Here are some of the first images at the runied Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that rendered it useless.
Recently, decommissioning work which began at the plant suffered a setback after its shape-changing robot stalled, hours into its mission to search for melted fuel. The mission had to be abandoned. The “transformer” robot, which can alter its shape depending on its surroundings, was sent in to photograph the inside of the reactor containment vessel and record temperatures and radiation levels.
Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO), the plant’s operator said that the robot stopped moving last Friday during its first inspection of the containment vessel inside reactor No 1. However, in a glimmer of hope, the stranded robot collected data that indicates a path exists to send other robots deeper into the reactor.
Reactor no 1 was one of the three reactors that suffered a meltdown after the plant was struck by an Earthquake and a Tsunami in March 2011. TEPCO said on Monday that it would cut the cables to the stranded robot and postpone a similar inspection using a separate device. They also admitted that the technology for the robots to actually retrieve the nuclear fuel hasn’t been developed yet.
Here's the video footage taken by the robot inside the reactor: