#Fukushima I Nuke Plant: Reactor 2 Core "Did It, or Didn't It" Melt?

Two different narratives (I'm using the word sarcastically) coming from the supposedly the same source.

US Representative Edward Markey says the Reactor 2 at Fukushima I Nuke Plant had the total core meltdown and the "corium" had escaped the Reactor Pressure Vessel.

NRC's Martin Virgilio says NRC doesn't know for sure.

And Reuters' writers are absolutely clueless as to what the hell they are writing, by saying:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A top official from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said on Wednesday it was not clear that Japan's Fukushima No. 2 nuclear reactor has melted through the reactor pressure vessel.

Earlier, Democratic lawmaker Edward Markey told a House of Representatives hearing on the nuclear disaster that the NRC had told him the core had melted through the vessel.

"That's not clear to us, nor is it clear to us that the reactor has penetrated the vessel," said Martin Virgilio, deputy executive director for reactor and preparedness programs at the NRC.

(Reporting by Roberta Rampton and Ayesha Rascoe)

Dear Roberta and Ayesha, "the nuclear reactor" does not melt through "the reactor pressure vessel". That would be an awesome sight, the entire reactor collapsing into the reactor pressure vessel, but sorry, no. It is a molten mess of nuclear fuel pellets and cladding and control rods and whatever inside the pressure vessel that melted, "corium", that may or may not have breached the pressure vessel and dropped inside the containment vessel which surrounds the pressure vessel.

The containment vessel is still housed in the reactor building in the case of the Reactor 2, which for now acts as the final "containment" device.

Got it? Good.

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