Removal of nuclear fuel toughest job in Fukushima clean-up plan

TOKYO－Japan's economy and industry ministry proposed a revision on Monday to its decades-long road map to clean up the radioactive mess at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, which was wrecked by a massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011.

Nearly nine years after the accident, the decommissioning of the plant, where three reactors melted, remains largely uncertain. The revised road map, to be formally approved later this month, lacks details on how the complex should appear at the end but maintains a 30-year to 40-year target to finish the clean-up.

By far the toughest challenge is to remove the 800 tons of nuclear fuel in the three reactors that melted, fell from the cores and hardened at the bottom of their primary containment vessels.