10 Years After Tsunami, Fukushima Cleanup Just Starting
10 Years After Tsunami, Fukushima Cleanup Just Starting

FUKUSHIMA, JAPAN — It's been ten years since Japan's 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, and Fox News reports that experts say cleaning up the leaking nuclear reactors will take another 30 years and billions of dollars.

Officials believe that the work could cost the government much more than 76 billion dollars.

This work would focus on removing nuclear fuel and about 900 tons of melted fuel debris, while also disposing of contaminated cooling water and dismantling the four reactors.

Japan has already spent 295 billion dollars on the region's recovery.

Details about what's happening inside the reactors are largely unknown because it's still too dangerous for humans to go inside, and robots can only provide a partial view of the melted fuel.

In 2022, workers plan to test a mechanical arm that will retrieve fuel debris at the bottom of the Unit 2 reactor.

1.24 million tons of contaminated water are circulating through the reactors and will soon fill up the hundreds of giant tanks that hold it — and treatment of this water can only remove certain radioactive elements, but it can't remove the toxic tritium in the water.