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Robots Sent Into Explore Fukushima Have Died

Robots sent into detect radioactive fuel at Fukushima’s nuclear reactors have “died” – as the Japanese robots failed to survive the harsh climate around the reactors.  Authorities sent in the robots in order to figure out how to build a subterranean “ice wall” around the plant in order to stop groundwater from being contaminated by the radiation leak. Newsweek.com reports: Five years ago, one of the worst earthquakes in history triggered a 10-meter high tsunami that crashed into the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station causing multiple meltdowns. Nearly 19,000 people were killed or left missing and 160,000 lost their homes and livelihoods. Today, the radiation at the Fukushima plant is still so powerful it has proven impossible to get into its bowels to find and remove the extremely dangerous blobs of melted fuel rods. The plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco), has made some progress, such as removing hundreds of spent fuel rods in one damaged building. But the technology needed to establish the location of the melted fuel rods in the other three reactors at the plant has not been developed. “It is extremely difficult to access the inside of the nuclear plant,” Naohiro Masuda, Tepco’s head of decommissioning said [...]