Tokyo Electric Power Co. and the government said Monday they will attempt to remove all 1,533 fuel assemblies in the spent-fuel pool perched atop reactor 4 at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 plant by the end of 2014.
The schedule was moved up by a year amid lingering concerns about the condition of the unit, where hundreds of fuel assemblies had been stored before last year's quake and tsunami triggered three core meltdowns at the Fukushima plant and damaged four of its six reactors.
The upper part of the building housing reactor 4 was severely damaged by a hydrogen explosion caused by the meltdowns, sparking concern the remaining structure might collapse in another big quake and dump the pool and its rods onto the ground.