Fukushima nuclear power plant suffers outage, fuel pool cooling stops

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said a power failure occurred at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station just before 7 p.m. Monday, leading to the suspension of systems to cool spent fuel pools of the No. 1, 3 and 4 reactor units.

The incident so far has not affected the ongoing water injection to the Nos. 1 to 3 reactors, which suffered core meltdowns in the early days of the March 2011 nuclear crisis, according to the Nuclear Regulation Authority. No major changes have been observed in radioactivity levels detected by nearby monitoring posts.

As of 1:45 a.m., TEPCO has not been able to work out steps to ensure bringing the system back online. The accident response center at the station also suffered outage but power was restored shortly.