Kyodo News: 'Renewed Nuclear Chain Reaction Feared' at one of the reactors at Fukushima

Just awful. Japan is still shaking - 15 earthquakes of magnitude 5.0 or higher hit stricken area off Honshu in the last 24 hours. And here is a status update on the reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant from Japan's Kyodo News:

-- Reactor No. 1 - Operation suspended after quake, cooling failure, partial melting of core, vapor vented, building housing reactor damaged March 12 by hydrogen explosion, roof blown off, seawater being pumped in.

-- Reactor No. 2 - Operation suspended after quake, cooling failure, seawater being pumped in, fuel rods fully exposed temporarily, vapor vented, building housing reactor damaged Monday by blast at reactor No. 3, blast sound heard near suppression chamber of containment vessel on Tuesday, damage to containment structure feared.

-- Reactor No. 3 - Operation suspended after quake, cooling failure, partial melting of core feared, vapor vented, seawater being pumped in, building housing reactor badly damaged Monday by hydrogen explosion, high-level radiation measured nearby on Tuesday, plume of smoke observed Wednesday and presumed to have come from spent-fuel storage pool, seawater dumped over pool by helicopter on Thursday, water sprayed at it from ground on Thursday and Friday.

-- Reactor No. 4 - Under maintenance when quake struck, no fuel rods in reactor core, temperature in spent-fuel storage pool reached 84 C on Monday, fire Tuesday possibly caused by hydrogen explosion at pool holding spent fuel rods, fire observed Wednesday at building housing reactor, pool water level feared receding, renewed nuclear chain reaction feared, only frame remains of reactor building roof.

-- Reactors No. 5, 6 - Under maintenance when quake struck, some fuel rods left in reactor cores, water temperatures in spent-fuel storage pools increased to about 64 C on Thursday.

-- Spent-fuel storage pools - Cooling functions lost at reactors No. 1 to 4, water temperatures or levels unobservable at reactors No. 1 to 4, no immediate threat to water level at common spent fuel pool.

H/t, The Brad Blog, where Brad Friedman interviewed BBC journalist Greg Palast on KPFK/Pacifica yesterday.

Earlier this week, Palast, formerly a government investigator of corrupt nuclear power companies, wrote at Truthout about the Obama administration's support of plans for TEPCO --- yes, the same TEPCO --- to build two new nuclear reactors on the Gulf Coast of Texas. What could possibly go wrong?