Japan Declares Fukushima Stable

The Japanese Prime Minister brings a measure of closure to the accidents at the crippled nuclear power plant.

Written byBob Grant

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A photo of the Fukushima plant taken in 1999WIKIMEDIA COMMONS, KAWAMOTO TAKUO

Nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which was badly damaged by the massive earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan in March, have finally been stabilized, according to the country's Prime Minister, Yoshihiko Noda.

The announcement followed the "cold shutdown" of the breached reactors, which were cooled using seawater. "The nuclear reactors have reached a state of cold shutdown, and therefore we can now confirm that we have come to the end of the accident phase of the actual reactors," Noda told a news conference on Friday, according to BBC News. "We are now moving from trying to stabilize the nuclear reactors to decommissioning them."

Noda went on to promise that the Japanese government would move into this next phase safely while focusing ...

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Meet the Author

Bob Grant
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From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer. Before joining the team, he worked as a reporter at Audubon and earned a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University. In his previous life, he pursued a career in science, getting a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Montana State University and a master’s degree in marine biology from the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Bob edited Reading Frames and other sections of the magazine.
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