Inside Fukushima: Eerie drone footage reveals first ever look at melted nuclear reactor with 880 tonnes of radioactive fuel still inside - 13 years after disaster

Eerie new drone footage has for the first time revealed the extent of the damage to the Fukushima nuclear power plant 13 years on from its meltdown. The plant's operators, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, or TEPCO, released 12 photos from inside the site, which are the first ever images from inside the main structural support called the pedestal in the hardest-hit reactor's primary containment vessel, an area directly under the reactor's core. Officials had long hoped to reach the area to examine the core and melted nuclear fuel which dripped there when the plant's cooling systems were damaged by a massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011. The high-definition color images captured by the drones show brown objects with various shapes and sizes dangling from various locations in the pedestal. Parts of the control-rod drive mechanism, which controls the nuclear chain reaction, and other equipment attached to the core were dislodged by the drones. The Fukushima disaster was one of the world's most devastating nuclear mishaps The plant's operators, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, or TEPCO, released 12 photos from inside the site TEPCO officials said they were unable to tell from the images whether the dangling lumps were melted fuel or melted equipment without obtaining other data such as radiation levels.