Cracked Crippled Concrete

Tepco workers are scrambling to seal a crack in a containment pit next to the number 2 reactor at Fukushima.  They are said to be using concrete to plug the crack, from which radioactive water is spilling into the ocean, contaiminating it.  The ultimate source of the radioacive water is still not known, but some suspect it may be the reactor itself.

That's the latest news coming from on-site.  Cooling of the reactors is still under control.

Off-site, there was one almighty fuck-up by Tepco management when on March 31st they submitted an application to build two more reactors at the plant.  Their application had been completed before the quake but apparently nobody had thought to pull it out before submitting it.  Needless to say the prefectural government reaction was one of fury, while at the national level the media responded with what could generously be called bemusement.  I would not like to be working with the PR department at Tepco right now.  It's impossible to make predictions about the site, but I would think it almost impossible for at least four of the reactors to ever be used again.  The idea that more reactors should be built there sounds pretty bizarre two week's after the nation's worst nuclear disaster.