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.