Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant begins fuel rod removal

Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant begins fuel rod removal 

Tepco has been preparing for months to remove fuel rods at Fukushima

Workers at Japan's stricken Fukushima nuclear plant have begun removing fuel rods from a storage pond at the Unit 4 reactor building.

The delicate operation is seen as a necessary step in stabilising the site.

It will take more than two days to remove the first 22 fuel rods from the pond, plant operator Tepco says. 

Overall, more than 1,500 rods must be be removed in what correspondents describe as a risky and dangerous operation expected to take a year. 

Experts say hydrogen explosions after the earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 have made the current storage facility vulnerable to further tremors. 

The fuel rods are four-metre long tubes containing pellets of uranium fuel, and the fear is that some may have been damaged during the disaster. 

'Important process' 

When the tsunami struck, water knocked out cooling systems to three of Fukushima's reactors, which went into a state of partial meltdown. 

Unit 4 was undergoing maintenance, so all of its fuel rods were being stored. But a build-up of hydrogen - attributed to a meltdown at one of the other reactors - triggered an explosion in Unit 4, damaging its structure. 

The removal of the rods has been preceded by months of repair work and planning. 

Once extracted using a crane, the fuel rods will be deposited into a more secure storage pool with a cooling system. 

"Full-scale removal [from the accident-stricken unit] is a very important process in moving ahead with the plant's decommissioning," Tepco (Tokyo Electric Power Company) spokesman Masayuki Ono was quoted by Kyodo news agency as saying. 

Yoshihide Suga, Japan's top government spokesman, said he hoped the operation would be done properly. 

"We hope that this [process] will be conducted in a manner that will not disturb local residents, and that the removal will be done on schedule, properly and safely," he said.

The Fukushima nuclear power plant has suffered a series of setbacks in recent months, including a series of toxic water leaks and worker errors.