Scale of Fukushima clean-up revealed as decommissioning 'road map' is revised

Japan's decision to revise its "road map" for the decommissioning the Fukushima nuclear plant has raised new questions about the scale of the problems that remain to be overcome.

The decision delays the removal of spent fuel rods stored inside the severely contaminated reactor buildings by as much as three years.

It was announced on Friday, after discussions between the Japanese government and Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco), the operator of the plant, which was destroyed by a tsunami triggered by the March 2011 earthquake.

This marks the second revision of the road map after it was last revised in June 2013. The revised schedule is designed to ensure the safety of workers at the site, the government and Tepco claimed, rather than on completing the decommissioning work as soon as possible.

Nuclear industry analysts insist, however, that delays to the initial timeline were inevitable because engineers at the plant would be trying to solve problems that had never been encountered before.

"It was always felt that they were setting their deadlines too soon and that it would be difficult to keep to the schedule they were setting themselves," a nuclear industry insider said.

"It was more a case of the authorities being forced to set as short a schedule as possible to keep public criticism to a minimum. But that failed to take into account all the problems they were inevitably going to come up against and would affect that schedule.