A baffling mystery surrounds Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant as experts report the concrete foundation beneath Reactor No. 1 has completely vanished, leaving only exposed steel bars behind
A baffling new mystery has emerged at Japan’s stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant as experts revealed something is “eating” away at the metal foundations of Reactor No. 1.
Boffins are reportedly struggling to explain severe damage to the support pedestal inside the reactor, and shocking images taken by robotic probes in 2022 reveal that the concrete foundation beneath the crippled reactor has completely vanished.
Only exposed steel reinforcing bars holding up the core have been left. The cause of this strange destruction reportedly remains unknown.
“Such a result was never considered in dealing with accidents or reactor design,” according to members of the Nuclear Regulation Authority panel investigating the disaster.
Radiation levels are so dangerously high that human inspection is impossible. This has forced scientists to rely on remote cameras and robots to piece together what happened after the 2011 tsunami devastated the site.
Typically, a reactor meltdown would destroy both concrete and steel at extreme temperatures, The Asahi Shimbun reported. Nevertheless, in this case, the concrete alone has disappeared, with no trace found at the base.
Experts suspect a one-metre-high metal plate inside the core may have influenced the way heat and pressure were distributed, possibly causing the concrete to break down into powder and be washed away by cooling water.
However, as one investigator noted, without direct access to the core, “there can be no confirmation of that hypothesis,” leaving the true cause of the damage a troubling enigma.
On March 11, 2011, the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan suffered a catastrophic accident triggered by the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, leading to a major release of radioactive material.
While the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation found no documented adverse health effects directly attributable to radiation among Fukushima residents, the disaster resulted in at least 164,000 people being permanently or temporarily displaced, causing at least 51 deaths due to evacuation and related stress.
As of 10 years later, over 41,000 people remained evacuees.
The clean-up and compensation costs were estimated at 20 trillion yen (£140 billion), and the incident is considered the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.
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