The government and Tokyo Electric Power Co. have been struggling for three weeks to end the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear crisis but are being stymied by the need to remove massive amounts of highly radioactive water.
The highest priority is to extract the contaminated water in the flooded basements of some of the reactor turbine buildings, whose electric systems must be checked in order to cool fuel rods inside the reactors and spent fuel pools.
But little progress appears to have been made in the last few days, with Tepco continuing to transfer contaminated water from tank to tank to store it.