ON a lighter note for you Japan flyers:

Fuel rod fragments at bottom of vessels
No meltdown risk if cooling efforts continue

Melted fuel rod fragments have sunk to the bottoms of three reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant and could theoretically burn through the pressure vessels if emergency water-pumping operations are seriously disrupted, the Atomic Energy Society of Japan said Friday.

If too many of the melted fuel fragments puddle at the bottom, they can generate enough concentrated heat to bore a hole in the pressure vessel, which would result in a massive radioactive release to the environment..

"It will take at least two or three months ... until the situation of fuel rods is stabilized" said Takashi Sawada, vice chairman of the nuclear body.

The fuel rods are being cooled by tons of water that is being manually injected into the reactors and their spent-fuel pools by truck. But if those operations are interrupted for two or three days by an aftershock or other unforeseen event, the reactors' cores will again be at risk of melting down further, he said.