Robots will begin removing sandbags that absorbed radiation-contaminated water at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant, starting as early as next week, the plant operator TEPCO said on Friday.
The sandbags, located in underground sections of two buildings, have remained untouched since the 2011 disaster, which caused the worst nuclear accident since Chornobyl.
Radiation levels on the sandbags’ surface reach 4.4 sieverts per hour, a lethal dose for humans, TEPCO spokesman Tatsuya Matoba told AFP.
Japanese media reports suggest 2,850 sandbags need retrieval, though TEPCO has only confirmed their total weight at 41.5 tonnes (91,500 pounds).
Two specialised robots, including one with a moving claw, were deployed to the underground floors on Wednesday.
Workers will use them to carefully remove the sandbags, with the operation set for completion by the end of the 2027 fiscal year. The sandbags will be stored in radioactive waste containers at a temporary facility outside the buildings.
The Fukushima disaster occurred 14 years ago when a 9.0-magnitude earthquake triggered a tsunami, flooding the plant and causing three of its six reactors to melt down.
While no direct deaths were attributed to the radiation, the catastrophe led to mass evacuations and rendered surrounding areas uninhabitable.
Beyond the contaminated sandbags, around 880 tonnes of highly radioactive debris remain inside the plant.
Removing this material poses the biggest challenge in the site’s decades-long decommissioning project.
A trial removal of nuclear debris began last year.
