Two further Fukushima reactors at troubled Fukushima plant gone into meltdown

The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has admitted that the reactors' back-up cooling systems failed to function after the March 11th earthquake and tsunami.

Tokyo Electric Power Company on Monday revealed the plant's operation records for the period following the disaster on March 11th. An emergency condenser system at the Number 1 reactor functioned for less than 10 minutes after the earthquake. The failure lasted for 3 hours. The utility suspects that workers manually shut down the system as pressure inside the reactor became so low that they were afraid of damage. Another type of back-up cooling system at the No. 1 and 2 reactors lost power when the tsunami engulfed batteries. Tepco is still analyzing the data to assess the failure's impact on fuel rods.