Reactor Core Was Severely Damaged, U.S. Official Says (Published 2011)Reactor Core Was Severely Damaged, U.S. Official Says Japanese firefighters looked for bodies of victims of the earthquake and tsunami in a flooded area of Ishinomaki on Friday.Credit...Yasuyoshi Chiba/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images WASHINGTON — Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Friday that roughly 70 percent of the core of one reactor at the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan had suffe
