The reactor cores won’t melt down completely. They have emergency cooling systems. But this is a major test for the Japanese nuclear engineers. The article doesn’t say where radiation is 1000X above normal in the plant. Most likely, that is not where people are working and workers are probably heavily shielded from radiation. I’m sure thorough consideration was given to earthquakes when they designed these plants, especially considering the plants are in Japan.
In modern plants when the core melts it will melt the steel and concrete around it. When this happens the uranium is no longer as pure and thus the reaction slows down to the point where the mixture hardens. This is all suppose to happen within the containment building and not cause any build up of pressure which could cause an explosion.
I’d hook up firetrucks to the secondary input and pump water since the diesels can’t seem to get started.
http://news.google.com/news/search?aq=f&pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&q=1000+times+control+room
The control room supposedly.
Breaking news situations out of a disaster zone are always full of false reports.
If this is true than they better be talking about moving heaven and earth to get a hold on the situation. This area is densely populated and Japan can’t afford to just abandon in for a few decades while they scrub the fallout.