worse if they don't get it under control. martha: what about the disconnect, the u.s. is saying, 50 miles, within 50 miles evacuate and there are suggestions people should leave the country. >> it is probably wise and the situation is nascent and, it is probably wise to get out and i'...

Let's go now to nbc's chief environmental affairs correspondent, anne thompson. authorities in japan have just announced they may be close to restoring power to a stricken reactor, that's reactor number two. what would that mean? >> reporter: what it means, martin, they could get those pumps going again that send that water into the reactor core and into the spent fuel pool, and that would be the best of all possible solutions at this point. they really need to make sure that water circulates and covers both the core and then in the spent fuel pool those rods that they are done with, because i...

>> in a situation like this, what is the danger of overreacting to what has occurred? >> let me put it this way. we have a situation unfolding now that was an accident that was never analyzed. so nobody has had the experience of bringing a full nuclear reactor core out of the reactor, out of containment at unit 4, and placing it in a pool of water 40 feet deep and then losing power for seven days. and now we have a situation where, you know, as if what was not already dramatic in terms of the explosions that are now occurring, we are now about to witness really an unparalleled event where an e...