Robotic machines inside Fukushima plant report high radioactivity

Readings Monday from robots that entered two crippled buildings at Japan's tsunami-flooded nuclear plant for the first time in more than a month displayed a harsh environment still too radioactive for workers to enter.

Nuclear officials said the radiation data for Unit 1 and Unit 3 at the tsunami-flooded Fukushima Dai-ichi plant - collected by U.S.-made robots that look like drafting lamps on treads - do not alter plans for stabilizing the complex by year's end under a "road map" released by the plant operator Sunday.

With the public growing increasingly frustrated at the slow response to the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crises, parliament grilled Prime Minister Naoto Kan and officials from plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co., WHIO Dayton reports.

Tokyo Electric Power Company's (TEPCO) plan, drawn up at the government's order, is meant to be a first step towards letting some of the tens of thousands of residents evacuated from the area around the company's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant return to their homes.

Pressure has been building on the government and TEPCO to resolve Japan's worst-ever nuclear power accident, the result of the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami that hit on March 11, and Prime Minister Naoto Kan is facing calls for his resignation.

"You should be bowing your head in apology. You clearly have no leadership at all," Masashi Waki, an MP from the opposition Liberal Democratic Party, shouted during an intense grilling of Kan and members of his cabinet in parliament today, according to Central Telegraph.