Quote Originally Posted by josh1980 View Post
Your imagination is pretty close to what they should be doing. My worry is that someone somewhere that doesn't understand the emergency plans are trying to not flood the containment, trying to minimize the amount of water they put in the core, and trying to minimize the amount of steam they release. It's almost like putting a pressure cooker on the stove and trying to let it get as hot as you can with as much water as you can, but try to minimize the release of steam. I get the distinct impression that whomever is making the calls at the top of the Japanese governentment(or the operator), it is purely politically motivated and not in the best interest of the plant. Perhaps they are trying to keep everything inside the reactor vessel and minimize relying on the containment building as the final layer of protection against releasing large amounts of contamination to the environment. I have no solid information to backup my "gut feeling". I'm not completely informed as to why Monday night the fuel was found to again be melting. In my opinion, the only cause for additional core melting would be operator error(but could be due to instrument failures the operators were relying on).
Some of the reports are suggesting damage of the pumps that are responsible for filling the core with seawater, which is why they are struggling to keep the cores filled.

Prayers and best wishes to those in Japan.