Fukushima Daiichi could be a forsaken deal -- are Japanese authorities in denial, especially at TEPCO?

Wednesday night (US) on Nightline (jump to 14:44), Michio Kaku declared that the actions of TEPCO (dropping water from helicopters and shooting water from fire trucks) amounted to a "squirt gun trying to put out a forest fire; too little, too late."  He suggests instead of dumping water, go for the end-game tactic and use concrete to create a sarcophagus to seal it.  (The longer they wait, the higher the risk they lose all containment and the nuclear rods melt and seep out of the containment facility.)

The IAEA reported today in an update of the events at Fukushima Daiichi, that 23 people have been injured at the Fukushima Daiichi plant while two others have gone missing.  At least 20 others have been exposed to radiation, while only one appears serious enough.

The IAEA's update yesterday suggested that the dormant reactors (4, 5, 6) were not critical, but temperatures were continuing to go up.

Unit 4
14 March, 10:08 UTC:	84 ˚C
15 March, 10:00 UTC:	84 ˚C
16 March, 05:00 UTC:	no data
Unit 5
14 March, 10:08 UTC:	59.7 ˚C
15 March, 10:00 UTC:	60.4 ˚C
16 March, 05:00 UTC:	62.7 ˚C
Unit 6
14 March, 10:08 UTC:	58.0 ˚C
15 March, 10:00 UTC:	58.5 ˚C
16 March, 05:00 UTC:	60.0 ˚C

Japanese authorities dispute the severity of the situation, but one gets a feeling that many people are disregarding their comments, now that the US has expanded its evacuation area to 50mi / 80km, and South Korea has followed suit.

NYT has included a time-based map of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization's projections of the spread of radiation from Fukushima, noting that the level of radiation is expected to be extremely low (see below).  (Click the map to get to the time-based animation.)

Is this attempt to restore electrical power to the affected plants, going to work?  If - and this is a big if - the heat did not already melt the relatively thin metal wires and affect switches inside the reactors, they could possibly get the cooling mechanism moving.  Except of course, it appears that at least one and possibly two reactors have had their cores partially breached, so cooling might be moot if they can't get water to fill and circulate, due to it leaking out from the breached sections.

And finally - and you might want to sit down for this - AP does a story on the lax oversight of nuclear power facilities:

"In 1989 [Kei] Sugaoka received an order that horrified him: edit out footage showing cracks in plant steam pipes in video being submitted to regulators. Sugaoka alerted his superiors in the Tokyo Electric Power Co., but nothing happened. He decided to go public in 2000. Three Tepco executives lost their jobs"