Fukushima Plant's Cooling System Fails—Again

Japanese nuclear regulators say the cooling system has failed for a storage pool for fuel at one of the reactors at the tsunami-damaged nuclear plant in the northeast. There was no immediate danger from the failure, the second at the plant in a month. A spokesman for the Nuclear Regulation Authority says an alarm went off today about the problem at reactor No. 3. The cause is still under investigation.

A spokesman for the plant's operator said the cooling system can be turned off for two weeks before temperatures approach dangerous levels. The Fukushima Dai-ichi plant went into multiple meltdowns after the March 2011 tsunami. The plant is being decommissioned, but continues to have glitches. Last month, a power outage led to a cooling system not working for two days. (Read more Fukushima Daiichi stories.)