Ok, it’s not the New York Times, it’s RT – but since the US media has moved on from reporting this slow-moving story, (Audiences want bodies, blood and drama, dammit) we have to go with what we have.
In an interview here, (cut to the chase at about 3:00) Dr Robert Jacobs of the Hiroshima Peace Institute says the following:
This began as speculation among those of us watching the webcam… Just tonight there was an announcement from the Japanese government that work has began to shore up the building from collapsing. The Building contains fuel rods from 3 to 4 reactors in there… If the building were to collapse you would have all the fuel rods from the spent fuel pool scattered around on the ground and the radiation levels would shoot up so high that it would make it very hard for workers to do any work in the area. The flow of information has been limited to control public perception of the disaster.
A tiny snip of corroborating info comes from The Mainichi Daily News:
The reactor building of the No. 4 reactor was destroyed by explosions. TEPCO is to set up a structure to support the pool from underneath to keep it sound.
The report contains additional information about high radiation levels beyond the evacuation zone for the plants.
What pisses me off is that Russia itself doesn’t show any intention to reconsider its own nuclear programme.
Even China published a suspension of its nuclear plans.