TOKYO (Reuters) – Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (Tepco) is considering abandoning a plan to start removing nuclear debris from a reactor in its wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant by the end of the year, Kyodo reported on Wednesday.
The plan will be postponed for about a year due to a delay in the development of a robot arm that will be used to remove the debris, the report said citing unnamed sources.
A Tepco spokesperson did not immediately comment on the matter when contacted by Reuters.
A huge tsunami hit the Tepco-operated Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in 2011, causing three reactors to melt down and prompting over 160,000 people to evacuate. The damaged plant is currently being decommissioned.
(Reporting by Sakura Murakami; editing by Jason Neely)
