Gundersen: “Nuclear core has disintegrated” at Fukushima Unit 3 — Japan Energy Expert: Location of melted fuel for 3 reactors is unknown, this has never happened anywhere before (VIDEO)

Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan, Feb. 21, 2014 (at 39:30 in) — Question: What is your assessment of what is going on right now inside the cores of the nuclear reactors? […] Give us your analysis of what the situation of the nuclear core is now. — Hisayo Takada, energy expert at Greenpeace Japan:  Nobody knows, we cannot go into that to look at what it looks like. So that’s the magnitude of this disaster, it is a triple meltdown. Any people never experienced this kind of nuclear disaster and it is still going on.

Jan van de Putte, radiation safety expert at Greenpeace, Feb. 21, 2014 (at 43:00 in): We have […] very little information of the actual situation of the fuel […] exactly where it is, in what state it is, and in what location it is.

Arnie Gundersen interview on Radio New Zealand, Jan. 26, 2014 (at 7:30 in): The worst problem is at the bottom of [Fukushima] Unit 3, the water is much more radioactive than where this leak was. So what that tells me is that the nuclear core has disintegrated and it’s basically a powder. Almost like one of those glass balls you shake up and it makes snow. [...] That bodes very poorly for nuclear decommissioning.

Full Gundersen interview here — Watch the FCCJ press conference here

See also: Gundersen analyzes new leaks at Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3

And: US Nuclear Officials: Fuel fragments were likely ejected from cladding at the 3 Fukushima reactors -- Particles of fuel resemble highly radioactive 'mystery black substance' often seen in Japan since 3/11 (PHOTOS)