Tokyo Electric admits fuel could be melting at Fukushima nuke plant  

Kyodo News has a report on the ongoing mess at Fukushima - Tokyo Electric admits fuel could be melting at Fukushima nuke plant.

An official at Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, admitted Wednesday that fuel of the plant's No. 1 reactor could be melting.

Boing Boing has a roundup of other events at the plant - Japan: TEPCO floods containment vessels of 3 reactors at Fukushima No. 1.

In Japan, Tokyo Electric Power Co. workers have begun "the unprecedented and potentially risky measure" of flooding the containment vessels of three troubled Fukushima nuclear reactors with water. The Asahi Shimbun reports that this is the first known attempt ever in the world to saturate an entire containment vessel with water in order to cool the pressure vessels inside, and in turn, cool the reactor cores within.

In related news, TEPCO has released to the public for the first time a map of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant detailing radiation levels throughout the site.

Boing Boing also has a post marking the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster - Chernobyl disaster, 25 year later: commemoration around the world.

It's early morning on April 26 in Kiev, Ukraine, where the Chernobyl nuclear disaster happened exactly a quarter century ago. On this day in 1986, reactor number four at the plant exploded, setting off a catastrophe that still reverberates far beyond the 30-kilometer exclusion zone.

Demonstrations are taking place throughout Europe. In Tokyo, anti-TEPCO protests mark the occasion and its parallel to the still-unfolding disaster at Fukushima. The "liquidators" who were sent in to clean up the radioactive mess at Chernobyl back in 1986 received medals Monday from Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, but controversy still surrounds the health impact of the dangerous work they performed. The so-called "sarcophagus" surrounding the disaster site in Kiev is leaking, and world leaders have pledged "to provide $780 million for the construction of a shelter designed to house the toxic remains for another century." But even if and when that new container is finally in place, the radioactive mess will remain active—and hazardous—for many thousands of years more.

Magnum Photos has a disturbing photo collection lookingat the fallout in the years following Chernobyl in Belarus - Chernobyl's Legacy.