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You have made some very good points, however, Japanese engineers have been snookered by the continual loss of cooling water in several of the reactors.........

the steam was still exchanging heat from the nuclear pile into the secondary torus water reservoir

I'm thinking that with a 9.1 earthquake and a 10 meter tsunami, it is possible that the torus in several of the reactors did shift. In the designs of these types of reactors, the torus is actually "floating" in the basement of the reactor.........When reactor #1 exploded topside, there were 4 workers in the basement who were injured. I'm thinking that they were monitoring the leaks down there........

Anyway, the main problem at these reactors has been the continual loss of cooling water.......

Something else that very few are talking about is the "spent fuel pool" where decades of spent fuel are housed in something similar to a swimming pool (open on top)............in the reactors in trouble right now in Japan, I believe all of them have the spent fuel pools stationed above the reactor. Once they have a loss of water and are exposed to the air, there is the potential for very serious problems............My hope is that the hydrogen venting explosions that occurred at #1 and #3 did not compromise the pools that hold the still radioactive fuel that could possibly catch fire, etc...........

No Chicken Little here, just using Free Republic as it is meant to be used, for information and discussion.........

Japanese engineers have been snookered by the continual loss of cooling water in several of the reactors.........

Judging from the increased pressure within the containment structures, I would say that most, if not all, the loss of cooling liquid was due to evaporation (in essence, the formation of steam). The lack of circulation and cooling has prevented the removal of heat and the continual flow of cooler water over the core, so with the water stagnant, water near the core would heat up to boiling and turn to steam. As it "boiled off", the pressure increased and the liquid level dropped.

Oh, maaaaaaan!!!!!!!

I wasn't aware that there's unaccounted for coolant loss. I am totally chagrinned and bummed out I am apparently so unequivocally WRONG! When dealing with nuclear reactors, valid conclusions are irrelevent if they aren't actually sound.

THREE unexplainable coolant level drops is alarming. It certainly looks like its Apollo 13 time:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2688687/posts