The Tokyo Electric Power Co. has so far injected cooling water into the pressure vessel, claiming that only a small amount of nuclear fuel melted in Rector No. 1 but its core remained undamaged.

But it was confirmed on May 12 that the meltdown of the core was occurring in the reactor contrary to the assertion of the company side.

As regards this matter, an advisor to the prime minister said at a press conference that he did not imagine all parts of the core would melt down.

TEPCO said that it would take quite a long time to take nuclear fuel out of the reactor now that the core was confirmed to be melting in the reactor, expressing the view that the recovery work would assume protracted nature even after the reactor has been stabilized and cooled.

And the massive leakage of the water injected into the reactor to cool nuclear fuel poses a serious problem.

NHK in a report that there was a lot of water in the basement of the building that houses Reactor No.1 said that TEPCO was of the view that that was the water contaminated by radiation of very high concentration which leaked through the hole in the pressure vessel.

It was confirmed that the level of radiation measured in the area southeast of the building of the reactor reached 2,000 millisieverts per hour at maximum.

At a time when the damage by radiation is expanding, the Tokyo Shimbun on Sunday said that one member of the group engaged in the recovery work died.

Meanwhile, radioactive cesium higher than the legal level was detected on freshwater fish caught in Iwaki City and Kitashiobara Son.

Contaminated fish was also found in waters off Iwaki City.