Fuel removal from the Unit 4 Spent Fuel Pool at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station was completed on 22 December, according to a?news release?provided to the IAEA by Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority on 24 December. This marks a major step towards the decommissioning of the plant.
Removal of the 1,535 fuel assemblies including the 1,331 spent fuel and the other unused fuel from Unit 4 began in November 2013 after extensive work to stabilize the heavily damaged building. The spent fuel assemblies have been moved from a spent fuel pool that is suspended four stories high to a pool in a separate building at ground level. The unused fuel was removed and transported to a pool in Unit 6, one of two reactor buildings at the facility that was not damaged during the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.