Possible new fission found at Japan's wrecked nuclear plant | World | Reuters

Possible new fission found at Japan's wrecked nuclear plant | World | Reuters:

 "Possible new "fission" found at Japan's wrecked nuclear plant"

"It can be assumed that isolated criticality took place for a short period of time judging from the presence of xenon," Tepco spokesman Junichi Matsumoto told reporters.

Criticality is a state when controlled nuclear reactions take place and nuclear power plants harness the resulting heat to produce electricity.

The amount of detected xenon was small and the nuclear fuel in the No 2 reactor is unlikely to have melted down again, Tepco said. The fuel in the No 2 reactor, along with two other reactors, had melted down early in the crisis after the tsunami knocked out the plant's cooling system triggering the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl 25 years ago.

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