Japan’s government and the operator of the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant say the removal of melted reactor fuel planned to start in 2021 will have to be postponed by about one year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Removing the tons of melted fuel is by far the toughest challenge of the decommissioning process that's still expected to take 30 to 40 years.

The 10th anniversary of the disaster will be in March next year.

The pandemic has caused delays with a robotic arm being developed in Britain.

Robots have been used to assess the conditions inside the reactors but have been hampered by the high radiation levels.

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