reactor

NISA has a concise summary of the status of the reactors at Fukushima Daiichi (pdf) Includes temperatures on reactor vessel surface where available. They show reactor 2 as cold and unpressured, the rise in temperature in reactor 1 - so something in there is generating heat at a significant rate, but at least the rector vessel is pressurized; and reactor 3 is a mess, warm core and unpressured.
It will probably be some years before we get the full story of what happened at the Fukushima Daiichi reactor complex after the earthquake. Information has not exactly been put out coherently or comprehensively, but we can make some inferences from the data that is out there. It is likely that one or two reactor vessels were breached with release of fuel and radioactive ash into the containment vessel. There are a lot of nuclear agencies in Japan: the JAEA - Japan Atomic Energy Agency - whose online environmental radiation monitors are now online (Oarai is the interesting one, between…
How about this for misleading tripe from the Grauniad: Yup, according to them the reactor has killed 4277 people. Or at least, that is what it looks like. Of course, you could also argue that they are trying to claim that the reactors have made the Nikkei go up 5.68%, but no-one would believe that. Incidentally, the NYT has some good disaster porn. [Updates: for a non-panic-stricken view of Tokyo, JEB is worth reading. For some quiet discussion of nuclear power, Brian has the good taste to ref me, and to remind us of some discussions from 2005. Meanwhile, the Japanese appear to be reduced to…