Japanese Run Power Cable Into One Reactor
BBC News reports:
Engineers at Japan's stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant have managed to lay a cable to reactor 2, the UN's nuclear watchdog reports.
Restoring power should enable engineers to restart the pumps which send coolant over the reactor.
Workers at Fukushima have been battling to prevent fuel in the reactors from overheating since Friday's magnitude 9.0 quake and subsequent tsunami.
The confirmed death toll from the disaster has risen above 5,600.
More than 9,500 people are missing and tens of thousands of people are living in temporary shelters.
US President Barack Obama has said he is confident the "strong, resilient" people of Japan will recover from the crisis and that the country will emerge stronger than before.
The atomic crisis was triggered when the power supply to Fukushima was damaged by the natural disaster and back-up generators failed.
The Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), which runs the plant, has been attempting to connect it to the main grid via a 1-km (0.6-mile) electricity cable.
Once power is restored, engineers should be able to re-activate the pumps which send coolant through the reactors and the pools where spent fuel rods are stored.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said the cable had reached the site by 1730 local time (0830 GMT) on Thursday, and that engineers planned to reconnect power to the reactor once workers have finished spraying seawater over reactor 3.
Tepco warned the process of reconnecting power could take up to 15 hours.
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